‘They are coming because they are being persecuted’

UN special rapporteur Richard Bennett tells Arpan Rai the UK must do more to help Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban

- Arpan Rai

The United Nations special rapporteur for Afghanistan has called on Britain to take more refugees from the Asian country and show greater compassion towards people fleeing the Taliban.

Richard Bennett has made the plea nearly four years after the Taliban retook Kabul, when Western forces, led by the US, left the country in 2021 after two decades of war. Since then, the Taliban has introduced a series of draconian restrictions on women in the country and banned them from many aspects of public life.

“Afghans are not coming to the UK because the streets are paved with gold,” he told The Independent. “They are coming because they are persecuted, and life is very hard for them. Nobody wants to be a refugee.”

Britain pledged to accept 20,000 refugees over five years under the Home Office’s scheme for vulnerable Afghans. By December 2024, it had seen 34,940 arrivals from Afghanistan and provided accommodation to nearly 26,000 of them.

Many vulnerable Afghans have resorted to taking boats across the Channel from continental Europe. But after reaching the UK, many have also found themselves separated from their families, leading to further mental anguish.

“They are refugees who have been persecuted in a war and now by an oppressive regime,” said Mr Bennett, who was banned by the Taliban last year from entering Afghanistan. “They are truly the classic definition of a refugee.”

He said there was no need for individual screening for distressed Afghans as even the women escaping the Taliban lived with survivors’ guilt. “The situation is so repressive that it meets the definition of persecution for every class of that gender,” he said.

“I come from New Zealand, and we had a prime minister who asked people to be kind. So that’s what I would do too – to be kind to Afghan refugees, please.”