Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will consider the potential merits of making non-student visas available to women and girls from Afghanistan who wish to study in the UK and are unable to travel here on a student visa.

The UK has made an ambitious and generous commitment to help relocate at-risk individuals in Afghanistan. To date, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety from Afghanistan and the neighbouring region, this includes thousands of women and girls.

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) provide two safe and legal routes for eligible people at risk affected by events in Afghanistan to come to the UK.

We recognise there are many vulnerable individuals who remain in Afghanistan and the region. The capacity of the UK to resettle people is not unlimited and difficult decisions have to be made on who will be prioritised for resettlement.

The UK government is appalled by the Taliban’s attacks on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. We continue to work with the international community to press the Taliban to reverse their prohibitive edicts.