Afghan women continue to receive Swiss asylum

Afghan women generally continue to receive asylum Keystone-SDA

Afghan women and girls will continue to be granted asylum in Switzerland after parliament rejected a motion to end a policy introduced in summer 2023.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The Senate decided by 25 votes to 14 with two abstentions to reject a proposal to end the policy from the ranks of the Radical Party. At the end of May, the House of Representatives rejected a motion with the same request by a majority of one vote. The motions are therefore off the table.

+ Switzerland returns to Afghanistan despite Taliban issues

The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) decided to change the practice in July 2023 following a recommendation from the European Asylum Agency.

It justified the move by saying that the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan had steadily deteriorated since the Taliban came to power. The fundamental rights of women are severely restricted.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].