Why the international community must show the same courage as this small Scottish charity - Susan Dalgety

“It fills me with immense pride and joy to stand here today on this beautiful day,” she told her audience. “But let me tell you, being here was not as easy as these words make it seem. We endured 1,000 days of suffering to reach this point, 1,000 days of being confined to our homes, a 1,000 days of having our voices silenced, 1,000 days with nothing but tears and sorrow, 1,000 days of our lives wasting away.”

You could not hear a pin drop as the young medical student finished her speech. “But throughout these harsh and unbearable days, the only motivation of light in our dark world was the presence of the Linda Norgrove Foundation, who stood beside us and never let us feel alone. You saved our lives in every sense of the word and we will never forget this.”

As people wiped away tears, applauding the courage and grace of Omulbanin and her sisters, their hijabs marking them out from the rest of the room, the significance of what she had just said sank in.

Here, in 2024, when a woman of colour may well become the next leader of the free world in a few weeks’ time, stood a group of young Afghan women whose government, the Taliban, consider them to be sub-human. Clever, motivated medical students, who because of their sex had to flee their homes in Afghanistan to continue their studies, because the men in charge of their beautiful – if broken – country decree that girls are not to be educated past the age of twelve. That a woman’s only role in life is for reproduction.

Only this week, in the first formal publication of its “vice and virtue laws”, the Taliban decreed that Afghan women must hide their face fully while in public. Women must be covered head to toe in thick, black cloth to conceal their sex and their very humanity. And as Omulbanin’s words rang out across the room, it struck me that back home, her voice could not be heard outside her home. The new laws say that a woman cannot read out loud, sing or recite poetry in public.

Three years ago, when the Taliban marched back into the capital Kabul to take over the country, newly-abandoned by US and coalition forces after 20 years, it quickly became clear that the regime was intent on subjugating half the population. Their savage sex apartheid project is now almost complete, with women excluded from the nation’s daily life, including access to all but the most basic healthcare. It is, commentators suggest, only a matter of time before public floggings and stoning are re-introduced as a punishment for those women who dare to digress from the Taliban’s barbaric laws.

The 19 young women, who are now studying in four of the UK’s best medical schools – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen – are here because of the determined efforts of a small Scottish charity, the Linda Norgrove Foundation, which brought together the UK and Scottish governments and others to make the impossible possible. The charity was set up by John and Lorna Norgrove after their daughter Linda, an aid worker, died in Afghanistan in 2010. Since then, and without any fanfare, it has raised £3 million to support women and girls in the country their daughter loved. Previously, it provided scholarships for young women to study at university. Now it supports women and girls simply to survive, with basic supplies like warm clothing for the harsh Afghan winters and training so that women can work from home. And it has just given 19 young women the chance of a new life.

Women’s rights across the globe are under attack, from the draconian abortion laws in the USA to India, where women are at serious risk of sexual assault, but there is no question that the situation in Afghanistan is the most serious women’s rights crisis in the world. The country is ranked last on the Women, Peace and Security Index. Yet earlier this year, when the international community met with the Taliban in Doha to discuss Afghanistan’s future relationship with the rest of the world, women’s rights were not on the agenda – at the behest of the Taliban. Speaking at the time, Habiba Sarabi, a former minister of women’s affairs in Afghanistan, said the international community was prioritising engagement with the Taliban over women’s rights. She said: “Unfortunately, the international community wants to deal with the Taliban, and that is why their own agenda has always been more important to them than the women of Afghanistan, democracy, or anything else.”

But if a small charity with only one employee, based in the Isle of Lewis, has the negotiating skills and determination to rescue 19 young women from the clutches of totalitarian rule, then surely the international community must be able to find ways to better support Afghanistan’s 20 million women and girls? According to global charity IRC, three-quarters of the country’s public spending is subsidised by international donors, and more than half the population is dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival.

The Taliban may try to silence the voices of women and girls, but the international community must not be allowed to ignore them too. On Tuesday, I was privileged to meet 19 young women of courage. The international community owes it to them, and to the memory of Linda Norgrove, to show the same courage and stand up for our sisters in Afghanistan.