More than 50 prominent female Afghan women’s rights activists sheltering in Pakistan are facing deportation home, where they fear they will be imprisoned or killed under Taliban rule.
Under a draconian policy, the Pakistan government has pledged to deport millions of Afghan nationals, after relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan severely deteriorated and attacks by militants in the border areas surged.
Pakistan government ministers have accused Afghans of being “terrorists” and “traitors” who are fuelling crime and militancy in the country.
Pakistan began deportations of Afghan refugees in September 2023. According to a recent report by Amnesty International, so far at least 844,499 Afghan nationals have been forcibly deported back to Afghanistan where they are at “real risk of persecution by the Taliban”.
Among those facing the threat of returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are 60 female activists and human rights defenders, who fled persecution after they spoke out for women’s rights and education or attended protests. Many have been forced into hiding in recent weeks, as police have been going door-to-door in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, arbitrarily arresting any Afghans and allegedly demanding huge bribes.
Humaira Alim worked as a women’s rights and education activist in Afghanistan for seven years before the Taliban came back to power in 2021. After women were deprived of the right to work and then attend university under the group’s strict Islamic rule, she was among a group of women who defied the Taliban and helped organise protests on the streets.
But after facing “dire warnings” and then direct threats to her life from the Taliban for her activism when pregnant with her first child, Alim said she had “no choice” but to flee over the border to Pakistan in December 2022.
She has stayed in Islamabad ever since, living with her two young children on a visa that has been given monthly. Alim described her situation as an “awful nightmare”, as all Afghan nationals – even those who had lived in Pakistan for decades – were now facing routine persecution and harassment from the police. She and her children were recently forced to hide on the roof of their home as officers came looking for them.
“If they send me back to Afghanistan, it only means death,” she said. “The Taliban have records on me and my activism. There is no place for women like me. They only arrest and torture us. I can’t go back there with my children.”
Alim said she knew dozens of other Afghan women like her, who had worked as activists, lawyers and human rights defenders and faced harassment or torture at the hands of the Taliban, who were now in hiding in Pakistan.
Liliana Harrington, senior campaigner for Avaaz, an organisation that has been advocating for the women, said: “Deporting these people to the Taliban is a death sentence. Pakistan would not only abandon these brave people to their oppressors but also abandon its proud legacy of protecting vulnerable Afghans.”
The Pakistan government has given all undocumented Afghan nationals a deadline of 31 March to leave the country, otherwise they will be arrested. Alim said she and other female activists were just asking for more time, to find a third country who might be able to offer them asylum. Currently, they are waiting to see if they get an offer from Brazil or if other countries will offer them a safe haven.
The widespread expulsion drew condemnation from Isabelle Lassee, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for south Asia. “The Pakistani authorities are violating the rights of Afghan refugees with impunity, subjecting them to arbitrary decisions that are shrouded in secrecy, totally lacking transparency and accountability,” she said.
