Following the US invasion of Afghanistan. In 2000 and one the country
saw sweeping reforms, including in its courts, with the appointment
of more than 250 female judges.
But with the final withdrawal of US forces last after last August
and the takeover of the Taliban, many reforms were reversed, putting
the jobs and lives of these female judges at risk.
Special correspondent Christopher Booker reports on the ongoing effort
to help those judges get to safety in a new country.
The story behind this seemingly simple moment is a tale comprised
of a remarkable set of circumstances and for judge V. Takumi and
her family. It started with only hours notice. We didn't ever think
that the Taliban will come to Capitol of Afghanistan Kabul in just
one day or two days on that
Uh, Sunday. 15. August we We went to our office as usual. We were
immediately told we were being
Let to go from our jobs. Dismissal of Judge Vida Que Yo Me and her
husband, prosecutor Homayun was just the beginning of what would
be a seven month journey. We came home and we get the girls and just
two backpacks.
We knew enough about Taliban behavior to realize we could not stay
there and we were into hiding for one month
family made it out of Afghanistan and landed in Doha, Qatar.
From there, they went to a US military base in New Jersey, where
they would stay for four months and now are in temporary housing
in the suburbs of Washington, D. C. All this time later, the family
is a portrait of what has been lost in the new Afghanistan.
They're also a bright spot in this terrible story, part of a global
rescue effort to find safe passage for Afghanistan's 250 female judges.
In August of last year news hour reported on the frantic effort to
get the country's judges out of the country as the Taliban closed
in everything that a woman judge is is anathema.
To the Taliban ideology.
Judge Vanessa Ruiz is a senior judge on the District of Columbia
Court of Appeals. She's also a former president of I A. W. J. The
International Association of Women Judges Coalition of 6500 female
judges from around the world in 2003. The group started working and
supporting female judges from Afghanistan.
They represent.
Everything that the Taliban do not want women to do.
Or to be the last time the Taliban were in control in the nineties,
when they took control back then the judges were the first women.
That the Taliban went after to remove them from their positions
he has shown more. But on Thursday with the help of interpreter for
Arjun
spoke with three judges desperately trying to get out of Afghanistan
for their safety. We're not sharing their names or showing their
faces, so the Taliban knows about our whereabouts. They already have
gathered all the information they need.
So there is no way for us to hide or there is no way for us to stay
and we have to find ways for us and our family to find safe places
is the only solution to leave
Hala learning Haskell has up to some of them would be room.
This is obvious and you see what is going on that the Taliban has
coming to Kabul. They are going to kill us, but also our families,
and it is creating a lot of stress for us.
The three judges we spoke with in August were among the few who successfully
escaped at the beginning there currently living in Poland since then,
over a period of months, and in a very painstaking
Difficult.
With the times harrowing experiences for the judges. We have been
able to assist about 172 judges and their families.
To be evacuated.
The judges and their families have been scattered all over the globe.
But the effort helped rescue nearly 1000 Afghans. But there are still
79 judges in Afghanistan, the situation there is becoming more difficult.
Every day. There's more violence. Um, there seems to be more violence
directed against the judges, and so we're very worried about them.
They continue to be in hiding.
Um, the Taliban, As you know, has come down harder.
On women. Generally, they can
Not travel.
Ah, more than a certain distance without a male companion. They must
Be fully covered.
Um, And of course they can't work. They have received no compensation.
Any of these judges now for months and months and months. Where does
the U s government fit into your thinking? And has that changed the
U. S government, um, from from
Our perspective was truly absent at the beginning of this whole saga.
As far as the women judges are concerned, I think that has changed.
And we are not quite hopeful that there will be a path.
For a number of the judges to come to the U. S. But the process is
Ah intensive.
Exhausting.
And it takes time is is money. The main concern, constraint or is
it bureaucracy? Logistics? It's all all of the above. Of the 172
judges. The W J helped escape Afghanistan, 12 have been permanently
resettled in the United States.
In addition to the loss of life
What has been lost in Afghanistan. All of my kids are girl and, uh,
it will be
A nightmare and it was. It will be a scary time for me to see that
my girls will cannot attend the school after the age of 12.
Of course, it's very hard to accept that that we lost everything
that we have in less than one hour, but the grid of pictures that
we have lost the whole generation of female lawyers, judges.
Professionals and academic of all kinds were the place. That's not
the place that they can live anymore because of the threat of Taliban