Afghan women may be offered "safe route" to resettle in the UK as refugees

[IwantToRetire]

Shabana Mahmood has announced the reopening of a scheme to resettle refugees in the UK, as she hopes that offering "safe and legal" routes will deter small boat crossings.

The home secretary said the UK wants to "live up to our international obligations" by helping those who are fleeing war and persecution, but the process must be "capped and controlled".

The Home Office said the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS) will reopen immediately and expects that around 25% of arrivals will be Afghan women and girls and Palestinians.

The Home Office expects arrivals to increase to the "low thousands" as levels of illegal migration fall.

A cap will be set for each year although details of the number have yet to be provided.

People arriving in Britain under the safe and legal routes will be be put on a five-year path to permanent settlement.

Full article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5vgyj8k3dzgo

Afghani women are not 'submissive' by virtue of wearing dress that's been mandated by the Taliban. Many of them are incredibly brave.

Yes, I imagine most of them have been brutally forced into submission.

Then we don’t want them here because they will be ‘brutally forced’ into bringing their men here.
And we do NOT want women who can’t speak English or who have several dependent children.
Please instead let’s bring in the brave ones from Iran who are at risk for protesting and who are likely to be contributors and role models.

Tbh, I was wondering about the men who would be allowed to come along with the Afghani women, primarily their husbands, but also older teenage sons - how easy would it be to check who these men really are?
I totally share your sentiment regarding brave Iranian women.

Iranian women and Afghani women are oppressed by their respective states. Many of them from both countries are incredibly brave. Many risk death in defying the Iranian regime, or the Taliban. The Afghani women who were brought here by the Linda Norgrove foundation are studying to become doctors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20lrzpxklro

If she has her head covered then she is pandering to the misogyny.
We need only take those who are resisting it.

Head covering doesn't bother me, face covering does.

Head coverings not allowed? What about for locals?

I have genuine sympathy for Afghan women but I'm also conflicted that we have so many UK residents living in tents due to inadequate housing provision. Not just people with drug issues etc. Sometimes former professionals who the council deemed weren't priority for housing.

I thought asylum approvals for Afghan women had hugely dropped under the current Labour gov? I'm sure it was 96% down to 34%, with the approval rate being lower than before the Taliban took over.

This is true: many places have imported 5G mobile masts and fibre optic internet secretly buried under the streets.

Good to see this thread provides no ammunition at all to those who claim GC is a gateway drug to the far right...

GC? Group Chat? Garden Centre? Perhaps wrong topic? Anyone?

Are you okay, or do you want to tell us something about lizard people?

Quite.

This is brilliant news but the government needs to recognise that ALL women who've recently lived in Afghanistan have been victims of domestic abuse by their male relatives. Shutting women away, forcing them not to speak, denying education, medical care, the right to work etc. That's abuse.

The bar for proving that the men were doing this under duress and also need asylum, and that any assertion the woman wants her male relative here is freely given not out of fear, needs to be very high, otherwise the men will come here and create similar rules in their own home, being physically stronger, and the women could end up being prisoners here too. It'll still be better I'm sure, but we don't want the abusive men, the enablers, those who think women aren't fully human, here.

'Honour based' abuse already occurs to the tune of at least several thousand offences a year in the UK, and remember (as this report does) that most will NOT be reported to police so these figures WILL be underestimates. www.gov.uk/government/statistics/so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-year-ending-march-2025/statistics-on-so-called-honour-based-abuse-offences-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2025

What would concern me about the afghanis is you would need Afghanistan's permission for them to travel, I imagine we’d just get a bunch of afghani women who’s husbands are important in the Taliban. Not sure thats a good thing. Could take them if they are stranded in Iran or Pakistan but I’m not sure how many are left because Pakistan deported something like 2 million afghans.

I don't understand why it's a given the men come too. These men have gone along with a regime that commits extreme human rights abuses against women and girls. They're not at risk in Afghanistan. Why should there be an assumption they come too? The assumption should be they DON'T come too. If they come too the woman may not really get asylum if the man continues to abuse.

The state needs to recognise this.

Because the courts have determined that’s what a right to family life means under the ECHR

The scheme is open to people who have already fled Afghanistan and are refugees in neighbouring countries.

There are women who manage to cross the border from Afghanistan into neighbouring states like Pakistan but Pakistan are sending them back. What needs to happen is the UK to give Pakistan another option for where to send these women and bring the women here from there

So 'right to a family life' means women can never escape their abusers if married to them? How progressive (sarcasm).

It’s not a given. Family reunification has already been suspended. There is access through family visas, but these are harder to acquire. There’s also no reason to believe that female refugees from Afghanistan (those women who have already escaped the regime) would want to bring ‘their menfolk’ with them.

Same when abusers are here and the government wants to deport them. The courts stop that too under right to family life under EHRC

They don’t need to be married either. Partners and their families are counted too. Plus brothers, fathers etc. And once here they get the vote and right to stand for public office. Importing thousands of women is importing thousands of Taliban men.

So the EHRC panders to male abusers. Lovely. Makes more and more sense to me why Kemi's talking about taking the UK out of some of these agreements.

Of course alongside welcoming women refugees from Afghanistan and Iran (and elsewhere, but I'd start with these countries), we need to prevent illegal immigration of economic young, fit, single male migrants from these anti-women countries. Firstly, our capacity as a country is not unlimited and secondly, these genuine women asylum seekers will be at increased risk from any men who come here illegally who believe the Taliban are right and no doubt therefore believe women coming from Afghanistan wanting a life with human rights here are heretics.

This is definitely a concern that needs to be dealt with properly.