Afghanistan

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan five years ago, the EU set out conditions for engagement, but the prospect of them being fulfilled is more remote than ever. Nevertheless, ties are growing closer.

The German Federal Government presented its Feminist Foreign Policy strategy on 1 March  2023. This ten-point strategy was discussed by Luise Amtsberg, Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance, during of the colloquium "Feminist Foreign Policy: from ambitions to actions" of 6 April 6 2023 organised by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Paris office and the association Women In International Security - WIIS France.

The unexpected ban of secondary school education of girls on 23 March 2022 by the Taliban authority was condemned by the international community. Professor Michael Daxner, who has been actively involved in the higher education sector in Afghanistan for the last several years, gives an overview of challenges currently faced.

Afghan women political representatives want to establish a parliament in exile in Greece: reason enough for me to pay them a visit and show my support.

In August 2021, as US military forces exited Afghanistan, the Taliban seized facial recognition systems, highlighting just how a failure to protect people’s privacy can tangibly threaten their physical safety and human rights. Far from being good tools which fell into the wrong hands, the very existence of these systems is part of broader structures of data extraction and exploitation spanning continents and centuries, with a history wrapped up in imperialism, colonialism and control.

In her 2021 State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appealed to Europe’s soul, which, she said, has been tested to the core in times of multiple crises. The team of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union did its own soul-searching, pointing at the good, the not-so-good and the missing in von der Leyen’s speech.

The Taliban takeover in Kabul, the frantic evacuation efforts of foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans, and the fear among those left behind of being targeted by the new regime are shining a spotlight on the double-edged nature of government data collection as well as digital communication tools in times of crisis.

In recent days, there has been a lot of talk in the EU about an emerging “wave of refugees” or “migration disaster”. However, the real disaster is the failure of Western governments to rescue people from Afghanistan who deserve our protection, the Director of our office in Brussels, Eva van de Rakt, comments.