Afghan female judiciary officers find asylum in Spain
Women once seen as symbols of democracy
Madrid – Pushing her son on a swing at a playground on a sunny winter’s day in Madrid, former prosecutor Obaida Sharar expresses relief that she found asylum in Spain after fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban took over.
Sharar, who arrived in Madrid with her family, is one of 19 female prosecutors to have found asylum here after being left in limbo in Pakistan without official refugee status for up to a year.
She feels selfish being happy while her fellow women suffer, she said.
“Most Afghan women and girls that remain in Afghanistan don’t have the right to study, to have a social life or even go to a beauty salon,” Sharar said.
Women’s freedoms in her home country were abruptly curtailed in 2021 with the arrival of a government that enforces a strict interpretation of
Islam.
The Taliban administration has banned most female aid workers and last year stopped women and girls from attending high school and university.
Female judges and prosecutors were threatened and became the target of revenge attacks as they undertook work overseeing the trial and conviction of men accused of gender crimes, including rape and murder.
Sharar was part of a group of 32 women judges and prosecutors that left only to be stuck in Pakistan for up to a year trying to find asylum.
The UN High Commission for Refugees said that it has since 2021 “been in discussions with the government on measures and mechanisms to support vulnerable Afghans. Regrettably, no progress has been made.”
Pakistan did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Pakistan is home to millions of refugees from Afghanistan who fled after the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979 and during the subsequent civil war. Most of them are yet to return despite Pakistan’s push to repatriate them.
The Taliban has said any Afghan who fled the country since it took power in 2021 can return safely.