'I'm living in fear for my life in Afghanistan'

It is astir 11 months since the UK launched its strategy to assistance susceptible Afghans travel to the UK. But MPs and charities accidental the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) has been excessively dilatory to get up and moving and is leaving those who are successful astir information stuck successful Afghanistan.

"Every minute, each infinitesimal is frightening. We are frightened for our ain safety," says Ghazal.

Because of her erstwhile occupation arsenic a writer and lecturer, arsenic good arsenic being an advocator for women's rights, Ghazal says she has been threatened by the Taliban.

The BBC is not utilizing her existent sanction arsenic she fears reprisals from the hardline Islamist group, which seized powerfulness successful the summertime of 2021.

She applied to travel to the UK done the ACRS successful June and received a notation fig but has heard thing other since then.

As she is inactive successful Afghanistan she is not eligible for the archetypal twelvemonth of the scheme, erstwhile lone 3 circumstantial at-risk groups who stay successful the state are being considered.

Meanwhile, Ghazal is moving betwixt the houses of friends and relatives with her sister truthful she cannot beryllium found.

Since the Taliban takeover, women's rights person been curtailed, with women barred from astir jobs extracurricular the home, secondary acquisition and travelling longer distances without a antheral guardian.

Ghazal is unmarried and arsenic she is incapable to bash her aged occupation she is struggling financially, with her savings present gone.

"I had a immense reputation, a palmy vocation and respect. Financially, I was good off. I had my imagination job... but each of a abrupt jumping down from determination to idiosyncratic who doesn't adjacent person an individuality is precise achy and stressful," she tells the BBC, speaking done a translator.

Asked what she thought would hap to her and her sister if they stayed successful Afghanistan, Ghazal says: "Probably we volition extremity our life, idiosyncratic volition termination us, oregon we volition person a bosom attack."

"We person nary anticipation for our future," she adds.

Labour's shadiness migration curate Stephen Kinnock says the authorities promised to prioritise groups who stood up for democracy, including women's rights activists and LGBT campaigners.

But successful the archetypal twelvemonth of the ACRS, astir susceptible groups indispensable already person near Afghanistan to beryllium considered for the scheme.

Crossing the borderline to neighbouring countries tin beryllium unsafe arsenic it hard to get question documents, peculiarly for those who are successful hiding.

Mr Kinnock says each at-risk groups successful Afghanistan should beryllium eligible for resettlement successful the archetypal twelvemonth and helped to permission the country.

"It truly is shameful that we person failed to unrecorded up to our obligations and to enactment those people," helium tells the BBC.

"They stood up for the values that we cherish - democracy, inclusion, regularisation of instrumentality - and arsenic a result, they enactment their lives connected the line. In galore cases, we've abandoned them."

Most of the Afghans who person travel to the UK were evacuated arsenic portion of Operation Pitting, which saw astir 15,000 radical airlifted retired of Kabul arsenic it fell to the Taliban successful August 2021.

Most of these were British nationals, arsenic good arsenic radical who worked with the UK successful Afghanistan and their household members, who are eligible nether the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy.

After its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the UK pledged to resettle up to 20,000 much susceptible Afghans successful the coming years nether the ACRS.

The UNHCR has referred 801 Afghan refugees to the UK this twelvemonth up to the extremity of October but lone 67 person departed for resettlement, according to the latest figures.

Only 4 individuals had been resettled successful the UK nether pathway 2 up to the extremity of September, according to Home Office figures.

Mr Kinnock says processing of cases needs to beryllium sped up truthful radical are not near "languishing" successful exile camps, "terrified" they could beryllium sent backmost to Afghanistan.

There are 1,500 places disposable nether pathway 3 successful the archetypal twelvemonth but the Home Office would not corroborate whether radical had started to get successful the UK nether this pathway yet.

The remainder of the astir 6,300 Afghans granted indefinite permission to stay nether the ACRS were done pathway one.

A Home Office spokeswoman says this includes "people who stood up for values similar ideology and state of speech", arsenic good arsenic susceptible groups, including women and girls.

Earlier this month, a cross-party radical of 8 MPs and peers wrote to the overseas caput calling for a circumstantial asylum way for Afghan women who are astatine risk.

One signatory, erstwhile Conservative curate Caroline Nokes, says it has been "next to intolerable for Afghan pistillate activists to find a harmless way to the UK" and "we're letting them down".

Tamsin Baxter, from the Refugee Council charity, says the ACRS does not enactment those "most successful information astatine its heart".

"We're talking astir radical whose lives are intelligibly astatine stake," she says.

She says advancement connected resettlement has "stalled significantly" since the archetypal evacuation past year.

"Many radical look a dreadful hold of two, adjacent 3 years earlier they mightiness find information here. The information is that these radical are desperately unsafe and simply can't hold that long."