Legalised stay: Govt considers granting work permits to refugees

Option under study following Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD:

The government is considering issuing work permits to Afghan refugees after expiry of their ‘Proof of Registration’ cards by the end of 2015 – interpreted by analysts as a move to legalise millions of immigrants in Pakistan.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is looking at two possible options: either to grant citizenship or to issue work permits to 1.6 million refugees. The options were floated in the wake of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s tour to the country.

“Refugees’ repatriation trend remains very poor due to uncertainty in Afghanistan – so we are considering giving them work permits,” said Chief Commissioner Afghan Refugees Dr Ahmed Zaib, while briefing a Senate Panel last week.



Afghan refugees are not allowed to work in Pakistan which hosts 74% of globally acknowledged refugees since 1979.

Pakistan wants to follow Iran’s policy on immigrants’ issue by minimising the negative impact of Afghan refugees on our economic and security environment, Dr Ahmed Zaib explained. “We’ll have to build consensus on adoption of a ‘national refugee law’,” he argued.

Effective border control and management system is another necessary exercise to resolve all such issues, he added. Though international donors have pledged to donate millions of dollars, but unfortunately Pakistan is still waiting for $600 million in funds, he said.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Senator Fateh Hasni, who is looking after issues related to foreigners living in Pakistan, said there is no harm if the government gives work permits to them.

“Grant citizenship or work permits to them [immigrants] —no problem to this country. But yes we want them [all aliens] to get themselves registered first,” he observed.

Last month, Federal Minister for States and Frontier regions Lt. General (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch also informed the lawmakers in a committee meeting that the government is working on a new policy to permanently resolve the issue of Afghan refugees.

Only 8, 758 families left for Afghanistan in the past two years, revealed working papers submitted to a Senate panel, which discussed issue of immigrants. More than one million Afghan refugees have yet to get themselves registered, the paper revealed.

Currently, 996, 847 Afghans live in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa, 323, 472 in Balochistan, 178, 441 in Punjab, 65, 855 in Sindh, 33, 992 in Islamabad and 6, 437 are living in 41 refugees camps in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the document said.

Islamabad, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, facilitated the voluntary repatriation of 3.8 million Afghans since March 2002.

An Afghan refugee, Abdul Waheed Jalalzai, said his family will be glad if government issues work permit by adopting its own drafted national refugees laws.

Jalazai, whose father migrated in 1991, said they do not want to be a burden on their host country. “Trust us, we are law-abiding citizens and want to earn our livelihood honourably,” he said.

Professor Nasreen Ghufran, who teaches international relations at University of Peshawar, said that Afghan refugees’ protracted stay has created an overall burden on the fragile economy of Pakistan given the donors’ fatigue.

As refugees, however, found new ways to exist and earn their livelihoods, she said, there is no harm to let them work under a prescribed legal cover.

Aimal Khan, an expert on Afghan refugees, said it is perhaps the best meditative policy by the Pakistani government, which is now going to create a legal framework for Afghan refugees.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2014.