Human Rights Watch has warned that the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghan nationals could place thousands of women and girls at serious risk if they are deported back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The organization said that returning women to Afghanistan would amount to delivering them into a regime that openly enforces what it described as “gender apartheid,” a term increasingly used by rights groups to describe the Taliban’s treatment of women.
The TPS designation for Afghan nationals is set to expire on July 14. Human Rights Watch said that the policy shift could strip more than 11,000 Afghans of legal residency and work authorization in the United States, opening the door to arrests and potential deportation.
“Afghanistan is unsafe for anyone, but it is uniquely dangerous for women and girls,” the group said in a statement issued Thursday.
The warning comes days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders on charges of crimes against humanity, specifically gender persecution. Human Rights Watch said those charges underscore the systematic nature of the Taliban’s restrictions on women, which include bans on education, employment, healthcare access, and participation in public life.
Many international organizations and Afghan women’s rights advocates have characterized the Taliban’s policies as a form of gender apartheid.
The report also noted that many Afghans under TPS in the US are parents of US-born children. The termination of the status, the group warned, would force families into impossible choices: remain in the US without legal protection, leave their children behind, or take them to a country where girls and women are subject to harsh repression.
In many cases, Human Rights Watch said, Afghan women may not have sufficient documentation to prove individualized threats, making TPS their only legal safeguard.
The group called on the US government to reverse its decision, citing the ongoing human rights crisis in Afghanistan and Washington’s stated commitments to protect vulnerable migrants, particularly women.
“If the United States proceeds with this plan,” the group warned, “it will bear responsibility for returning thousands of women and children to a land of repression and fear.”
