Rights watchdog calls on Pakistan to ‘immediately stop’ forced deportations of Afghan refugees

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday called on Pakistan to immediately stop forcing Afghan refugees to return home where they struggle to survive amid Afghanistan’s soaring unemployment, broken healthcare system, and dwindling foreign assistance.

In their latest report, HRW slammed Pakistan for having stepped up pressure on Afghan refugees and using “intensified abusive tactics” to get them to leave the country.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said:.“The Taliban (Islamic Emirate) authorities in Afghanistan should prevent any reprisals against returning Afghans and reverse their abusive policies against women and girls.”

The organization stated that the human rights situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate over the past three years

On January 31, 2025, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior announced that Afghans without official residence documents, along with holders of Afghan Citizen Cards, must leave the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi or face deportation. Afghans holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards must leave by June 30.

A previous wave of deportations and expulsions, from September 2023 through January 2024, drove over 800,000 Afghans – many born in Pakistan or living there for decades – to Afghanistan. Since November 2024, Pakistani authorities have renewed pressure to expel Afghans. More than 70 percent of those returning have been women and children, including girls of secondary school age and women who will no longer have access to education.

HRW stated that Pakistani police have raided houses, beat and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits.

They have demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan. The United Nations reported that most Afghans who have returned to Afghanistan have cited fear of detention by Pakistani authorities as the reason they left.

HRW stated that many of these refugees are at risk of persecution if they return – including the former government’s security forces.

“Human Rights Watch and the UN have documented extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, and torture and other ill-treatment of people affiliated with the former government’s military and police forces, some of whom had returned to Afghanistan after first seeking refuge in Pakistan,” the report read.

Returning refugees meanwhile have generally had to abandon property and savings in Pakistan, and have few livelihood opportunities or little land in Afghanistan.

HRW also stated that Pakistan’s coerced returns, expulsions and deportations of Afghans may amount to violations of Pakistan’s obligations as a party to the UN Convention Against Torture and the customary international law principle prohibiting refoulement, or forced return to a place where they would face a genuine risk of persecution, torture or other ill-treatment, or a threat to their life.

Germany and other countries have also put Afghans at risk by deporting them to Afghanistan, the HRW report stated.

“Afghanistan is not safe for any forced refugee returns,” Pearson said, “Countries that pledged to resettle at-risk Afghans should respond to the urgency of the situation in Pakistan and expedite those cases.”

As of the start of 2025, Afghans were one of the world’s largest refugee populations, numbering 6.4 million. Many Afghan refugees in Pakistan have lived there since the war in Afghanistan began in 1978. Continuing instability, including the takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, have driven 1.6 million more Afghans to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.