In 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan government. Since then, around 250,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan. Pakistan has begun detaining and arresting refugees, and on Saturday, they deported 302 people back to Afghanistan. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan is increasingly dangerous for women and girls. Pakistan has not adopted the UN’s Refugee Convention 1951, a piece of legislation meant to provide guidelines on the adoption of refugees fleeing serious harm. Individuals seeking asylum being sent back to Afghanistan is a human rights violation. One woman said, “It’s the worst place on Earth to be in for a woman, right now,”. UN officials are working to resettle especially vulnerable refugees, specifically women and children.
After the Taliban regained control of the Afghan government, more should have been done to protect women and children refugees– to let them fend for themselves in countries that seem to not want them to exist is cruel and unusual. Pakistan was a U.S. ally in the “war on terrorism” and receives large sums of U.S. aid. Pakistan receiving the largest number of Afghani refugees has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world; the U.S. has provided almost $60 million in aid. With this money, it seems that Pakistan should not resort to sending refugees back to a country where they will face extreme danger. Additionally, Pakistan’s failure to adopt the UN’s Refugee Convention could be met with sanctions or more condemnation.
This relates to what we’re doing in class because the Middle East is a shatterbelt. Additionally, it is not in Pakistan’s self-interest to home thousands of refugees while their own country is unstable