Displaced humanity

Ever since the first influx of Afghans after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan has scapegoated the refugees for bringing guns, drugs and crimes to the country. The scapegoating was always morally dubious because of the subsequent role Pakistan played in the Afghan jihad. In recent years, the campaign against Afghan refugees has only been stepped up as terrorism, kidnapping and extortion has been added to their list of alleged crimes. This, too, has turned out to be a pernicious myth. According to data made available under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Act, from 2014-2016 just over one percent of all major crime prosecutions involved Afghan refugees. This number, which is proportionate to the population of refugees in the province, shows that blaming Afghans for a spike in crime is spurred either by discriminatory attitudes or a way to explain away the failure of the government in bringing law and order to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The supposed criminality of the refugees is used as an excuse to kick them out of Pakistan and back to a war-torn country but now that we know that the propaganda against them is not based on fact we should rethink our treatment of a population that has only known Pakistan as home for many years.

Using refugees as a political tool isn’t limited to Pakistan. After Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in 2014, about 2000 families had fled to Afghanistan from North Waziristan. The Afghan government put the number at 200,000 — an inflated number that represents more than 50 percent of the total population of North Waziristan. Most of the refugees moved to the Patiala and Khost regions of Afghanistan and were subject to constant harassment. Now, they are being repatriated to North Waziristan, with the first 200 families moving back this month. It is now our duty to ensure their homes are rebuilt and that they can get on with their lives. Our complaints about how Afghanistan has treated the refugees, who were forced to register and return to Pakistan even though many were reluctant to do so, ring hollow when we are trying to do the same to the Afghan refugee population which has settled here. Both countries need to stop using refugees as pawns in their fight against each other and realise that they have been displaced because of the very governments that now try to tar them all as criminals.