IT’S been another week of ignominy for the UK Government’s efforts to assist those left behind after the evacuation of Kabul.

The revelation of yet more serious data breaches in relation to sensitive information about Afghans who worked for the British Government was particularly shocking because it meant lives have been put at risk. The Defence Minister, Ben Wallace, was quite right when he said that it should not just be the person who sent the email who was held to account but the chain upwards to make sure this does not happen again. The problem for Mr Wallace is that the chain upwards leads to him and his other Cabinet colleagues.

Multiple and critical failings in relation to highly vulnerable people who are at immediate risk of death are clear evidence that the systems the Government have in place are inadequate, and I have written to the Information Commissioner in this regard asking her to launch an investigation.

Whilst it is only right to praise the efforts of those British forces, civil servants and NGOs on the ground who worked hard to get as many people out as possible, their efforts should not be a shield for their political masters to hide behind. MPs continue to receive desperate pleas on behalf of the left-behind, but the UK Government machine cannot even get its act together to answer MPs’ inquires individually, and the PM is quite happy to mislead the House of Commons by suggesting that this has been done.

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As well as helping constituents with inquiries about friends and family in Afghanistan, I have also been approached to speak up for the plight of LGBT+ people under the Taliban and the plight of female judges. A debate about the former was held at Westminster this week and I summed up for the SNP. Many of the important questions I and other MPs raised with the Minister are of relevance to all Afghans seeking sanctuary, not just LGBT+ people. How do we support vulnerable Afghans who manage to make their way to neighbouring third countries who are not sympathetic to the rights of women or minorities? How do we co-ordinate the international response? How do we provide safe legal routes to the UK for those who strive to come on their own steam to seek asylum, and how do we ensure they are treated humanely once they get here and not criminalised for coming by irregular routes?

Sadly no proper answers were forthcoming from the Minister. Just fine words, flannel, banal generalities and a total failure to address the adverse impact the Nationality Bill will have on asylum seekers.

The UK Government pursued a foreign and defence policy which encouraged people in Afghanistan to participate in creating a democratic state where human rights were protected. Due to the failure of that policy, many of these people are now at risk. There is a moral responsibility to take proper steps to help them. What is needed is less hand ringing and more action.

We all know that women face particular oppression under the Taliban. The briefings which Stonewall and the Rainbow Migration project prepared for MPs emphasised that being a woman considerably decreases someone’s ability to move or to act to protect themselves in Afghanistan. Even if they make it to a third country, lesbians and bisexual women are even less likely to come forward to UNHCR or other humanitarian agencies than gay or bisexual men, because as women they are even more likely to experience persecution within their homes and from family members and to have less mobility and fewer resources open to them. If they make it to the United Kingdom, it is often hard for them to prove their sexuality, because they have led such hidden lives and have often been in forced marriages. The reality is that in their own country and in the UK, these women are discriminated against twice over, for their sex as well as their sexuality.

IT’S the same for the brave women who became judges, prosecutors, policewomen, human rights defenders and women’s rights activists. Now their lives are in mortal danger. So are those of many of the men they worked alongside, but the women’s lack of freedom to move and to take the means to leave the country themselves is restricted by the severe discrimination women face under the Taliban.

I am working with a former Afghan judge and feminist activist to try and highlight the plight of lower-level female judges in provincial villages whose lives are particularly at risk because they live in small communities and are therefore more readily identifiable.

Marzia Babakarkhail came to the UK in 2008 after two attempts on her life by the Taliban. She is now a British citizen and lives in Oldham. Her story is featured in the People’s Museum in Manchester, which houses the black Samsonite bag given to Marzia by her mother as a present to congratulate her on her success as a lawyer. One of the few possessions she was able to bring with her to her new life.

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Marzia is in contact with more than 200 female judges trapped in Afghanistan. They are in imminent danger of persecution from the Taliban and the dangerous criminals and other terrorist groups the Taliban have released from prison. The Taliban’s opposition to the formal justice system of Afghanistan is well known. They are strongly against state-building and justice reconstruction efforts by “Westernising” forces, favouring Sharia as the source of justice, which is underpinned by a strict interpretation of Islam. In the past, they have targeted and brutally killed many judges. The men they have released from prison are now heavily armed and free to trace and target their enemies without fear. Many female judges were involved in the indictment and punishment process of these criminals and terrorists and are prime targets for revenge attacks.

The Taliban are conducting house-to-house searches. Many of the judges are now in hiding where they receive threatening phone calls asking them about their whereabouts. They are contacting Marzia in fear and desperation.

In 2003, the CEDAW (the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) was ratified by Afghanistan under Western influence. Based upon this law, specialist courts were established in 34 provinces under the control of female judges. The Taliban and other conservative groups in Afghanistan consider this law to be un-Islamic and its judges infidels and foreign collaborators. Any of the female judges who sat in those courts are at risk.

Helena Kennedy QC, the head of the International Bar Association’s (IBA) Human Rights Institute, is working with a large team of pro-bono lawyers in the UK and across the world to try to save some of these women. She has launched a fundraiser LINK and a petition to parliament LINK. But Marzia is worried that junior female judges in the provinces will be overlooked, and so I am working to raise their profile with both the IBA and the British Government. Earlier this month I brought Marzia into Parliament to meet with Helena, the Justice Committee and Robert Buckland, who impressed her with his obvious concern. Unfortunately, he lost his position in the Cabinet reshuffle. His replacement is Dominic Raab who, so far, has not covered himself in glory over Afghanistan. Doing something to help these women would be a way for him to make amends and I will press him to do it.