Afghans Going Home: A Welcome Resolution, or “Largest Unlawful Mass Forced Return of Refugees in Recent Time”?
The Torkhum border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, used as an entry and exit point for most refugees, closed during the winter and reopened on April 3. Within weeks, more than 4,000 Afghan refugees had departed Pakistan to move back home.
They are part of an exodus that last year saw over 300,000 registered Afghan refugees return home from Pakistan — the highest number of returnees in over a decade.
After more than 30 years of sheltering in Pakistan, the wave of returning Afghans might sound like a welcome resolution to one of the world’s longest-running refugee crises.
In fact, the repatriations have been sharply criticized by local human rights activists and by Human Rights Watch, which issued a scathing report in February calling the 2016 returns “the world’s largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times.” And, charged the report, “Pakistani authorities have made clear in public statements they want to see similar numbers return to Afghanistan in 2017.”
Though repatriation is considered an optimal resolution for refugees, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, says they must only return home voluntarily, in safety, and with dignity. And judging by the UN’s own assessment, much of Afghanistan remains far from safe for civilians. The 2016 annual report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan says “Conflict-related violence exacted a heavy toll on Afghanistan in 2016, with an overall deterioration in civilian protection and the highest total civilian casualties recorded since 2009 when UNAMA began systematic documentation of civilian casualties.”
Despite the UN assessment and the criticism from human rights activists, Pakistan appears unlikely to let up on efforts to get Afghans to go home. In recent months those efforts have included increased harassment of Afghan refugees by police, anti-Afghan statements made by political leaders, and constant threats to the refugees’ legal status in Pakistan. Pakistan also recently introduced a stricter border policy that makes movement in and out of the country more difficult for Afghan refugees.
Refugees say the message that their welcome has worn out is perhaps most evident in growing harassment by Pakistani military and police. The poor are particular targets, said Tahmin Ayubi, who was a student and Afghan refugee living in Pakistan until she and her family moved to Afghanistan five months ago. “We had a car so it was easier for us,” said Ayubi speaking over the phone. “But those who did not were often harassed by the police,” including demanding bribes, she said.
In its February report Human Rights Watch said that such actions amounted to forcible pressure to return, in violation of international protections that say refugees should only go home when they feel it is safe. The group criticized UNHCR for not actively protesting Pakistan’s actions.
“UNHCR failed to call for an end to coercive government practices, not once publicly stating that many returning refugees were primarily fleeing police abuses and fear of deportation,” the report said.
That assessment was rejected by Duniya Aslam Khan, UNHCR public information officer in Pakistan. Though “conditions for return are less than ideal,” she said, “UNHCR facilitates voluntary repatriation upon the request and fully informed decision of refugees.” The decision to return “is every refugee’s right and UNHCR’s mandate,” she said.
Afghan refugees entered Pakistan in three waves. The first one began after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. More refugees fled when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, and a third wave came in 2001, when the US attacked Afghanistan and the Taliban government was overthrown. UNHCR estimates that over the decades, more than 6 million Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan.
In 2002, after the fall of the Taliban government, UNHCR, Pakistan and the new Afghan government reached an agreement to begin the repatriation of Afghan refugees — which includes Afghans born in Pakistan to refugee parents. Under this agreement a census of Afghan refugees in Pakistan was done in 2005, and those counted were issued proof of registration cards, which were set to expire in 2009.
The cards do not give Afghan refugees a legal right to work. But they do grant legal status to remain in Pakistan and can be used to enroll in schools. Despite the initial 2009 expiration date, Pakistan has renewed the registration cards every six months, under pressure from UNHCR and the international community.
The short-term renewals have left the status of Afghan refugees in a state of constant uncertainty. And last year, new security measures at the Pakistani border crossing at Torkhum put new pressure on them. For years, Afghans refugees could travel home to visit family and return easily to Pakistan using their proof of registration cards. But starting last May, the cards no longer guaranteed return; instead, all Afghans now must present valid visas to enter Pakistan, which the refugees do not have.
That change forced refugees like Zakir Ikrami, who was born and raised in Pakistan, to make a decision: remain a refugee and never visit Afghan family members again, or return to a land he’d never lived in.
“They were refusing to let people go through the border without a passport. So if we went to Afghanistan, coming back to Pakistan would be very difficult for us,” said Ikrami, who, with his family, opted to leave for Afghanistan.
“We were happy in Pakistan,” said Ikrami, a graduate of Gandhara University in Peshawar. “There were educational opportunities and there was no war.”
In the year since he went to Afghanistan, Ikrami said he has been unable to find work.
“All the projects here have been stopped because of the war. Most areas are not peaceful,” he said.
The lack of economic opportunity has also been cited by Human Rights Watch as a criticism of the repatriation being facilitated by UNHCR. The group’s recent report says, “UNHCR was also aware that widespread insecurity and economic collapse in Afghanistan meant that returning refugees were, for the most part, unable to integrate into their home areas and other local communities and that vast numbers were becoming internally displaced persons.”
Some refugees educated in Pakistan find that their degrees are not accepted in Afghanistan. Ayubi, for example, said her Pakistani degrees in law and international relations couldn’t help her find a job.
“I don’t understand this rule. When we come back here, we have to take additional courses and study for a test that validates our degrees,’ she said.
The Afghans in Pakistan are what UNHCR describes as a protracted refugee situation, one that has gone on for years with no solution in sight. Over the years international attention and aid for the refugees has decreased.
Dwindling international attention and the Pakistani government’s unwillingness to naturalize Afghan refugees — or even to prolong their proof of registration cards — makes voluntary repatriation the only practical solution for Afghan refugees, said Khan, though she added that the refugee agency still supports those who choose to remain in Pakistan.
“Repatriation operations across the world operate in very difficult circumstances,” she said. “The complex dynamics and long-running refugee issue in Pakistan are no different.”
Pakistan’s impatience with the refugee population has grown more intense in recent years as politicians and others increasingly blame the Afghans for terrorism, said Marjoleine Zieck, a professor of international refugee law at the University of Amsterdam “There was always a perception in Pakistan that Afghan refugees brought in drugs and weapons into the country,” she said. “But it was not much of a problem” until the 2014 terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar, in which 154 children were killed.
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where most Afghan refugees live, and the government initially blamed the attack on Afghans. Though an investigation later proved that claim false, the perception of Afghan responsibility has lingered and was even mentioned in a 2014 National Action Plan on terrorism.
In February, the Pakistani cabinet introduced legislation that would again extend the validity of Afghan refugee registration cards, this time to the end of 2017. The proposed law also lays out a visa scheme for those Afghans who want to stay in the country beyond the end of this year. Visas would be issued to Afghans who have married Pakistani citizens, who work as businessmen or laborers, or who are studying in Pakistan.
The proposal hasn’t won final approval. But if it does, it could mean that in 2018 — nearly 40 years after the first Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan — Afghans in Pakistan will no longer be classified as refugees.
