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Canada must immediately issue a Temporary Resident Permit to protect the life of Farzana Adell Ghadiya, a high-profile Afghan women’s rights activist facing Taliban death threats. Now hiding in a third country where her permit runs out soon – exposing her to the risk of forced return to torture or death in Afghanistan – Farzana meets all eligibility criteria for entry to Canada under the “special humanitarian program to resettle vulnerable Afghan nationals outside of Afghanistan.”

Farzana merits entry to Canada as a women’s rights leader, a human rights defender, and a member of a persecuted religious group and ethnic minority (she is Hazara and an Ismaili Muslim) who is at risk of return to torture or death. Farzana is also unable to access health care where she now lives: she is a severe diabetic with unstable vision, stomach and kidney pains, and ongoing physical and emotional trauma from beatings she endured at the hands of the Taliban. 

Farzana has a loving community awaiting her in Ottawa: free room and board, a well-connected support community including the anti-violence group Women Who Choose to Live and the Rural Refugee Rights Network, and more than enough resources available to help her settle in Canada. She is highly skilled, multilingual, and would easily find employment working for women’s rights in the nation’s capital.  

But without receiving a Temporary Resident Permit for Protection, she has no way to get here.

Canada has come under growing criticism for the barriers it employs to prevent refugees like Farzana from finding safety. Indeed, to “qualify” for acceptance, she must be “referred” by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) or the third country government. In Farzana’s case, she is hiding in a country where the UNHCR stopped registering refugees almost 4 years ago, and the host country’s government is often unwilling to grant Afghans like Farzana refugee status.  

That is why the only option is for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Minister Sean Fraser to exercise his discretion to issue a special permit to allow Farzana to leave her situation of extreme uncertainty and potential danger and find safety here. 

In addition to meeting all the criteria of Canada’s special humanitarian program, Farzana qualifies as a member of the “Protected temporary residents class”, which was created to facilitate the acquisition of permanent resident status by refugees in urgent need of protection. Alternatively, Canada could welcome Farzana as part of its Urgent Protection Program for those who face “immediate threats to life, liberty or physical well-being,” and under which refugees who are eligible “may include but are not limited to…Those who are facing a real, direct threat to their physical safety, which could result in their being killed or subjected to abduction, rape, sexual abuse, violence or torture.” Furthermore, “a decision to resettle the refugee is made within 24-48 hours. IRCC tries to ensure that these cases are en route to Canada within 3 to 5 days of referral to the mission or, in the event of local challenges, as soon as possible.”

In other words, there are no barriers or excuses that can be used by Ottawa to deny entry to Farzana. 

Minster Sean Fraser has many tools at his disposal, as well as the broad discretion to take whatever measure is necessary to ensure safe passage for Farzana under Section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which states such action is justified  “if the Minister is of the opinion that it is justified by humanitarian and compassionate considerations relating to the foreign national, taking into account the best interests of a child directly affected.”

Canada has thusfar failed to live up to the promises it made to the thousands of Afghan refugees who remain stranded abroad and within the country itself.  The notion that Farzana must survive up to another 2 years (Canada’s current timeline) in such uncertainty and danger is inhumane.

The Canadian government prides itself on its self-identification as a women’s rights supporter. One way of matching rhetoric to reality is granting Farzana entry to the country immediately. 

Farzana has been working for women’s equality and rights for most of her life.  A member of the Afghan Women’s Network almost from its inception, she worked in former President Ghani’s office as the Chief of Staff for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women from 2016-2017.  In this position, she worked on projects supporting women’s rights and equality, frequently interfacing with the embassies of the US and other countries, working on projects that included supporting the international community fund for Afghanistan, coordinating the National Priority Program (NPPs), implementing the ONE UN concept, and coordinating the Presidential Palace Debates.   

She was also the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Afghan Telecom, and responsible for supporting girls' and women's projects. Her work involved building seven high schools and primary schools for girls, establishing nearly twenty playgrounds for children, creating e-learning centres for girls deprived of school under the Taliban, building water wells in communities where women could access them to bring clean drinking water to their homes, and developing three maternity hospitals. Unfortunately, due to this work, the Taliban started threatening and harassing her, and on several occasions she was beaten by them. Further threats against her while working in the President’s office forced her to leave the country to work elsewhere for two years. 

She courageously returned in 2019 and co-founded Gender Equality Rights Organization Afghanistan (GEROA), where she helped distribute and conduct the Global Count survey of women in Afghanistan, and worked with several global and local non-profits/human rights organizations like Women’s March Global.  GEROA was about to launch several programs at universities when things began to unravel in Afghanistan.   

“My nationality is Hazara, and my religion is Shia-Ismaili,” she says. “My people are persecuted aggressively in Afghanistan, and 20 years ago, the Taliban had killed many of my relatives for following the Ismaili religion in Afghanistan.”

Farzana has also been the target of death threats in her third country by the same men who took over the Afghan Embassy. She is worried to be in a country where Afghans are not welcome and are often turned in for deportation. “I live in fear of someone deciding to report that I am here.” All of Farzana’s files –  including her home address, school certificates, national ID, passport copy, fingerprints, ­ were all in the Presidential Palace when it was seized by the Taliban. 

“Before its fall, my country and government were my support, but now I have nothing,” Farzana says. “If something happened to me, I would have nowhere to turn. In addition, I am the administrator for one of the few (if not the only) Facebook pages that is used by the activist women (many who are seen in newspapers and press globally lately) to communicate and to share with the world what is happening. It is called Gender Equality Afghanistan and has over 8 thousand members.   I cannot shut this down as so many women depend on it, but I am very concerned the Taliban will see me there too. The page is not public, but the Taliban are seemingly able to find people anywhere."

Last August, Farzana’s apartment was gutted and the windows shot out. There is no future for her in her former country: “The Taliban knows who I am, and they have my entire file from the Presidential Palace now. I don’t leave my room now, except to buy food on the corner, as I am so afraid they will find me. I have been beaten by the Taliban before I fled my country.  They know who I am and know that I am a women’s rights advocate.  I am not healthy and worried that I could not take care of myself because I cannot leave my room safely. I cannot build a life or get healthy under these circumstances, and I am at risk of death if found. They will kill me if I enter Afghanistan under any circumstances.”