Evacuation form Afghanistan- women?

[Aprilinspringtimeshower]

So saw this article and the accompanying photo www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/afghanistan-striking-image-appears-to-show-640-people-fleeing-kabul-in-packed-us-military-plane?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This is what concerns me- where are the women? The overwhelming majority of people on that plane are men, adult males. There are a few women and some children.
Yet it is the women who are in greatest danger. Young girls, older women. Single women who won’t be able to support themselves once stopped from going outside unaccompanied, professional women who will be banned from working .

Everyone said that the war was about women’s right and way of life. And that what is happening now is a danger to the rights and well-being of women.

Surely it is women who are the ones that need to get out of the country safely and be offered asylum- so where are they? Why wasn’t that plane full of mostly women or even equal amounts of women and the men that accompany them.

I don’t hear the government saying anything to target protection and refuge for women specifically. And to young girls and women who are in real danger

AIBU that it is always the men that get the preference, and that really no one cares enough to actually provide proper protection to the women and girls ..it’s just all sound bites and noble words

Lots of countries, including the UK, punish murder more severely than rape. That implies that death is considered the worst fate.
It’s not that rape is a lesser crime than murder. It’s that anything which happens to women is less important than what happens to men. Personally I think being imprisoned, raped and beaten over and over, made pregnant and having your children raped and killed - for years on end - is much worse than death.

@ByThePool2021

Woman will be raped. Men will be shot. If I was faced between the 2 options - I’d get my sons out first.

Fuck, that's grim as a mother to one of each. I feel sure that dh and I would sacrifice our places for both our son and daughter if we could. What a desperate situation for them, my heart aches.

@Paulinna

Lots of countries, including the UK, punish murder more severely than rape. That implies that death is considered the worst fate. It’s not that rape is a lesser crime than murder. It’s that anything which happens to women is less important than what happens to men. Personally I think being imprisoned, raped and beaten over and over, made pregnant and having your children raped and killed - for years on end - is much worse than death.

Let’s not get into a tasteless competition about what form of barbarism is the worst. Particularly since nobody posting on this thread is facing any of them.

What do you suggest @Paulinna, since you’re so critical?

We asked this of a refugee acquaintance. Not the airport scene, but refugees in general. At 14yo he and his brother fled their home country and made their way on foot to the UK. His parents sent the sons as they were the ones who had the best chance of survival. They were unlikely as males to get abused or picked out by people traffickers, and being male were stronger for the journey and more able to fight their way through if needed. The males once settled could then make arrangements for their families to join them.

The reality is there is no best solution here for all those, women and men, and all the children, who will be left behind. They will all suffer.

@Fandango

Do you think US and British soldiers, diplomats and staff should also be left behind to create space for Afghan women and children?

That sadly needed asking/saying…

When the Taliban decide the evacuation is finished (because I suspect it is now their decision) the last people out will be US, UK and members of other nations armed forces….

People need to brace themselves for the fact that the last handful of flights will not be full of Afghan women, men and children

Yes. The evacuation from the airport will be over as soon as the Taliban likes. They just need to start firing. The airport is now secure, but the airspace isn't. Going to the airport, getting on a plane are high risk choices.

There is presumably a lot of negotiation going on. The UK personnel doing that, and those securing the airport, and the squaddies processing visas (!) should be able to rely on the UK to get them out safe, regardless of their sex. As should the Afghans now endangered by the work they've done with the UK.

If the airport evacuation becomes a free-for-all - i.e. taking any women and children who ask for safe transport there, Taliban will presumably shut things down instantly. They are transporting people who would have qualified for visas. It's not a humanitarian airlift and I doubt it could continue if it was.

The article torquewench put up on a
the previous page is worth a read. Not saying that we shouldn't take refugees but we should keep our eyes open.

@2021Vision

The way of life in these countries is that men are put first, women are second class citizens. The fact is that the majority who would have helped the US/UK would be men, that said I think they should be helped out.

However like many posters I don't like the fact that the majority of asylum seekers/migrants are men. I don't think it is good for our country or for their integration for the number of men from these countries to be coming in. There was a couple of callers to LBC this morning, one was a migrant who came over without his wife and son, they are still in Afghanistan. He said that she couldn't come here because her English wasn't good enough. I assume he was afforded an education so could learn English? What sort of man lives here and leaves his wife and son in another country? Another was an Englishman who said it made sense for the men to come because afterall if the women came they would have to look after their children and wouldn't be able to work and contribute, they would just claim benefits. What a ridiculous thing to say, many of the men aren't qualified and in fact will be less stable than the women.

Another reason I am nervous of this is that in these societies they live by the rule of their religion. A woman caller to LBC this morning talking about how pointing out it was an Islamic regime caused problems for her and muslims in this country. Yet she went on to speak about what the Quran says. It just seems to me that for many of these migrants their religion is what they live by, they want to live in a country that gives them refuge and freedoms but their rules will come first, this isn't good for integration.

Integration is nuanced but as with many things impossible to discuss without people taking extreme positions. Speaking your own language, celebrating festivals , segregating by gender and marrying off women early are all part of a religion.
Some of these are acceptable and some are not. That’s why Inprefer the French stance

We asked this of a refugee acquaintance. Not the airport scene, but refugees in general. At 14yo he and his brother fled their home country and made their way on foot to the UK. His parents sent the sons as they were the ones who had the best chance of survival. They were unlikely as males to get abused or picked out by people traffickers, and being male were stronger for the journey and more able to fight their way through if needed. The males once settled could then make arrangements for their families to join them.

What happened in this case? Did their sisters join them? If so, how old are they now and can the girls speak English well now, are they in education or work here?

Even when the reason why has been explained time and time and time again some people still don't get it. Unbelievable.

I hate the narrative that is building around these pictures. Every time I think of what is happening in Afghanistan, the suffering of the women is what I think about. I'd love to see flight after flight landing at Gatwick or Heathrow, packed full of women, saved from the brutality of the Taliban. But the fact is that not one of us sat safely behind our keyboards - and behind our privilege - knows the situation of any of the men on that plane.

Many countries have a cultural expectation that men go on ahead and try to find a way to bring their families after them. It may even be that staying with your wife and children rather than trying to find a way out would be seen as failing in your duty as a husband/father. And if, as I strongly suspect, those men were translators/local guides etc, they would almost certainly die if they stayed, whereas their families may be desperately hoping to keep their heads down and survive. They may even put their wives and children at greater risk by not getting out. These would have been decisions made in desperate, unimaginable circumstances and the truth is that most of us are very, very lucky to know fuck all about it.

The implication that the men on that plane all abandoned their families without a backward glance to save themselves is part of the same narrative of othering refugees that we've seen with Syria and with the boats crossing the channel. They're lesser. They don't love their children. They don't care about their wives. And it's a narrative that is damaging to all Afghan people - women as well as men. If they don't feel things the same way we do, then why should we care about them?

I've seen lots of comments online today about what people think they would have done in the same situation. None of us have a clue what we'd do. I'd very much like to think I'd be calm and resourceful and that we'd stick together as a family no matter what. But thinking about it, if I had the kids to think about and I knew about the chaos at the airport, I might be inclined to bury my head in the sand, stay quietly at home and hope to be overlooked. And if DP was at high risk of being murdered for his job I'd probably be doing everything in my power to persuade him to take the slim chance of getting on a plane out of there.

Or maybe I'd be curled up in a corner crying hysterically because it turned out that I had absolutely no idea how scared I'd really be in that situation.

@powershowerforanhour

The article torquewench put up on a the previous page is worth a read. Not saying that we shouldn't take refugees but we should keep our eyes open.

We should. Learn from best practice. Education, right to work, settlement patterns. England for example doesn't guarantee English language education. Wales and Scotland do. Right to work (and support a family) depends on speed of processing. Oh and right to (for example) drive a car. It's years not months. Settlement - Syrian refugee scheme in Wales worked to move people in extended family / community groups, without saturating certain areas, for example.

Reunite families asap or get mentors and imams to help support young men. Avoid the obvious risks of isolation, inactivity, incomprehension. Refugees aren't saints and shouldn't be expected to sit around idle and grateful. I don't know what the profile and treatment of Afghan refugees in Austra five years ago would have been. It's not a monoculture, and the circumstances people are fleeing have changed. So yes, assess risks and address them.

@kungfupannda

I hate the narrative that is building around these pictures. Every time I think of what is happening in Afghanistan, the suffering of the women is what I think about. I'd love to see flight after flight landing at Gatwick or Heathrow, packed full of women, saved from the brutality of the Taliban. But the fact is that not one of us sat safely behind our keyboards - and behind our privilege - knows the situation of any of the men on that plane.

Many countries have a cultural expectation that men go on ahead and try to find a way to bring their families after them. It may even be that staying with your wife and children rather than trying to find a way out would be seen as failing in your duty as a husband/father. And if, as I strongly suspect, those men were translators/local guides etc, they would almost certainly die if they stayed, whereas their families may be desperately hoping to keep their heads down and survive. They may even put their wives and children at greater risk by not getting out. These would have been decisions made in desperate, unimaginable circumstances and the truth is that most of us are very, very lucky to know fuck all about it.

The implication that the men on that plane all abandoned their families without a backward glance to save themselves is part of the same narrative of othering refugees that we've seen with Syria and with the boats crossing the channel. They're lesser. They don't love their children. They don't care about their wives. And it's a narrative that is damaging to all Afghan people - women as well as men. If they don't feel things the same way we do, then why should we care about them?

I've seen lots of comments online today about what people think they would have done in the same situation. None of us have a clue what we'd do. I'd very much like to think I'd be calm and resourceful and that we'd stick together as a family no matter what. But thinking about it, if I had the kids to think about and I knew about the chaos at the airport, I might be inclined to bury my head in the sand, stay quietly at home and hope to be overlooked. And if DP was at high risk of being murdered for his job I'd probably be doing everything in my power to persuade him to take the slim chance of getting on a plane out of there.

Or maybe I'd be curled up in a corner crying hysterically because it turned out that I had absolutely no idea how scared I'd really be in that situation.

Hear hear - great post. Thank you.

Nice to see some insight @kungfupannda.

@kungfupannda

I hate the narrative that is building around these pictures. Every time I think of what is happening in Afghanistan, the suffering of the women is what I think about. I'd love to see flight after flight landing at Gatwick or Heathrow, packed full of women, saved from the brutality of the Taliban. But the fact is that not one of us sat safely behind our keyboards - and behind our privilege - knows the situation of any of the men on that plane.

Many countries have a cultural expectation that men go on ahead and try to find a way to bring their families after them. It may even be that staying with your wife and children rather than trying to find a way out would be seen as failing in your duty as a husband/father. And if, as I strongly suspect, those men were translators/local guides etc, they would almost certainly die if they stayed, whereas their families may be desperately hoping to keep their heads down and survive. They may even put their wives and children at greater risk by not getting out. These would have been decisions made in desperate, unimaginable circumstances and the truth is that most of us are very, very lucky to know fuck all about it.

The implication that the men on that plane all abandoned their families without a backward glance to save themselves is part of the same narrative of othering refugees that we've seen with Syria and with the boats crossing the channel. They're lesser. They don't love their children. They don't care about their wives. And it's a narrative that is damaging to all Afghan people - women as well as men. If they don't feel things the same way we do, then why should we care about them?

I've seen lots of comments online today about what people think they would have done in the same situation. None of us have a clue what we'd do. I'd very much like to think I'd be calm and resourceful and that we'd stick together as a family no matter what. But thinking about it, if I had the kids to think about and I knew about the chaos at the airport, I might be inclined to bury my head in the sand, stay quietly at home and hope to be overlooked. And if DP was at high risk of being murdered for his job I'd probably be doing everything in my power to persuade him to take the slim chance of getting on a plane out of there.

Or maybe I'd be curled up in a corner crying hysterically because it turned out that I had absolutely no idea how scared I'd really be in that situation.

Hear hear! And strangely none of the ‘women and children’ posters have responded to the inevitable question of what theyre going to do about all 19 million of them

What happened in this case? Did their sisters join them? If so, how old are they now and can the girls speak English well now, are they in education or work here?
@powershowerforanhour
I don't know him well and it was a few years ago, but yes, they are very "western" and very well educated, quite sucessful I believe. I did omit an important fact in trying to be evasive, so as not to be recognised, but his brother actually died during the journey. The then boy and his travelling companions buried him at the roadside.

@kungfupannda

I hate the narrative that is building around these pictures. Every time I think of what is happening in Afghanistan, the suffering of the women is what I think about. I'd love to see flight after flight landing at Gatwick or Heathrow, packed full of women, saved from the brutality of the Taliban. But the fact is that not one of us sat safely behind our keyboards - and behind our privilege - knows the situation of any of the men on that plane.

Many countries have a cultural expectation that men go on ahead and try to find a way to bring their families after them. It may even be that staying with your wife and children rather than trying to find a way out would be seen as failing in your duty as a husband/father. And if, as I strongly suspect, those men were translators/local guides etc, they would almost certainly die if they stayed, whereas their families may be desperately hoping to keep their heads down and survive. They may even put their wives and children at greater risk by not getting out. These would have been decisions made in desperate, unimaginable circumstances and the truth is that most of us are very, very lucky to know fuck all about it.

The implication that the men on that plane all abandoned their families without a backward glance to save themselves is part of the same narrative of othering refugees that we've seen with Syria and with the boats crossing the channel. They're lesser. They don't love their children. They don't care about their wives. And it's a narrative that is damaging to all Afghan people - women as well as men. If they don't feel things the same way we do, then why should we care about them?

I've seen lots of comments online today about what people think they would have done in the same situation. None of us have a clue what we'd do. I'd very much like to think I'd be calm and resourceful and that we'd stick together as a family no matter what. But thinking about it, if I had the kids to think about and I knew about the chaos at the airport, I might be inclined to bury my head in the sand, stay quietly at home and hope to be overlooked. And if DP was at high risk of being murdered for his job I'd probably be doing everything in my power to persuade him to take the slim chance of getting on a plane out of there.

Or maybe I'd be curled up in a corner crying hysterically because it turned out that I had absolutely no idea how scared I'd really be in that situation.

Great post! Here here!

From BBC:

"Vice Adm Sir Ben Key, who is running the UK's evacuation programme in Afghanistan, said the UK hoped to help 6,000 to 7,000 British nationals and eligible Afghan staff to leave - but that figure was dependant on the security situation.

"Afghans considered eligible to resettle in the UK include workers for the British government, interpreters, cultural advisers and embassy staff. Others eligible are those deemed to be at high and imminent risk.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab earlier said the UK was looking at a "bespoke arrangement" for Afghan refugees, with full details to be set out in due course.

"A new resettlement scheme will be aimed at helping those most in need - including women and girls - to come to the UK, No 10 has said"

Now, it might be different priorities on a US flight, but it looks as ifbUK is first looking after thise who have been put at imminent risk of death from their association with us. I think it would be wrong to do otherwise

DH was a refugee when I met him (20+ years ago) i.e. had been granted asylum and was a stateless person. He was the only member of his family who got out when there was a civil war in his country. Did any of his family resent it - no. He was the one at highest risk because of his political involvement and profession at the time. That didn't mean the rest of his family weren't at risk but simply that they weren't at heightened risk. He may have put the family at risk if he had stayed with them because he would have drawn the attention the military who were trying to supress dissent.
Fortunately, his country has moved on and is less dangerous now so he has been able to visit his family - nobody has ever questioned the fact he left - the people living in the situation understood why.

I really don't think we can judge from the outside.

p.s. DH is Muslim from a majority Muslim country and his values and attitudes aren't materially different from mine so I think we can avoid the generalisations about certain types of refugees.

@kungfupannda Excellent post!

@kungfupannda good post. Wont cut any ice with the racists upthread though.

If it was mainly the translators, etc who were prioritised initially then maybe they felt they had no choice to leave their wives and kids? And of course some may be single. If they stay they will be killed and of no use to their wives or kids. If they are alive even in a different country then if they get work they can send money and also will have a chance to petition for their family to be allowed over to whichever country they’re in?

Hopefully if anyone has had to leave wives and kids they will have left them with extended family so as safe as possible….and potentially safer than if such a man on a taliban hit list had stayed!

What an awful situation they find themselves in….having to make dreadful choices with no real time to consider. Through no fault of their own.

I think we should just be glad that the people on that plane are at least getting out. It can't have been easy for any of them especially for those who have had to leave family behind and I don't think there's anything to be gained from passing judgment. It's impossible to get all women and children to safety so I agree that those people who are most at risk of immediate execution should be prioritised right now.

Someone very close to me is an Afghan immigrant. People travelling with him died along the way due to the hostile conditions and gruelling walking. They were left behind to die. He nearly drowned crossing from Turkey to Greece and was beaten and had all his belonging taken by border controls. He was a young, fit man and really struggled so I really do understand why not as many women and children make the journey. I don't think it's right to judge anyone who is in a position of even having to contemplate fleeing in such circumstances. Men and women will just be doing the best they can and trying to make the right decision for themselves and their families in unimaginable conditions.

@LooksGood

If they were evacuating women and girls because of the Taliban's attitude to them, that would be 19 million people.

The flights are for people who have worked with the US. Presumably, their dependents too if they are on the spot. Many of these men will already have been in hiding or based away from families for work. They should get out asap. I hope the US and UK and other states involved will do everything they can to get women at risk out too, but that's likely to be from border crossings and perhaps sponsored and negotiated visas. UK has already given up on getting everyone who worked for them out.

If all women and children were evacuated, the Taliban would eventually come to a halt with no one to have the next generation with.