UK government urged to help female Afghan judges at risk of Taliban persecution

A female Afghan judge has called on the UK government "to do everything within its power to immediately" help women judges and their families left in Afghanistan, launching a petition which has received over 55,000 signatures. 

Qazi Marzia Babakarkhail was forced to flee her home country after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. They had previously plotted two assassination attempts against her.

She now lives in the UK where she works as a Constituency Caseworker for a Member of Parliament and has created a petition demanding the British government do more for those who dedicated their lives to upholding the values of justice and fairness in Afghanistan. 

Her petition has 55,900 signatures as of April 10, with the aim of reaching 75,000. 

"They and their children…are at imminent risk of violent attacks," she wrote on the Change.org page. 

"They have nothing left, they have no income, they have no safety, no security, no support - they only have fear, waiting for that inevitable dangerous knock on the door," she added. 

Female Afghan judges have been systemically targeted by the Taliban, with some reports estimating that more than 200 women are now in hiding for fear they will be killed because of their work, according to The Independent. 

Their eligibility for relocation to the UK is highly controversial given that a number of judges were rejected for resettlement despite meeting the criteria laid out in the British government’s two Afghan resettlement schemes. 

Several Afghan judges are now appealing verdicts which barred them from UK resettlement on the grounds that their lives and those of their families were in imminent danger. This has created a backlog of cases where individuals remain in Afghanistan for months while their verdicts are reviewed. 

"I call upon the UK government and the international community to do everything within its power to immediately help evacuate and resettle female judges and their families from Afghanistan by providing emergency visas urgently," wrote Babakarkhail. 

The UK government claims to have granted "indefinite leave to remain" to 12,527 Afghans across two schemes: the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), specifically for those who worked for British forces formerly present in the country, and the Afghan Citizens Relocation Scheme (ACRS), for those deemed especially at risk. 

Despite promising to resettle 20,000 people under ACRS, only 22 people including eight children have been resettled under pathway two of the scheme, reported the Guardian. 

Pathway one is for those already in the UK, the majority of whom were relocated in the first few critical weeks after the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of Afghans taking the dangerous crossing in small boats across the English Channel skyrocketed to over 8,000 in 2022, compared to just 1,437 the previous year.