At the end of August, a severe earthquake measuring 6.0 struck Afghanistan, claiming more than 2,200 lives according to the Taliban. The provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar were particularly affected. While the Taliban regime calls for international aid, it simultaneously denies millions of women and girls their most basic rights — from access to education and healthcare to participation in humanitarian work. After four years of repression, isolation, and deliberate censorship — most recently through nationwide internet and phone blackouts — the population is at the brink of exhaustion. In the European Parliament, we discussed how the EU can effectively support the people of Afghanistan — especially women.

We adopted a resolution calling for:

• a significant expansion of humanitarian emergency aid in the affected regions,
• the classification of the Taliban’s targeted persecution of women and girls as a crime against humanity, and the clear condemnation of gender-based apartheid and the Taliban’s discriminatory policies that deny women access to education, healthcare, and humanitarian work,
• targeted sanctions, the freezing of assets, and travel bans against Taliban officials responsible for human rights violations,
• support for asylum procedures for Afghan human rights defenders,
• and the rejection of any diplomatic rapprochement with the Taliban regime.

Those who call women’s rights universal cannot let them stop at borders. Three years ago, we promised not to abandon Afghanistan. That promise still stands. Anyone negotiating deportations with the Taliban is negotiating with terrorists — and betraying those who risk their lives every day for freedom, education, and dignity. In recent days, the German government went even further and allowed the Taliban to take control of the Afghan embassies in Berlin and Düsseldorf — against the will of the staff previously stationed there. We must not become accomplices of the oppressors. We must stand with Afghan women — with courage, with conviction, and with the clarity that human rights are never negotiable.