Afghans in Pakistan face ‘intensified abusive tactics,’ report says, as deportation deadline looms

A new report says that Afghan refugees are facing “intensified abusive tactics” in Pakistan amid ongoing pressure for deportation of illegal foreigners and Afghan citizen card holders.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) sounded the alarm in a report published Wednesday. The non-governmental organization called on the international community to prevent the deportation of people back to Afghanistan, where they risk persecution by the Taliban, while also highlighting reports of human rights abuses in Pakistan.

“Afghanistan is not a safe country,” said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher with HRW. “If you’re a female protester right now in Pakistan, on the 31st of March, there’s a chance that you could be deported or forced to return to Afghanistan.”

Abbasi said HRW has documented cases of women’s rights advocates in Afghanistan being arbitrarily detained and tortured by the Taliban. The NGO has also heard reports of women who were killed or disappeared under the regime. 

“The risk is really high, and I’m really hoping that the international community takes concrete actions to make sure that at-risk Afghans are not deported back.”

Human rights advocates, journalists and former government personnel are at particular risk, the report says.

It also cited dire economic conditions: All of those deported would struggle to survive, it said, amid Afghanistan’s “soaring unemployment, broken health-care system and dwindling foreign assistance.”

Pakistan to deport all undocumented Afghans after March 31

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry called on all “illegal foreigners” and Afghan citizen card holders to leave the country by March 31. Those who remain will be deported starting April 1, it said.

Afghans represent the majority of Pakistan’s foreign population; the United Nations (UN) estimates there are 3.7 million in the country. Many have lived there for decades, having 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 seized power. 

More than 800,000 Afghans in Pakistan currently hold an Afghan citizen card, according to the UN. Another roughly 1.3 million are formally registered and hold a separate proof of residence card, issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is unclear how those holders would be affected.

Pakistan first announced the latest repatriation plan in October 2023, after a deepening economic crisis has contributed to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. Its government also cited national security issues and accused many Afghans in the country of being involved with terrorism. Most recently, tensions at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border resulted in clashes between their security forces, forcing thousands to flee their homes.

Since 2023, more than 800,000 Afghans in Pakistan have returned home or have been forcibly expelled, the UN says. Most of those who returned cited fear of detention by Pakistani authorities as their reason for leaving, according to a UN report from that year. 

Masood Rahmati, an Afghan sports journalist, told HRW for the report that even Afghans who are registered with the UNHCR or who had valid residence cards were not safe. 

House raids, extortion reported in Pakistan

According to the report, Pakistani police have raided houses, beat and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. 

Afghan refugees said authorities would take them or their relatives to police stations and demand bribes to allow them to remain in the country. 

HRW said that the coerced returns, expulsions and deportations of Afghans could amount to violations of Pakistan’s obligations as a party to the UN Convention Against Torture.

The organization says it has received reports of police arresting Afghan children walking to school, or who were at school, and at workplaces and markets. Pakistani authorities have also allegedly ripped families apart through the expulsions.

“Even when just one family member lacks the necessary legal documentation, the police may force all family members to leave, or expel half the family while some, including children, stay in Pakistan,” it said. 

“Aid organization representatives said that children under 18 have been left in Pakistan without their parents or deported on their own to Afghanistan.”

Calls to prevent any reprisals against returning Afghans

“Pakistani officials should immediately stop coercing Afghans to return home and give those facing expulsion the opportunity to seek protection,” said HRW Asia director Elaine Pearson.

“The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan should prevent any reprisals against returning Afghans and reverse their abusive policies against women and girls.”

More than 70 per cent of returning Afghans are women and children, according to the UN. That includes girls of secondary school age and women who will no longer have access to education, due to the Taliban banning girls from attending school past Grade 6. The group has also barred women from most areas of public life, as part of harsh measures it imposed after taking power in August 2021.

“My 13-year-old daughter used to go to school and can’t go here,” Noor Mohamad, who was deported to Nimroz province in Afghanistan, told HRW.

“It’s a very difficult life.”

The report said that more than 22 million people in Afghanistan — almost half the population — required emergency food aid and other assistance, as of January, and an estimated 3.5 million children were “acutely malnourished.”

“The Afghanistan economy system has collapsed.… There is no health-care system,” Abbasi said.

Canada monitoring situation ‘closely’

The organization called on countries hosting Afghan refugees, including Canada, to maintain the position that Afghanistan is unsafe for returns. 

“Countries that pledged to resettle at-risk Afghans should respond to the urgency of the situation in Pakistan and expedite those cases,” Pearson said.

Since August 2021, Canada has taken in more than 55,000 Afghans and is working on processing eligible applications received under the various Afghan special measures on a priority basis, said Rémi Larivière, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in a statement to CBC News on Tuesday.

Canada is monitoring the situation in Pakistan closely, he said, and is “actively engaging” with the Pakistani government on resettling Afghans.

“IRCC is communicating with clients as we are made aware of their change in circumstances,” he said.

“A crisis of this magnitude means that there will always be more demand for resettlement to Canada than we are able to provide.”