On 26 September 2023, the Ministry of the Interior of the Government of Pakistan issued the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan. According to the proposed plan, it is intended to “regulate the foreigners in Pakistan and to ensure that the foreigners staying illegally or overstaying their visa validity are deported back to their parent countries.” This…
By Dr Sanaa Alimia, Aga Khan University (International), Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations An estimated three to four million Afghans live in Pakistan, mainly in urban areas. These Afghans fall into different legal categories. This paper centres on Afghan registered refugees and undocumented migrants, who form the bulk of the Afghan population in…
By Dr Ceri Oeppen from the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, UK, and Professor Shahida Aman, Dr Ayub Jan and Professor Abdul Rauf, from the Department of Political Science, University of Peshawar The last 40-plus years have demonstrated the limitations of the traditional ‘three durable solutions’ to displacement for Afghans in Pakistan.1…
Pakistan has been hosting Afghan refugees for nearly four decades, with the first wave of refugees arriving in 1979, followed by subsequent influxes in 1992 and 2001. More than 4.4 million Afghans[1] sought refuge in Pakistan between 1979-2001[2], with over 3.2 million refugees in the country at the height of displacement. As a result, Pakistan…