The female judges of Afghanistan

 Jack Dromey's final speech, on the eve of his untimely death last week, was in a Westminster Hall debate on the resettlement of Afghan citizens. Before his speech, there was a contribution from the SNP's Joanna Cherry about a most endangered and sadly overlooked group, the women judges of the former regime. They came into mortal danger virtually overnight when the Taliban released all prisoners regardless as they took over each province. Many Taliban fighters had been jailed because they had beaten or killed their wives. Now free, those fighters sought revenge on the whole class of female lawyers. Ms Cherry expanded:

As the Minister knows, I have been working with a former Afghan judge and feminist activist to try to highlight the plight of lower-level female judges and prosecutors 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, having served as a judge in Afghanistan. She is now a British citizen who lives in Oldham, and her story is featured in the People’s History Museum in Manchester, which is very worth a visit for anyone who has not been there. It houses the black Samsonite bag that Marzia was given by her mother as a gift to congratulate her on her success as a lawyer, which is one of the few possessions she was able to bring with her to her new life in the United Kingdom. Marzia is anxious that the UK Government should provide a new life in the United Kingdom for other female judges and prosecutors, and she is in touch with many of those who are trapped and left behind. They are in imminent danger of persecution from the Taliban, and from other dangerous criminals and members of terrorist groups who 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 against the justice reconstruction efforts by what they call westernising forces, and favour sharia law as the source of justice, underpinned by a strict interpretation of Islam. In the past, they have targeted and brutally killed many judges, and since last Toggle showing location ofColumn 119WHAugust, there have been other, similar targetings. Many of the men who the Taliban have released from prison are heavily armed and are now free to trace and target their enemies without fear, and many of those female judges and prosecutors were involved in the indictment and punishment of those criminals and terrorists, so they are prime targets for revenge attacks.

As we speak and over the past few months, the Taliban have been conducting house-to-house searches, and many of these women are now in hiding, where they receive threatening phone calls asking them about their whereabouts. These women are contacting Marzia in fear and desperation, and she in turn is contacting me and other Members of Parliament.

As the Minister knows, in 2003 the convention on the elimination of violence against women was ratified by Afghanistan under western influence; based on that law, specialist courts were established in 34 provinces under the control of female judges. The Taliban and other conservative groups in Afghanistan considered that law to be un-Islamic, and the judges who enforced it to be infidels and foreign collaborators, so any of the female judges who sat on those courts, trying to protect women, are now at risk. As the hon. Member for Strangford said earlier, Baroness Helena Kennedy, who is—among her many good works—the head of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, has worked with a large team of pro bono lawyers in the UK and across the world to try to save some of those women. She has succeeded in doing so, and I commend her and her colleagues on their efforts.

However, Marzia is worried that junior female judges and prosecutors in the provinces will be overlooked, so I am working to raise their profile with the UK Government.

I would quibble only with the free use of the term "Islamic". What the Taliban is upholding is tribal tradition, and can surely find no place in the official canon of the religion.