20
May
2026
Watch
Situation of women and girls in Afghanistan following the Taliban's adoption of the Criminal Procedure Code for Courts
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what Afghan women are experiencing is an atrocity. The cause of their persecution, like those in Iran, Syria, Sudan or Mali, is the same: Islamic fundamentalism. The Taliban has established an institutionalized system of discrimination and segregation against women and girls. The most basic rights – education, work, health, freedom of movement and expression – are systematically abolished. They formalize violence and constraints to keep them in submission. Yet this horror does not arise overnight. There are signs, beginnings, progressive setbacks. In Europe, this phenomenon of persecution is already beginning to manifest itself in certain neighbourhoods and cities. Women can no longer wear skirts, take their faces out uncovered or have free access to certain public spaces. Often, this regression is correlated with uncontrolled immigration. For the sake of appearing humanist, mostly left-wing political movements have accepted or downplayed the most dehumanizing Islamist demands. The veil, symbol and instrument of a retrograde constraint on women's freedoms, is thus defended here in the European Parliament, in a guilty collective submission. Islamism that destroys Afghan women is already growing on our soil. We patriots have always been clear: There is no place for Islamism. Whatever its degree, we will always fight it.