Three years since the Taliban took over, Afghans are now farther cut off from the rest of the world. While Afghanistan has been aid-dependent, post-Takeover sanctions slashed [aid] for the country practically overnight. Sanctions weakened the banking sector. With the de facto authorities unable to produce passports, people cannot travel – let alone seek refuge in and migrate to a different country.
Particularly most affected are the women and girls, who face worse restrictions than ever. Since the takeover, they have been barred from attaining education and employment; and from working with NGOs and UN agencies in the country, which highly impacts the delivery of humanitarian aid and services. Collectively, this means half of the population cannot contribute to the country’s socio-economic development. Globally, this makes Afghanistan the only country that denies women the right to education and work, significantly harming its foreign relations and its international standing.
Both the UN and Human Rights Watch, along with media and civil society, raised the alarms on this.
Push factors that drive Afghans to leave have worsened, more than in the last 40 years of continuous struggle for survival and safety. From their previous traditional routes of Pakistan and Iran (where they now face mass deportation and forced return), many Afghans are seeking refuge in the US, Australia, or Europe – especially the former employees of international organisations who face(d) risks of retaliation from the Taliban. Natural disasters exacerbate the situation of over 23.7 million Afghans in one of the world’s most critical humanitarian crises.
Changing needs and agile response
Back in 2018, ICMPD's Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs) started to raise awareness on [potential] migrants’ options for regular migration, labour migration and remittances, their rights, the risks of irregular migration, smuggling of migrants and human trafficking; and support the reintegration processes for returnees. The MRCs have been a platform for ICMPD to respond to the challenging migration landscape for Afghans – both from within and out of their country – by keeping them safe from human smugglers and trafficking syndicates.
After the 2021 Takeover, however, the MRCs in Afghanistan had to innovate: they transitioned to a virtual set-up, operating across Europe and from as far as North America, allowing their counsellors and MRC Coordinator to provide service and advice through time zones. More importantly, this also became an opportunity to fine-tune their services to include support on resettlement programmes, humanitarian admissions schemes, and complementary pathways.
Each month they reach a million Afghans in different geographies to raise awareness and provide counselling services to over 2,000 people through social media and messaging platforms; mostly on resettlement and community sponsorship programmes, and complementary pathways for education and employment opportunities. By 2022, the Afghanistan virtual MRC became a member of the European Union Agency for Asylum’s Experts Platform on Regular and Safe Pathways, in which it supported coordination mechanisms among EU Member States on their asylum and protection pledges for Afghans.
In the last two years, virtual MRC counsellors have supported Afghan women to receive scholarship opportunities in Iran, Pakistan, and Spain. By providing online soft skills training and lobbying for the education of Afghan women, the virtual MRCs also continue to work with counterparts in Australia, Germany, Iran, Pakistan, Portugal, and Spain to identify further opportunities for regular and safe pathways for [Afghan] women who wish to pursue higher education in the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan or beyond the region.
Ways forward, one step at a time
Growing up for most of my life in Afghanistan, I admit there is no one-formula-solution to the current situation in the country. We have witnessed winter non-food items distribution in summer, funding of the NGOs from other fields to work in the humanitarian sector without due diligence of their on- ground infrastructure and human resources, or delivery of poor-quality infrastructure.
The World Bank’s Afghanistan Welfare Monitoring Survey reported in October 2023 that the main issues Afghans face are food insecurity, financial poverty, access to labour market, education, and access to health care services. If we can deconstruct the “one big problem” into pieces, and if we can include the voice of local Afghans on their needs, I believe we can more effectively address the string of issues, one step at a time, beginning with one vital player in the society: Afghan women.
Meanwhile, the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice that Afghan women are themselves subject to persecution by the Taliban opens more doors to legal and complimentary pathways for them to access education and employment opportunities.
For us working for the MRCs, our thrust for supporting (potential) migrants and women transitioning into these different pathways, is just one solution for one specific sector – for now – and might not address all their needs immediately. But it is a step forward.
However, if the international community and regional and global actors working in/for Afghanistan sustains the efforts to uplift this half of the country’s population, we are empowering them to be productive contributors to economic growth and nation-building. We amplify the ripple-effect of positive changes that can lead to better domestic and foreign policy which, ultimately, can bridge the deep divide that women, and Afghans in general, have been forced in not just on the last three years, but for decades.
Samim Ahmadi, Project Manager
ICMPD Silk Routes Region
To learn more from Samim on the virtual MRC for Afghanistan, listen to his recent discussion in ICMPD’s The Migration Podcast.