Afghan Women Be Granted Asylum On Gender & Nationality, Rules European Court of Justice

The European Court of Justice ruled that the nationality and gender of Afghan women alone can be a sufficient reason to accept their asylum application.

The ruling was issued after reviewing the cases of two Afghan women whose asylum applications in Austria had been rejected.

The European Union's Supreme Court in Brussels, on Friday, October 4, during the review of the cases of two Afghan women whose asylum applications were rejected by the Austrian Migration Agency in 2015 and 2020, announced that "there is no need to prove persecution in the country of origin in order to accept Afghan women's asylum applications”.

The court ruled that only being a woman was enough to accept the application.

Reuters news agency reported that one of the women had resided in Iran without legal documents before entering Austria and that her father (an addict) had intended to sell her to pay for his addiction.

Also, according to the Geneva Convention, European countries do not deport asylum seekers who have been persecuted in their country of origin. Earlier, some European countries had announced that Afghan women's asylum applications would be accepted because of their gender. Courts in France and countries such as Sweden and Denmark have also announced similar policies.