‘We doubt your marriage’

By Malik Achakzai

What is home? Is it a place or a state of mind? For some it may be the country where they are born, for many it is the country where their family resides.

To 45-year-old Farida Siddiqi, home is Pakistan — the country where she lives with her husband and two children.

But the state does not recognise her as a citizen.

When she presented her nikahnama to Nadra officials to apply for a Pakistani identity card, she was looked at with suspicion.

“Dozens of female Afghan refugees fake a marriage in order to get a CNIC. We cannot process your request because we are not convinced your marriage is legitimate,” she was told.

Nadra provides CNICs to individuals who can provide documentary evidence that at least one parent is Pakistani.

No law in their favour

Citizenship for Afghan refugees and migrants, or their descendants has long been a contentious issue. According to the Pakistan Citizenship Act 1951, anyone born in Pakistan is a national by birth, except those whose parents are ‘aliens’ — someone “who is not citizen of Pakistan”.

Furthermore, Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, nor to its 1967 additional protocol. As such, according to the Pakistani government, it is not obligated to “facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees.”

Pakistan is not a signatory of the 1951 Convention Relating tothe Status of Refugees, nor to its 1967 additional protocol.

A Proof of Registration (PoR) card is issued to registered refugees, allowing them to stay as “Afghan citizen[s] temporarily residing in Pakistan”.

In the aftermath of the attacks on APS and Bacha Khan University by the Taliban, Afghan refugees, who are mostly Pashtun, came under fire and scrutiny. The now two-year-old National Action Plan, a blueprint for Pakistan’s anti-terrorism strategy, calls for “comprehensive policy … for registration of Afghan refugees”, raising distrust and suspicion.

Increasing uncertainty

More than registration, the government is keen on expelling refugees — a process initiated long before the APS attacks.

In 2010, the government formed the Afghan Management and Repatriation Strategy, and in 2012, the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees.

Working in tandem with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Afghan government, the goal of both these strategies was to slowly send refugees back to Afghanistan.

After the APS attack, the government sought to hasten the process and announced that the PoRs would expire in 2015 and all Afghan refugees would have to leave.

Soon, however, the government decided to extend the PoR until the end of 2016. And later another stay extension was given until March 2017.

‘How can I leave my children and husband behind, and move out of Pakistan?

By Sirajuddin and Abdur Rauf Yousafzai

Days of Pakistani women married to Afghan men, living in Pakistan, are rife with uncertainty. On another such day, many of these women stage a protest in Peshawar against the deportation of their husbands.

“Humara saath do Saddar Mian Nawaz Sharif, Khuda ke liyeh” [For God’s sake, support us Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif], reads one of the many placards they hold.

One of the women at the protest is Razia, a mother of six who is married to an Afghan refugee since 1992. After over 20 years of a happy marriage, the future of her marriage is now plunged in uncertainty.

While Razia refuses to move to Afghanistan, her husband does not have much choice in the matter. The crackdown against Afghan refugees in Pakistan means the family will have to split.

“I am Pakistani, my children are Pakistanis, they are born and raised here,” she tells Dawn.com.

“The higher ups are not listening to us,” she sighs.

Nausheen Bibi remembers in vivid detail the wretched day she lost her brother — a militia fighter battling USSR troops — when she was just three years old.

37 years later, the memory continues to make her shudder. Her only pleasant childhood memories are from the time her family managed to flee her troubled hometown of Kunduz for Pakistan.

And so began her life in Peshawar, where she lived with her family in the city’s Androon Shehr.

Years later, a young Pakistani man was in the area to meet his aunt, when he saw Nausheen — and surely she saw him. “He had a very attractive personality,” she says timidly. It was love at first sight.

With nervous glances, she says, “Mung dwanara raza wo [we both agreed on the marriage],” and so with their family’s consent the couple tied the knot.

They have three daughters and two sons. The oldest is in college; the youngest is four.

Nausheen’s children were born in Peshawar; her in-laws and husband are Pakistani — yet, she is not.

“I cannot even think about leaving Pakistan,” she says, “How can I leave my children and husband behind?”

“Do you think that my kids would get the kind of education and healthfacilities in Afghanistan that they do here?”

“The government cannot separate our family,” the mother says, embracing her youngest daughter.

She worries about what kind of future her children would have if they had to move to Afghanistan. “Do you think that my kids would get the kind of education and health facilities in Afghanistan that they do here?” she asks, further predicting that, “I do not see peace returning to the country in the next 50 years.”

Ironically, her Pakistani husband does not live in the country. He works in Saudi Arabia and sends back money to support his family.

To Nausheen, Pakistan and Afghanistan are both part of her identity, “I cannot differentiate between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was born there, but I flourished here.”

Temporary relief

During the winters the UNHCR has postponed the repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan.

According to an IMF report over 700,000 Afghans returned to their native country in 2016, mainly from Pakistan.

Approximately 4.2 million Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan voluntarily under the UNHCR-funded Voluntary Repatriation programme since 2002.

Speaking to AFP, a spokesperson for UNHCR said that some 1.34 million registered refugees still reside in Pakistan. She also estimated that the number of undocumented refugees living in the country is half a million.

This only gives way for more uncertainty amongst Afghans living in Pakistan. According to media reports, the repatriation would relaunch from Mar 1, 2017.

‘We paid a bribe to find out where our missing son is’

By Saher Baloch

Back in Karachi, another mother in distress is Bibi Gul. For the past eight months, she has been waiting for her son, Sanaullah, to get back to Jhunjhar Goth. On Jan 8, soon after midnight, six uniformed men barged inside their home and whisked him away, ignoring his family’s pleas.

The next morning his brother, Muhammad Abdullah, went to inquire about the ‘arrest’. The police officers at the Sohrab Goth police station did not have much to divulge. He was asked to speak to officers at the Sachal police station, which proved to be another dead end.

Eight months after he went missing, Sanaullah’s family was informed by the Sachal police station that an FIR (430/2016) dated Aug 14, 2016, was registered against him for being involved in “criminal activities”.

Sanaullah is now at the central jail; his family claims that he is innocent.

The family travelled from the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan to Pakistan around 2008. Being relatively recent migrants to Karachi, the father and son soon got jobs in a nearby madrasa; the former as a cook and the latter as a teacher.

Covering her face with her chador, Bibi Gul keeps a bundle of documents next to her in order to present as evidence to any officer or consulate member willing to listen.

“If I could, I would sell the house to get the money but I havenowhere else to go.”

“We have been to the police station, where we were charged Rs25,000 to divulge where he is. We have also been asked to get a lawyer, but he is demanding Rs150,000 to take up the case.”

With a gesture towards her husband, who is sitting in a corner of the small living room, she adds, “He earns Rs5,000. If I could, I would sell the house to get the money but I have nowhere else to go.”

Throughout the meeting, Bibi Gul clutches at her PoR card, claiming, “They picked my son despite his clean record. He is being unnecessarily detained and the case against him is false.”

There is nothing much she can do, she laments.