A new report states that Afghan refugees in Pakistan are exposed to “intensified abusive tactics”
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) based in the USA had the alarm in a report published on Wednesday. The non -governmental organization asked the international community to recover the deportation of people to Afghanistan, where they risk the persecution of the Taliban and at the same time emphasize reports on human rights violations in Pakistan.
“Afghanistan is not a safe country,” said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at HRW. “If you are currently demonstrating in Pakistan on March 31, there is the possibility that you could be deported or forced to return to Afghanistan.”
Abbasi said that HRW had documented cases of lawyers for women’s rights in Afghanistan, which were arbitrarily arrested and tortured by the Taliban. The NGO has also heard reports from women who were killed or disappeared under the regime.
“The risk is very high, and I really hope that the international community took concrete measures to ensure that endangered Afghans are not pushed back.”
Human rights representatives, journalists and former government staff are exposed to a special risk, according to the report.
It also quoted bad economic conditions: all deported difficulties to survive, it was said in the middle of Afghanistan’s “high -flying unemployment, broken health system and dwindling foreign support”.
Pakistan to deport all undocumented Afghans after March 31st
At the beginning of this month, the Interior Ministry of Pakistan asked all “illegal foreigners” and Afghan citizen card holders to leave the country until March 31. Those who remain will be deported from April 1, it said.
Afghans represent the majority of Pakistan’s foreign population. The United Nations (un) estimates that there are 3.7 million in the country. Many lived there for decades and evacuated Afghanistan in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War, while others crossed the border in August 2021 to flee the Taliban after the group conquered power.
According to the United Nations, more than 800,000 Afghans in Pakistan are currently holding an Afghan citizens’ card. Another around 1.3 million are officially registered and have a separate proof of the residence card, which was issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is unclear how these owners would be affected.
Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghan researcher at the US Human Rights Watch, says that Afghan migrant-documented or non-fear of leaving their houses in Pakistan, after reports on arbitrary arrests and blackmails are available before a government period of March 31 to leave the country.
Pakistan announced the latest return plan for the first time in October 2023 after an in -depth economic crisis contributed to an increase in the mood against immigrants. The government also cited national security issues and accused many Afghans in the country to be able to get involved with terrorism. Finally, the tensions on the Afghanistan-Pakistani border led to clashes between their security forces and forced thousands to flee from their houses.
Since 2023, more than 800,000 Afghans have returned home in Pakistan or have been impossible, says the UN. Most of those who had returned quoted the fear of detention of the Pakistani authorities as a reason for leaving.
Masood Rahmati, an Afghan sports journalist, said HRW for the report that even Afghans who are registered with UNHCR or had valid stay cards were not safe.
Home attacks, blackmail in Pakistan reported
According to the report, the Pakistani police searched houses, beaten and arrested arbitrarily and confiscated refugee documents, including a residence permit.
Afghan refugees said that the authorities would bring them or their relatives to police stations and demand bribes to stay in the country.
HRW said that the forced returns, discontinuations and deportations of Afghans could mean violating Pakistan’s obligations as a party towards the UN Convention against Torture.
The organization has received reports on the arrest of Afghan children who went to school or at school as well as at workplaces and markets. The Pakistani authorities also allegedly torn families apart from the diversion.
“Even if only one family member lacks the necessary legal documents, the police can force all family members to leave or pass half of the family, while some, including children, stay in Pakistan,” it says.
“Representatives of the aid organization said that children under the age of 18 were left in Pakistan without their parents or were deported to Afghanistan alone.”
Calls to prevent reprisals against the return of Afghans
“Officials Pakistani civil servants should immediately stop forcing Afghans to return home and give those who are displacement to seek protection,” said Elaine Pearson, director of HRW Asia.
“The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan should reverse repressors against the return of Afghans and their misused guidelines against women and girls.”
More than 70 percent of the returning Afghans are women and children. According to the UN. This includes girls in secondary school age and women who no longer have access to education, since the Taliban girls visited the school’s school days in the 6th grade. The group has also excluded women from most areas of public life as part of the hard measures that they imposed after power in August 2021.
“My 13-year-old daughter went to school earlier and can’t go here,” said Noor Mohamad, who was deported to the province of Nimroz in Afghanistan, to HRW.
“It’s a very difficult life.”
The report states that more than 22 million people in Afghanistan – almost half of the population – needed emergency food aid and other help from January and an estimated 3.5 million children were “underneath”.
“The Afghan economic system collapsed. There is no health system,” said Abbasi.
Canada monitoring situation “exactly”
The organization asked countries to organize Afghan refugees, including Canada, the position that Afghanistan is unsure about returns.
“Countries that have undertaken to reset the endangered Afghans should react to the urgency of the situation in Pakistan and accelerate these cases,” said Pearson.
Kanada has taken more than 55,000 since August 2021 Afghan and is working on the processing of eligible applications that were primarily received as part of the various special Afghan special measures, said Rémi Larivière, a spokesman for immigration, refugees and Citizenship Canada, in a statement on CBC News on Tuesday.
Canada is closely monitoring the situation in Pakistan, he said, and is “actively involved in the resettlement of Afghans with the Pakistani government.
“IRCC communicates with customers because we are made aware of their change in the circumstances,” he said.
“A crisis of this size means that there will be more and more demand for new resettlement to Canada than we are able to do.”
