Afghans continue today to represent the world’s largest protracted refugee situation, with Pakistan and Iran still hosting some 2.5 million Afghan registered refugees, with equivalent numbers of unregistered refugees also expected to be present in both host countries. Some 75%…
It is unclear what impact NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan will have on the 1.6 million registered and estimated 1 million unregistered Afghans still residing in Pakistan. The voluntary return in safety and dignity of all Afghans has always been the…
There are an estimated 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees and one to two million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan. After 2001 the Government of Pakistan no longer recognised Afghans entering Pakistan as refugees, and these undocumented Afghans have no legal protection.…
While the key factors impeding return are well understood (security, economic opportunities and access to housing and basic services), there remain significant knowledge gaps relating to many social and personal aspects of the return and reintegration stages of the displacement…
In 2013, a severely disabled Afghan asylum seeker was returned to Afghanistan from the UK. He had claimed that the lack of adequate social care in Afghanistan for persons with disabilities would be severe enough to constitute inhuman or degrading…
Over the past decade, return migration to Afghanistan has changed from refugee repatriation to primarily people returning from labour and mixed migration flows. It can no longer be assumed that repatriating refugees are the most vulnerable in Afghanistan, and policies…
During the Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1989, over five million Afghans – including my immediate family – fled abroad. My parents settled in Canada in 1989 but, like many others, our family returns as regularly as possible…
Refugees returning ‘home’ are seen by the international community as the ultimate proof of peace and return to ‘normalcy’. Somewhat paradoxically, however, they are also seen as agents of change who can contribute to development and peace building. Returnees from…
Violence against women (VAW) is endemic in Afghanistan: from early and forced marriages to domestic violence, so-called honour killings, rape and dispossession. Although obtaining reliable data on violence against women remains difficult in the Afghan context, the findings of an…
Women in Afghanistan have been raped and sexually targeted during decades of conflict. Reports from national and international human rights and women’s rights organisations show that women and girls of every age, ethnic group and class have experienced sexual violence:…