The immigration service IND has ruled two women should be deported to Afghanistan even though the Netherlands is involved in a separate international court case about the Taliban’s discriminatory laws against women.

The IND said the fundamentalist Islamic regime was no reason to grant asylum to the women, aged 59 and 79, because they were insufficiently “westernised”, Trouw newspaper reported.

In the case of the 79-year-old woman, the IND said she had not demonstrated that she would be unable to adapt to life under the Taliban. The district court in The Hague ordered the immigration service to review its decision, but the IND stood by its ruling. An appeal is due to be heard in November.

The IND said the younger of the two women would be able to resettle in Afghanistan because she rarely went outside when she was living there. The fact that she does go outside alone in the Netherlands was not enough reason to grant her asylum, the agency said.

Since 2023 the official guidance has stated that Afghan women should only be granted asylum if they demonstrate they “could not conform with the standards and rules imposed by the Taliban” and risked persecution as a result.

ICJ

Ultimate responsibility for deportations rests with caretaker foreign affairs minister David van Weel, who is also overseeing a separate case against Afghanistan at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Last year the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Canada, filed a complaint and accusing the Taliban of breaching the UN convention on ending discrimination against women.

The then foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, said at the time that the isolation of Afghan women and girls was “heartbreaking”, adding: “We cannot accept this.”