- Afghan refugees await decision on citizenship
A recent announcement made by the Prime Minister Imran Khan has triggered a series of events amid reactions. Based on a humanitarian ground, when Khan expressed his desire to naturalise those Afghan and Bengali refugees who have been born and living in Pakistan for decades, in return, he received a backlash from opposition, a not so positive response from Afghanistan and a debate within the nation over the possible outcomes of the move. The case is yet to be settled.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Pakistan has the largest refugee population in the world, mostly made up of 2.7 million refugees from Afghanistan, whom Pakistan has continued to host for more than three decades. Many fled the Soviet invasion in 1979, while others came across the border due to violence and economic turmoil. According to UN, about 60 percent of the Afghan refugee population was born in Pakistan, which is about 1.5 million.
Khan’s proposal was opposed by Baloch nationalists but hailed by Pashtoons and some senior political leaders. Days after PM Imran Khan announced his intention to grant nationality to Afghans born in Pakistan, Afghanistan deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Zardasht Shams, told Arab News that “Afghan government policy is to repatriate our citizens in a gradual and graceful process. But expect Pakistan to extend their support during their stay till return”. Pakistan’s state minister for interior, Sheheryar Khan Afridi has already announced that a decision would be taken after a national consensus.
So what should be the decision? Pakistan’s citizenship act of 1951 guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the country. However, “bureaucratic hurdles, ethnic rivalries and the exception against children whose parents come from ‘alien’ or enemy nations has made it close to impossible for Afghan and Bengali refugees to secure their rights, along with the Pakistani passport they would bring”, as explained in an article in The Guardian. Bengali is the ethnicity of the second group of refugees living in Pakistan, who migrated mostly at the time of 1971 war, opting for Pakistan instead of the then newly created Bangladesh. Their plight and inhuman living conditions have often been raised by activists and is a topic to be discussed separately.
Khan’s proposal was opposed by Baloch nationalists but hailed by Pashtoons and some senior political leaders
On the other hand, Afghans are largely blamed for bringing in the drugs and weapon culture in the country. Many Pakistanis also regret the fact that the War Against Terror by United States has been imposed on Pakistan due to violent and unstable political conditions in Afghanistan, the ripple effect of which comes in the form of an economic burden of hosting refugees, with smuggling of foreign goods and illicit business of opium grown on Afghan land tagging along. Afghan refugees in Pakistan, even those who are yet to receive any documentation, are also illegally running several merchandises, solely for the purpose of survival.
But the lack of a legal status for these businesses mainly due to the absence of citizenship, documentation with limited rights or none of these for the Afghan merchants, results in the money invested and earned, remaining out of Pakistani economy. If this cash was deposited in bank accounts of Pakistan, it may bring a surprising addition to the money circulating in the country.
Even this, however, may be a relatively insignificant reason, when compared to the human side of the case. In a special report on Afghan refugees, a local publication The Herald reported that many of these Afghans are well integrated in Pakistan. “They have developed strong matrimonial relations and other family ties this side of the border. For all intents and purposes they are Pakistanis yet they maintain their links with their extended families in Afghanistan and often travel between the two countries, both for business trips and family engagements”.
In 1995, Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto while on a visit to Manila, had said “If Afghans want to cross the border, I do not stop them….most have families here”.
And while we debate whether it would be correct to uproot families and send children and even adults who were born and raised in Pakistan to a land unknown to them, on the basis of their ethnicity, the repatriation of Afghan refugees continues. Currently, the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan to their own country is also the largest in the world.
But UNHCR stresses the importance of sending the refugees back to Afghanistan in a “voluntary, gradual and dignified way”. A sudden massive influx of people will place immense pressures on both the resources and the service sector of Afghanistan, according to the Commission.
And amid reports that Pakistan is working on a plan for repatriating more than two million Afghan refugees in 2018, a US official has said “right now [situation in] Afghanistan is not conducive for large-scale, voluntary return of the refugees”.
All Afghan refugees living in Pakistan were to have returned home by 2009 but this deadline was extended to 2015 and later to December 2017 due to unfavourable political and economic circumstances in Afghanistan. In February this year, this deadline was extended again to June 2018. The federal Cabinet has now further extended the stay of the Afghan refugees until June 2019.
In conclusion, allow a slight digression. When both Bangladesh and Afghanistan put a brave performance in the recent Asia Cup tournament of cricket, in contrast to the shocking debacle by Pakistan, it provoked yet another argument to the debate, satirically. In one of the works of fiction printed in this very publication, a brilliantly cooked up story ‘reported’ Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) demanding to ‘at once’ grant citizenship to Afghanis and Bangladeshis born in Pakistan, as “we need players for the middle order and an extra opener, and these guys seem to be pretty good at that”!
Jokes apart, it would probably be of benefit to Pakistan economy as a whole if the Afghan refugees are encouraged for voluntary repatriation. However, the ones born in Pakistan have a right to claim citizenship. The sooner they are allowed to enter mainstream, the earlier all ills arising from their lack of participation would be removed. Their fate lies in the national consensus.