Top EU court rules gender, nationality enough for Afghan women to be granted asylum

Reuters

04 October, 2024, 08:40 pm

Final modified: 04 October, 2024, 08:42 pm

The European Court docket of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Friday that gender and nationality on my own had been enough for a country to grant asylum to females from Afghanistan, the effect the ruling Taliban enjoy sharply curtailed females’s rights.

Authorities in Austria refused refugee location to 2 Afghan females after they applied for asylum in 2015 and 2020. They challenged the refusal before the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court docket, which in flip requested a ruling from the ECJ, the tip European Union court docket.

“It’s far pointless to construct that there is a probability that the applicant will if truth be told and particularly be arena to acts of persecution if she returns to her country of foundation,” the ECJ mentioned in its ruling.

“It’s far enough to take be conscious of her nationality and gender on my own.” The Austrian Interior Ministry did not at present answer to a Reuters build a question to for comment.

Since Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban returned to energy in 2021 it has clamped down on females’s rights, collectively with limits to education, work and overall independence in each day life.

In August, the Taliban codified a protracted feature of guidelines governing morality fixed with sharia (Islamic regulations). The guidelines are enforced by the morality ministry, which says it has detained hundreds of other folks for violations.

The United Countries human rights chief has called for the Taliban to repeal a feature of “egregious” licensed pointers that he mentioned had been attempting to flip females into shadows.

One girl, called AH in court docket papers, first fled Afghanistan to Iran with her mother and sisters at around 13-14 years of age after her drug addict father tried to sell her to finance his dependancy, in accordance to a court docket doc describing AH’s claims.

The opposite, is known as FN, born in 2007, has never lived in Afghanistan. She and her family had been living in neighbouring Iran without space permits, which scheme they had no comely work and she would possibly well well well moreover no longer fetch an education. She fled Iran before filing an asylum build a question to in Austria.

“She (FN) mentioned that if she returned to Afghanistan, as a girl, she shall be inclined to abduction, shall be unable to abet college and would possibly well well well moreover be unable to spice up herself without her family there,” an ECJ case doc mentioned.