2024-10-07 07:31:18
Like Ukrainian refugees who were automatically granted asylum in Norway until the end of September due to the war in Ukraine, Afghan women are now eligible for asylum in Europe “solely” on the basis of their gender and nationality. A ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) states that member states “may consider that it is not necessary to demonstrate that the applicant is actually and specifically at risk of being subjected to acts of persecution” in Afghanistan to grant her refugee status.
Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the situation for women has worsened significantly, creating what Human Rights Watch calls “the world’s worst women’s rights crisis.” The Taliban has systematically suppressed the fundamental rights of Afghan women through a series of decrees and restrictions based on an extremely strict approach to the Islamic religion, depriving them of secondary and university education, excluding them from the labor market and placing severe restrictions on them in public spaces.
Afghan women, victims of “gender apartheid” according to the UN, are even banned from accessing parks, sports arenas, beauty salons and even from making their voices heard in public.
Being Afghan is enough for the CJEU
Seized by the Austrian Administrative Court following the refusal of the Vienna authorities to recognize the refugee status of two Afghan women, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on the issue on Friday 4 October 2024. For the CJEU, “ the competent authorities of the Member States may consider that it is not necessary to demonstrate that the applicant actually and concretely risks being subject to acts of persecution if she returns to her country of origin. Simply considering one’s nationality and gender is sufficient,” it reads.
In the eyes of this jurisdiction, acts of persecution can be forced marriage or any “lack of protection against gender violence and domestic violence”. For the Court, “the cumulative effect and the deliberate and systematic application” of discriminatory measures by the Taliban amount to “blatantly denying fundamental rights linked to human dignity”.
This ruling constitutes a precedent without, however, being able to oblige Member States to apply it. Although Sweden, Finland, Austria, Germany and Denmark already grant refugee status to Afghan women, expulsions to Afghanistan have nevertheless increased in recent years. In France, the National Asylum Court (CNDA) had already estimated in July that “all Afghan women” as a “social group” would now be more likely to be granted asylum.
For an activist and president of an association supporting Afghan women, “it is a human decision to finally recognize the miseries of these women and all the difficulties they experience. At least for those who are on European territory, who managed to escape and get here.”
Immigration is very often male
Afghanistan is already the main country of origin of asylum seekers in several European countries, including France for six years. The CJEU ruling, if applied by EU member states, can above all reverse the gender distribution of asylum seekers. According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 69% of migrants who crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe in 2015 were men. In other words, out of 100 people, only 13 were women and 18 were children.
This trend hasn’t stopped. For example, the composition of flows began in the first quarter of 2016 changewith 47% men, 20% women and 34% children among arrivals by sea. In 2022, the proportion of men and women immigrants in the EU was almost equal, with 50.4% men compared to 49.6% women. But the procedures for granting asylum have benefited, in some countries, more men, as in the case of the Ukrainians in Norway, who until then automatically benefited from refugee status before Oslo announced the end of the process, citing as one of the reasons for the fact that most of the asylum seekers were men capable of fighting for Kiev.
For many opponents of European immigration policies, it mostly benefits men, who flee poverty rather than threaten security situations. The policies, as the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has often denounced, supported by the billionaire George Soros and his “empire”, through a panoply of NGOs mobilized and financed to guide EU decisions.
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