Effort to aid Afghanistan's women judges draws in U.S. law firms - Reuters

Taliban soldiers stand in front of a sign at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 9, 2021. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS/File Photo

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(Reuters) - Maryam Helal knew she and her family weren’t safe in their Kabul home after the Afghan government collapsed in August and the Taliban took control of the country.

During a decade as a judge hearing family and criminal law cases, she sent Taliban members to prison for drug trafficking, arms smuggling and other crimes. The Taliban freed those men when it came back into power, and Helal spent a month hiding in a friend’s home out of fear they would exact revenge.

“I am being threatened by the Taliban,” Helal wrote in an email to Reuters this month from Athens, Greece, where she's been since October. “The majority of them saw my face in court.”

Helal is among the 250 women judges who have fled or are trying to escape the country, according to the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ). A race to win them temporary legal status in the United States and other countries has mobilized scores of lawyers from some of the largest U.S. law firms, as well as attorneys from smaller firms, immigration lawyers and other organizations.

Since August, the IAWJ has been coordinating with pro bono lawyers at DLA Piper, which has referred individual judges' cases to Vinson & Elkins, Debevoise & Plimpton and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson to quickly file asylum and immigration paperwork.

"They really are in imminent danger," said Anne Geraghty Helms, DLA Piper’s U.S. pro bono director. "We’ve heard of judges who have been split from their families, who have been receiving death threats, who are being targeted simply because they’re women."

So far, 150 judges and their families have made it out of Afghanistan and are in legal limbo elsewhere, while 95 are actively trying to leave, said Patricia Whalen, an IAWJ member and retired Vermont family court magistrate who has been helping to coordinate the effort. The biggest groups are in Greece and the United Arab Emirates, she said.

Just four of the judges had made it to the United States as of mid-December, Whalen said.

Under the Taliban’s previous regime, Afghan women were prohibited from becoming lawyers or getting a legal education. International groups trained and supported women in the legal profession during the U.S. occupation, but women have been unable to work in many fields since the Taliban regained power, Whalen said.

Some who hope to come to the United States have applied for humanitarian parole — a program through the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services that would grant temporary permission to enter the United States while they work to obtain permanent status.

But attorneys filing humanitarian parole petitions said the government has been slow to process them. USCIS said in a statement that it has conditionally approved humanitarian parole for more than 135 Afghan nationals who are outside the U.S. since July, though it did not clarify how many applications it received from women Afghan judges or overall.

The agency said it is working to speed up its processing of applications and adding staff to "to assist with the surge in requests.”

Debevoise & Plimpton associate Duncan Pickard said he and his colleagues are working with the U.S. Department of State to try to bring two women judges he’s representing to the United States. One is Anissa Rasooli, who was evacuated with 10 family members by the Polish military in the days after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Pickard said.

They have been granted temporary asylum in Poland, where they are receiving government housing and financial assistance, he said. Rasooli is hoping to come to the United States, where she has family and professional ties, before those benefits run out.

Vinson & Elkins has a team of nearly 30 attorneys representing 10 women judges and their families. Among them is Maryam Helal, who said her family’s situation in Greece is tenuous.

“We do not have food, clothes and a suitable place. We do not have access to medical services," Helal said in her email to Reuters.

Simon Willis, a Vinson & Elkins environmental law associate, has filed for U.S. humanitarian parole on Helal’s behalf, but as of Dec. 17 there was no decision. Helal’s family may have to relocate to a refugee camp when her 60-day Greek visa lapses, he said.

“We can fill out these forms and try to get help from the government, but ultimately that’s pretty limited in terms of what’s happening in these people’s lives,” Willis said. “They’re trying to stay alive."

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source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/effort-aid-afghanistans-women-judges-draws-us-law-firms-2021-12-21/

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