Thank you for the question.
I want to begin by stating what I think we all feel, which is that all Canadians strongly condemn the actions of the Taliban regime, most recently in December, to drastically restrict the rights of women and girls to participate and work. As the minister stated earlier, this has also dramatically impacted the way in which we work with such channels and partners, as we do already have, that we can work with under the circumstances.
To answer the question, we have done a number of things. Number one, the minister has led for Canada, joining with other governments and other ministers, in condemning these new lows, if you like, in terms of human rights abuses by the Taliban regime at every occasion. I think she spoke to that earlier.
As well, to complement what she said, we do have a special representative for Afghanistan, former ambassador Sproule. He is based in Doha and works tirelessly with other special representatives in coordinating with the UN agencies in communicating, as appropriate, with representatives of the Taliban under very difficult circumstances in order to understand, and to make sure they understand, the implications of these actions.
Finally, we've been in close contact with a range of non-governmental organizations that still have activity on the ground—for example, the Aga Khan Foundation.
What I would say is this: It's a terrible situation and it has gotten worse and more difficult, but at the same time, Afghanistan is not a unitary operating zone. There is some differentiation between how these new edicts are being implemented within Kabul and certain metropolitan centres, if you will, and in other parts of the country. We're tracking closely with our partners to see the extent to which humanitarian assistance, health assistance and education assistance can continue to be delivered to and through women even while the Taliban's official position has changed.
We continue to monitor it closely and we look to work as we can with those partners.