What are they doing here? - Police Abuses Against Afghans in Pakistan - Human Rights Watch

Pakistan has long been host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world. The 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees and 1 million undocumented Afghans that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates were living in Pakistan as of November 2015 include many who fled conflict and repression in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and early 1980s, or their descendants. Some arrived as children, grew up in Pakistan, married and had children of their own who have never lived in Afghanistan. Thirty-five years later, the situation for Afghans residing in Pakistan is increasingly precarious. Unwanted in Pakistan, where they face increasing abuse by the police, many are unwilling to return to Afghanistan due to insecurity and the lack of any means of livelihood.

Hostility towards Afghans living in Pakistan is not new, but it increased dramatically after the so-called Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, killing 145 people, including 132 children. Since then, Pakistani police have carried out raids on Afghan settlements, detained, harassed, and beaten Afghan men, extorted bribes, and demolished Afghan homes. Every Afghan interviewed by Human Rights Watch who had returned to Afghanistan said that fear of the police was the reason they had done so. Afghans remaining in Pakistan described a repeated pattern of arbitrary detention, extortion, and intimidation. Both registered and undocumented Afghans have been the victims of Pakistani police abuse.

This pattern of widespread threats and abuse is occurring against a backdrop of increasing insecurity and a faltering economy in Afghanistan, which has driven thousands of Afghans to leave the country in 2015 as they seek security and livelihood abroad. - Read More at HRW

“What Are You Doing Here?” | Human Rights Watch

Pakistan: Police Abusing Afghans | Human Rights Watch