Afghanistan

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my experience over many years has been in dealing with the human cost of wars: in supporting and helping refugees, those who have fled conflict and oppression, particularly girls and women. Refugees are not migrants; they are not illegal people, and it is time that we stopped seeing the demonisation of these human beings. Three million Afghan people who have already paid such a high price for many decades have now been displaced. It is reported that 80% are women. These past few weeks I have been desperately trying to help to get Afghan individuals whom I know very well out of Afghanistan. These are people who, for many years, worked with the British and our allies, believed in us and our values and trusted us, and are now targeted. They applied and were quickly, and in my view callously, rejected for the existing resettlement scheme. They are now in danger and in hiding, and I feel ashamed.

I want to raise a few practical points. The chaos we are seeing at Kabul airport continues, along with the suspension of commercial flights. For those like my friends who have passports and those with documentation, there is no point if Kabul airport remains inaccessible to them. Just today, there have been reports of shooting just outside and people injured. There is no coherent system for processing people and thousands cannot leave. Can the Minister assure us that more will be done in the coming days to increase the issue of visas and that charter flights will be used to airlift vulnerable Afghans? There are Taliban checkpoints surrounding the airport, and I received a message earlier that the Taliban now has a checkpoint at the entrance, physically preventing people from leaving. Will the Minister tell us who will take charge of airport security if the Americans conclude their evacuation mission on 31 August? What, if any, discussions are taking place? Will the Taliban take over control there?

Turning to the new, bespoke scheme, how can Afghans such as my friends apply for that scheme if we do not have an embassy in the country? If they are expected to make their way to the UK, that would surely exclude those without financial means and would almost certainly exclude women and children and vulnerable people from leaving. More than 7,000 Afghans alone work for the British, and if we include their families, that would be more than 20,000, so 5,000—the reported figure that we have heard—is completely inadequate. It is a failure of moral responsibility before we even start.

Finally, the Taliban leadership said that they would honour women’s rights within the limits of Islamic law. Nowhere in Islam and our cultural practices is there the promotion of the violation and oppression of women and girls that we have been seeing. There is no such thing as limitations: we read that as their own version of Islamic laws. I am therefore extremely sceptical that they will respect women’s rights, and we have already seen evidence of brutal treatment. To the Government I say this: cutting international aid just weeks ago for projects that educated 6,000 Afghan girls does not send a signal that we actually care. We must now step up, show leadership and support the Afghan people.