Afghan children and women, including researcher and women’s rights activist Naveen Hashim, arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris, France, September 4, 2023 (Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP)
Originally published by Hyphen, the article tells the stories of four women to highlight the vast majority of Afghan refugees “in limbo” in Europe.
“When you pledge to admit 40,000 Afghans, you must resettle each one of them,” says Lucas. “At the end of it all, the scale of failure was enormous — and the greatest losers were the Afghan people, especially women.”
From Afghanistan — “Even If They Threaten to Shut Our Schools, We Will Fight for Education”
It is nearly four years since the Taliban retook Afghanistan in August 2021, prompting the rapid withdrawal of US and NATO troops. The swift departure of US-backed president Ashraf Ghani, followed by the chaotic exit of thousands of Afghans whose lives were suddenly at risk having worked for western governments, aid groups, and security missions, is counted among the greatest foreign policy disasters for Europe and America in modern history.
The collapse of a 20-year international effort to keep the Taliban at bay and establish an allied, democratic state exposed deep strategic failures by western governments.
“The US spent an estimated $2 trillion and the EU contributed one of its largest humanitarian investments ever but neither was able to build strong domestic governance in Afghanistan,” said Scott Lucas, Professor of American Studies at University College Dublin. “Corruption flourished under western watch, and many Afghans never fully backed the Ghani government.”
