Ruth Cadbury MP working to support Afghan constituents following fall of Afghanistan

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Since the fall of Kabul on Sunday to the Taliban, Ruth Cadbury MP and her team have been working to assist Afghan constituents who have loved ones needing support. She has urged those who need assistance to come forward and urgently contact her office at ruth@ruthcadbury.org.uk.

This week, alongside Seema Malhotra MP, Ruth met with members of the Afghani community in Hounslow. The Afghan Sikh and Hindu community were deeply concerned for the ethnic minorities of the country, and for the future of women and girls in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, Parliament was recalled to debate the unfolding events in Afghanistan, and how the government’s failure to create an orderly exit strategy has seen the Afghan government fall within seventy-two hours. There was consistent, cross-party condemnation of the government’s approach, with those MPs who had served in Afghanistan making timely and poignant criticisms of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, as well as the Taliban’s appalling human rights record.

After the debate in Parliament yesterday, Ruth said,

“I am deeply concerned for the humanitarian situation on the ground and how the events of the last week threaten the progress that has been made by the Afghan people over the last twenty years. Many in our local community have friends and family in Afghanistan, or have served in the armed forces, and they desperately need support from the government as the situation is quickly turning into a humanitarian catastrophe.

“The government’s attempt to reassure Parliament that it has a plan to support the Afghan people was inadequate. We have had eighteen months to plan an orderly exit strategy, yet the government had no plan to assure the Afghan people that despite our troops withdrawing that we would not be abandoning them or their aspiration for democracy.

“The refugee resettlement programme does not go nearly far enough and the 20,000 over five years is a deliberately arbitrary figure and does not meet the scale of the challenge. We owe a deep obligation to those who have supported us over the last twenty years, and especially to the women of Afghanistan who we encouraged to enter public life who now find themselves as targets of the Taliban.

“Those who have served in Afghanistan, the armed forces, aid workers, journalists, photographers, support staff, civilian contractors, and diplomatic staff, as well as the Afghan people deserve better than the dereliction of duty we have seen from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.”

Ruth would like to acknowledge all those who have come forward so far, and to thank the hundreds of constituents who have been in contact offering their solidarity, help and concern to those affected by the events of the last week. They have demonstrated the great care that West Londoners have for their community and those affected by the crisis.

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