Robert Jenrick refused to help Afghan feminist lawyer being hunted by Taliban

Former immigration secretary Robert Jenrick twice refused to help an Afghan lawyer who is being hunted by the Taliban over her work supporting the UK government, openDemocracy can reveal.

Earlier this year, Naailah*, who worked alongside the UK to prosecute Taliban members for corruption, told openDemocracy that the Home Office had rejected her family’s applications to its Afghan resettlement schemes.

Now, her husband has gone missing after the Taliban discovered his whereabouts, just weeks after the Home Office said their application was not “urgent”.

openDemocracy previously revealed how the UK government refused to defer the requirement for Naailah to travel to the British High Commission in Pakistan to submit her biometrics, despite the Taliban having killed 16 of her colleagues and issued a warrant for her arrest.

Our report prompted SNP MP Dave Doogan to write to the home secretary in August to ask for an explanation for its decision, after a constituent wrote to him expressing their concern for Naailah.

“My constituents would be very grateful for a better understanding of why biometric data collection, in this case and others, has overridden the need to provide an escape for such an accomplished and vulnerable person as Naailah,” he said.

Jenrick replied to Doogan the following month, saying that whilst he was sorry to hear of Naailah’s situation, he “cannot comment on the details of specific routes for those who may be eligible for resettlement”.

The then immigration minister – who resigned last night over the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which he said “does not go far enough” – also suggested Naailah should apply for an exemption from having to travel to Pakistan.

But Naailah had already applied for an exemption, which the Home Office had rejected despite her having submitted evidence that 16 of her colleagues, as well as two female judges, had been killed by Taliban for carrying out the same work she did. 

The Home Office refused her request on the grounds that it was not “urgent”.

Since then, the Taliban has discovered the whereabouts of her husband, forcing him to go on the run. Naailah said she has not heard from him in over two weeks and no longer knows where he is.  

Doogan wrote to Jenrick a second time in October, pointing out that it was impossible for Naailah to make a journey that would put her life at risk. 

But Jenrick again declined to take up her case, saying: “Whilst I do sympathise with your and your constituents’ concerns about Naailah, the Home Office is unable to provide further immigration advice.”

Naailah’s lawyer, who asked that their name be withheld to protect their client, said the Home Office’s policy on journeys to visa centres to is “not fit for purpose”.

The lawyer, who is working on Naailah’s case with support from the charity Here for Good, said: “[The policy] sets an impossibly high test for Afghans to meet. 

“As we’ve seen with Naailah’s case and others, the Home Office won’t even consider active death threats as an urgent enough reason to defer the requirement to travel.”

Doogan told openDemocracy: "The case of Naaliah clearly demonstrates the Conservative UK Government's callous approach towards people fleeing persecution – in this instance a legal advocate for women's rights who prosecuted members of the Taliban and is now being hunted by the Taliban.

"It is outrageous that the Home Office are not taking into consideration the situation in-country in Afghanistan and insist that persecuted individuals must make the dangerous journey to Pakistan to provide biometric data. It is well within the Home Office's power to invoke exemptions due to exceptional circumstances, thereby postponing the collection of this data until the individual is safe. However, they refuse to do this."

Naailah, her husband and three children have been in hiding since the Taliban issued a warrant for her arrest in 2022. Before the Taliban seized power in August 2021, Naailah worked as a prosecutor for the Afghan Attorney General’s Office and as a defence lawyer specialising in cases involving women’s rights. 

She said she prosecuted more than 200 cases over her career, often facing members of the Taliban on the opposite side.

Naailah secured a particularly high-profile conviction against a Taliban member who cut out the tongue of his own wife. Another Taliban member, who she prosecuted in absentia for beating his wife, sent threatening messages to her after the Taliban takeover vowing revenge.

Less than 300 Afghans have been resettled in the UK this year under government schemes, according to statistics published by the Home Office in November.

Over the same period, 5,249 Afghans arrived in the UK irregularly, including 4,843 by crossing the Channel in small boats.

*Names have been changed to protect identities