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BBC News
04-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Afghan man criticises Home Office delays to reunite family in UK
An Afghan man has urged the Home Office to fast-track applications to reunite family members who face an imminent risk of being deported back to the Taliban-led Khan has been living in Oxfordshire since being resettled in the UK after arriving in 2021, while his family escaped to neighbouring the Pakistani government is threatening to deport thousands of Afghans and has set a deadline of 31 March for those awaiting relocation to third Home Office said it was "working at pace" to process referrals made under the Separated Families Pathway of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme. Mr Khan said he assisted UK forces to source accommodation before Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, something he believes would make him and his family "enemies" of the current family was among those who became separated due to the speed and chaotic circumstances surrounding the evacuation of Afghanistan. After more than three years apart, the 31-year-old engineer had been hopeful he would soon be reunited with his wife and two young children after the government announced the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) separated families route would open for six months on, Mr Khan is still waiting for a Home Office said he felt powerless, explaining: "I can't do anything for my kids, for my wife, I'm feeling disappointed by this government that we are being forgotten."While in Pakistan, his wife has no legal access to work and their children are not allowed to go to school. The family fears if they are deported back to Afghanistan they will be targeted by the Taliban."There is no future for my daughter over there and maybe the Taliban would force me to bring back my husband and our life is not secure over there," Mr Khan's wife, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the BBC during a video the scheme was launched last July, Minister for Migration and Citizenship Seema Malhotra said there was an "urgency" to reunite families who had helped the said: "It is our moral duty to ensure that families who were tragically separated are reunited and are not left at the mercy of the Taliban."Afghans did right by us and we will do right by them, ensuring our system is fair and supports those most at risk and vulnerable." 'Real and imminent risk' A freedom of information request made by Refugee Legal Support at the end of last year found that of the 2,511 applications received by the Home Office before the October deadline, only 88 had been successful and 361 had been refused."Every day that people are left in limbo, the government is failing them," said Freya Morgan, a supervising lawyer at Refugee Legal said the government needed a clear policy on the timeframe of when decisions would be made and how they would be communicated."It also needs to be clear as to how it will prioritise cases because everyone's family reunion is important but there are people who are at real and imminent risk," she Glover, Liberal Democrat MP for Didcot and Wantage, has been supporting Mr Khan's said: "The delays are very frustrating and not really what we expected so I really call on the government to focus on processing these applications properly." Most of the 30,000 Afghans who have come to the UK were evacuated in August 2021 as part of Operation were mostly British nationals, as well as people who worked with the UK in Afghanistan and their family members, who are eligible under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the UK pledged to resettle up to 20,000 vulnerable Afghans in the coming years under the 12,400 people had arrived under the scheme by the end of September Chamberlain MP, chair of the all party parliamentary group for Afghan women and girls, said: "Too many families remain separated by a slow, opaque and bureaucratic process. "Meanwhile for thousands of others, the promise of safety on our shores has never materialised, with the threat of deportation from Pakistan looming over them. *The programmes put in place three and a half years ago have simply not achieved what they intended to."She said she had written to the Home Office raising the issues and urging officials to "engage with us and our networks as soon as possible".A Home Office spokesperson said it did not routinely comment on individual added: "We are working at pace to process referrals made under the Separated Families Pathway of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and we have already begun to see arrivals and families be reunited." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
BBC News
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
New Ipswich exhibition giving Afghan women and girls a voice
Women from Afghanistan have shared their stories of living under Taliban rule for a new to the Soul Afghanistan launched on Friday, at Jerwood DanceHouse in Ipswich, and will be displayed for four project team spent the last year creating a secure platform for women still in Afghanistan, and those who had left, to share their stories of life before and after the TalibanNageena, 17, who fled Afghanistan and moved to England three years ago, worked on the project and said she missed her home. The Taliban, a hardline Islamist group, took control of Afghanistan in 2021 and under its rule women and girls have been subject to strict and oppressive and her family fled Afghanistan the day the group took over, which she said was "a very bad day".She still has family there and said her female relatives, over the age of 12, were not allowed to attend school due to the Taliban's stressed the importance of education and said it was "not only about what boys and men can do".Now living in Suffolk, Nageena is studying a college hairdressing course, but she admitted she still thought about her home."I miss my country because it is my home, but I can't go home," she continued."When I think about my country I feel very broken in my heart and it's very sad for us."She said the exhibition had made her feel brave and that she was capable of anything. Hannah Aria is a local artist who helped set up the exhibition."I started off working with refugees in Ipswich," she explained."As you gain more connections with people, you connect with the stories and then you want to do something positive to help."She was introduced to a contact in Afghanistan and through them, met others who shared their exhibition makes use of virtual and augmented reality to tell the stories of "people from Afghanistan in an amazing game-like format", Ms Aria added the exhibition aimed to apply for more funding to expand it further and tell more stories in the future."We want to change the world," she said. Rona Panjsheri, from Afghanistan, also worked on the project and said talking about women in Afghanistan made her emotional."It's really sad to talk about them, all negative things, [but] there are some positive things that I am really proud of them [for]," she explained."They stand up and they still have a little hope three years after Afghanistan fell at the hands of the Taliban."We hope that one day they get free and we talk more positive things about Afghan women and girls."She added that women and girls in Afghanistan "have no freedom of speech", therefore it was important to "keep telling their stories". Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
