|
ISLAM QALA, 30 April 2007 (IRIN) - The family
of Nezamuddin Mohammadi in the Iranian capital, Tehran, does not know that their
only breadwinner has been deported to Afghanistan.
“I was arrested at
work and confined for two nights in a dark cell,” Mohammadi told IRIN on Sunday
in the Afghan border district of Islam Qala where deportees from Iran were
taken.
“I have no news of my family, and my wife and children don’t
know where I am either,” said the father of two who did not have a work permit
for his job as a foreman in Tehran.
A queue of deported Afghans in Islam Qala
Photo: Khalid Nahiz/IRIN
The Iranian government has recently stepped up efforts to expel Afghan
labour migrants and numerous other Afghans who reside in Iran without formal
permits.
“After consultation with the Afghanistan government and the UN,
we have decided to deport all illegal Afghan workers and emigrants from Iran,”
said Mohsin Hashimi, an official at the Embassy of Iran in the Afghan capital,
Kabul.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said about
30,000 Afghan refugees, including women and children, had been sent home from
Iran in the past week alone, Reuters reported.
Afghan officials have
called on their Iranian counterparts to adopt a gradual approach in the
deportation of illegal Afghan migrants in Iran. “It is impossible for us to
integrate thousands of deported young men in Afghanistan over a short period of
time,” Shojauddin Shoja, an adviser to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugee
Affairs, said.
It is unclear how many Afghans live and work in Iran
without formal documentation. Iran says around one million Afghans living there
have illegally entered and will be sent home. However, some 900,000 Afghans have
refugee identity cards, which legalise their stay in the host country.
Unregistered Afghans in neighbouring Iran
and Pakistan do not have refugee status and thus do not qualify for UNHCR’s
legal and humanitarian assistance, the UN refugee body said.
“Only the
900,000 Afghans who have refugee identity cards in Iran are our concern. Those
who live or work illegally are not eligible for UNHCR’s protection and
assistance,” said Abdul Basir Mohmand, a UNHCR official in the western Afghan
province of Herat.
The UN refugee agency has urged the governments of
Iran and Afghanistan to find a viable mechanism to solve the problem of Afghans
informally working and living in Iran.
Human rights said
violated
Many deportees accuse Iranian security police of
ill-treatment.
“During my 48-hour detention I was given no food,” said a
young Afghan deportee who accused the Iranian police of having robbed him.
Another deported man showed his stained shirt and
said, “they [Iranian security forces] kept on punching and kicking me in the
face and head while I was bleeding”.
Afghans deported from Iran cross
the border into Afghanistan
Photo: Khalid Nahiz/IRIN
However, an Iranian diplomat in Kabul denied all charges of wrongdoing
by his country’s security forces. “Afghan media have exaggerated the reports of
disputes between Iranian police and illegal refugees,” said Hashimi of the
Iranian embassy in Kabul.
Earnings gap
Facing
various socio-economic problems, Afghan workers, for decades, have searched for
employment opportunities in neighbouring countries, primarily Iran and Pakistan.
Cheap and hard-working Afghan workers are often hired in these two
countries without a formal contractual agreement, analysts and aid workers say.
However, the simple economics of the earnings gap is likely to continue
to fuel labour migration from Afghanistan, analysts say. An unskilled Afghan
worker can earn US $1-3 per day in Afghanistan, but can get $7-9 per day in
Iran, according to a 2005 research study by the Afghanistan Research and
Evaluation Unit (AREU), a local think-tank.
“I will get a passport and
an Iranian visa and will go back to Iran for work,” a deported Afghan
said.
The above article comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2007
... Payvand News - 5/2/07 ...
... Payvand News - 5/2/07 ... --
|
