A YEAR on from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, rights campaigners have urged the government to rapidly increase the scale and pace of its stalled Afghan resettlement programme.

Women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan have been decimated in the past year, says to Amnesty International, with a surge in child marriages, denial of education after the age of 10, the introduction of a male guardian system, the strict policing of “moral crimes” and widespread reports of torture and arrests of protesters.

In its new report, Amnesty called for a reset of the resettlement programme promised by the Tory government, criticising the treatment of thousands of families brought to Britain since Western troops left Afghanistan, many of whom are still languishing in overcrowded and unsuitable hotel accommodation.

According to the Ministry of Defence, 9,000 Afghans were resettled under the Afghan relocation and assistance policy.

In January, the Afghan citizen resettlement scheme was opened to allow up to 20,000 refugees to come to Britain, 5,000 of whom are meant to be brought in this year. But the Amnesty report said the pace needs to radically be increased as the scheme is now “essentially stalled.”

Amnesty’s Lydia Parker said: “In the last year, women’s rights in Afghanistan have wound back 20 years.

“It’s heartbreaking to watch the extreme pace of the reversal of rights, protections and access which were so carefully put in place by brave women and girls who thought they were forging a new future.

“This is the same old Taliban, with the same old views and methods.

“We need to enforce a different path if there is any chance of preventing the total backslide of rights.”

Ms Parker said women’s and girls’ rights should be at the forefront of any negotiations and that Britain must insist that women be at the discussion tables.

“The UK also needs to rapidly increase the pace and scale of its evacuation of survivors of gender-based violence and women’s rights defenders who need to flee to safety,” she said.

“We also need to see a huge improvement in the way Afghans who are brought here are treated with proper resourcing for housing.

“It’s not acceptable to simply fly people here and dump them in overcrowded hotels indefinitely.”