Caretaker asylum and migration minister David van Weel has defended the immigration service’s decision to reject asylum claims from several Afghan women, saying there is no reason to change current policy despite the Taliban’s extreme restrictions on women and girls.

In answers to parliamentary questions from Volt, the SP and D66, Van Weel said the immigration service IND can still assess individual cases and deny protection where it concludes there is “no necessity for asylum”.

The questions followed reports showing that the IND had decided in at least three cases that women could be returned to Afghanistan, despite the Dutch government holding the Taliban regime responsible for grave and systematic violations of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Van Weel, who is also foreign affairs minister, acknowledged that conditions for women have become “very difficult” since the Taliban takeover in 2021.

He said women and girls may qualify for protection if they face such severe restrictions on their development and participation that return would significantly limit their lives.

In most cases the IND grants asylum, he said, but “not every restriction in life amounts to persecution”. To win the right to stay, applicants must show they were or would be affected by discriminatory measures.

The IND, he said, has rejected claims from “only a few” Afghan women, adding that it is not currently possible to deport those that fail to meet Dutch criteria to stay.

Reports on the four women concerned show they had largely carried out household work, were not “westernised”, had not previously gone out alone and, in the IND’s view, had shown no ambitions to work or study – activities banned for women under the Taliban.

Van Weel said he does not comment on individual cases and that negative decisions can be reviewed by the courts.

Courts in Haarlem and Middelburg have overturned two deportation orders, saying both the IND and Van Weel misinterpreted a key ruling from the European Court of Justice, which found that the discrimination faced by Afghan women is such a fundamental denial of rights that it constitutes persecution.

Refugee status

The Middelburg court said this means all Afghan women and girls applying for asylum in the Netherlands are therefore entitled to refugee status.

In another case, a judge sided with the minister, though the ruling did not consider the European court’s decision. The Council of State will examine all the cases early next year.

The women themselves fear returning to Afghanistan. “A dog has a higher status than a woman,” one of them told Nieuwsuur earlier. Another, aged 79, says she has not slept since learning of the decision. She fled to the Netherlands 15 years ago after the Taliban demanded her daughter be handed over.