Before becoming an MP, in what feels a lifetime ago, I was working for the BBC World Service just after 9/11. I was fortunate to experience Afghanistan first-hand. I worked with Afghan men, women, and children, heard about their hopes and challenges and saw the reality of the political and security landscape.
I have followed the fallout from Western intervention ever since and have been concerned with the re-emergence of the Taliban, especially when our attention was diverted with the rise of Daesh. Now I hear from the women and girls I met that under the Taliban, regardless of any peace settlement, they are living in fear. Every intervention has been short sighted and underestimated the progress of the Taliban.
I have been raising the issue of Afghanistan and the impact on women and girls for years, and particularly since April this year. I probed the Minister on the impact of our withdrawal on Afghan women and girls who rely on us for education and basic healthcare (watch here) and urged the Prime Minister to provide safe passage and put strategies are in place to protect our youth from being brainwashed by violent extremism (watch here). I have also added my voice to my female Westminster colleagues and pledged support for the 69 Afghan women MPs who are standing their ground and fighting for women and girls and democracy.
My statement on welcoming Afghan refugees, August 2021:
"I welcome the Government’s commitment to resettling 20,000 Afghan refugees in the UK. It is vital that our international allies take a unified approach on Afghanistan, and I will continue to urge the Government to work with our international partners and set up a coalition to ensure that we live up to our responsibilities and everyone does their fair share in supporting Afghan refugees in their hour of need."
Please click on the following publications to read the media coverage:
Support for Afghan refugees pledged by Wealden District Council
Afghan refugees arriving in the area will be provided sanctuary as Wealden District Council has pledged support to help those fleeing the tragic war zone.
‘Operation Warm Welcome’ was launched to ensure that Afghans arriving in the UK receive the vital support they need to rebuild their lives, find work, pursue education, and integrate into their local communities.
This includes making at least £12 million available to provide additional school places so children can be enrolled as soon as possible, £3 million of additional NHS funding so that Afghan arrivals can access healthcare and register with a GP once they leave quarantine, as well as funding for undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships at UK universities, providing free of charge English language courses, working with councils and providing them with £5 million funding for support with housing, and appointing a specific Minister for Afghan Resettlement.
Those Afghans coming to the UK who worked closely with the British military and UK Government in Afghanistan, and risked their lives in doing so, will now receive indefinite leave to remain.
We must continue to work to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan, especially for women and girls who are facing brutalisation under the Taliban.
Meetings with Ministers to speed up visa applications
I have been meeting the relevant ministers in the Ministry of Defence and Home Office and their teams to push for regular updates on individual cases of Afghans still awaiting a decision. Read my Written Ministerial Questions on the number of staff appointed to deal with ARAP applications here and here, and the question on the number of open applications here.
"Many Afghans have made sacrifices to help protect the UK. Many of them are judges, teachers or translators and they are now on the Taliban hit list for working with British institutions and representatives. I am incredibly grateful to all Wealden residents who are currently supporting Ukrainian families arriving to the country. I am sure their generosity would extend to Afghan arrivals, had they been given the opportunity to help them also. I am pleased to have secured further meetings with the Minister’s team to follow up on the points and individual cases I raised with the Minister directly, and I am doing what I can to help women and girls especially to leave the country. Given the fast administration of the Ukrainian visas, it is astonishing that there are still over 15,000 applications under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) awaiting an initial decision. I will continue to press the Ministers for faster administration of these cases.”
My articles and interviews
I have written an article on the impact of our withdrawal from Afghanistan on women and girls. Women and girls will suffer brutalisation under Taliban rule which will set the ideal conditions to promote violent extremism and terrorism on an international scale. We must be providing support for women and girls.
Read my article Withdrawal from Afghanistan has placed women and girls in mortal danger for The House Magazine here.
Read my article Afghanistan: The risks of a lose-lose situation for Policy Exchange here.
Listen to my interview with Times Radio here.
Listen to my interview with BBC Radio 4 Breakfast here.
My speech in the House of Commons 18/8/2021
On Wednesday 18 August 2021, Parliament was recalled for an emergency sitting to debate the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan.
Watch my full speech here.
Media Coverage:
BBC News, 18 August 2021 (here)
Tory MP Nusrat Ghani says when she worked for BBC World Service she had gathered some women to speak in the Afghan parliament for the first time.
"We did that under the threat of the Taliban. But I had a British passport, I knew I could come home and be safe. And I was naively optimistic and thought that these women's lives would be improved for the better. And now I am receiving phone calls and they are telling me it is game over." She says it took 20 years to get 69 women MPs in Afghanistan but now they know they need to get out "and get out soon", along with their families and people who have worked with them. "It means that 20 years from now we will have to start all over again," she says describing it as a "watershed of a failure by the West".
The Guardian, 18 August 2021 (here)
Nusrat Ghani, Tory MP: “This has been catastrophic, cack-handed, cruel and humiliating. It is a watershed in the failure of the west … I need to understand how our intelligence has failed, how the imagination of those providing the intelligence has failed, and if we’re relying on this intelligence going forward, how can we be sure that they know to do the right thing?”
The Guardian, 23 August 2021 (here)
The Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani told the Guardian: “Not a single Afghan woman has stated this naive optimism about the Taliban. They have not changed, women are hiding at home in fear of having been teachers and lawyers and just yesterday a women was killed in Afghanistan for not covering her hair.”
