Five Afghan women and three children threatened by the Taliban landed in France on Monday afternoon, in the first such evacuation since the capture of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
Linked to Westerners or highly placed in Afghan society, these five women were, before the change of regime, university director, consultant for NGOs, TV presenter or teacher. Since the return to power of the Taliban, they have seen their rights reduced, and almost disappeared, as the regime reinstated the obligation to wear the full veil, prohibited schooling for girls after 12 years and excluded women from university.
Refugees in Pakistan after leaving their country on their own, they managed to obtain a visa for France thanks to the support of a collective of journalists and France Terre d’Asile. But if their arrival is symbolic, they remain very few to be thus welcomed in France.
The director general of the NGO, Delphine Rouilleault, reviews the contours of this unprecedented operation and calls for the establishment of a broader reception program to help Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Le Point: How did these five women get to France and what will happen to them now?
Delphine Rouilleault: These five women arrived not as part of a reception program organized by France, but following the mobilization of very committed journalists who accompanied them for several months in their administrative procedures in Pakistan. They all arrived on the same flight on Monday, after the French government issued them a visa, which allows them to come to France to seek asylum, and were accommodated in a transit center, run by France Terre d. ‘asylum. They went to the prefecture this morning to apply for asylum, and will then be directed to accommodation centers for asylum seekers. If their arrival followed a particular route, they will then be treated like all asylum seekers.
Their arrival is symbolic, but few Afghan women are welcomed in France. What should be put in place?
With France Terre d’Asile and the collective Accueillir les Afghanes, we promote the idea that there are a few hundred Afghan women in Pakistan whom France could protect and bring here. Because if these five women arrived in France with the agreement of the authorities, there is no formal commitment from France at this stage to organize a real reception program in a structural way.
We would like not to have to fight for months to obtain a visa and accommodation for them, but to be able to rely on France’s commitment to welcome them. Many of these women have well-off and educated profiles and France could allow them to return to university or resume their jobs. These are women who lived the past 20 years in an Afghanistan liberated from the Taliban, and whose entire future was shattered on August 15, 2021, when they regained power. We can help them.
We are not talking about the arrival of thousands of women, but of a few hundred, to whom our universities and our companies can offer a future. To avoid an administrative obstacle course, we would like a formalized reception program, and we would like the President of the Republic, who seems sensitive to their situation, to commit to it.
These five women have a very educated profile. Did that play into the support they received?
We have to take the problem upside down. Afghanistan has completely closed its borders to women. They cannot leave the country without a chaperone, and these five women, like those who are currently refugees in Pakistan, had to flee the country on their own, paying smugglers and putting their lives in danger.
I don’t know why France decided to issue them a visa, but it must be understood that fleeing is such an obstacle course that those who succeed are often more educated and better off, because of the resources necessary to leave, and also because they are more specifically targeted by the Taliban.
What are the obstacles faced by Afghan refugee women in Pakistan?
The obstacles are of several kinds: they must first manage to leave Afghanistan, and this is not the least. They then have to obtain a visa for Pakistan, which is complicated, because if they enter Pakistani territory without a visa, they will not be able to leave it afterwards. When they arrive, they are also particularly vulnerable, cannot work or take an apartment on their own, and therefore need to be protected. There are many stories of Afghan women being exploited in Pakistan…
We believe, however, that France can welcome them, without opening the doors and windows wide… But faster methods of instruction, and relieved of the constraint of the guarantor, could make it possible to think of a reception program which would include the civil society, businesses and universities. France has been able to show great solidarity with Ukrainian women: we believe that it can also show solidarity with Afghan women.
Are other countries also hosting Afghan refugees in Pakistan?
Yes. The Germans and the Italians, for example, have set up more structured humanitarian corridors, which could very well inspire France.