Mr Steve Valdez-Symonds, Programme Director, Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International UK – written evidence (AFG0023)

Submission to the

International Relations and Defence Committee

The UK and Afghanistan

October 2020

Amnesty International UK is a national section of a global movement. Collectively, our vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.  Our mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of these rights. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.

For further information contact:

Steve Valdez-Symonds

Programme Director – Refugee and Migrant Rights

steve.valdez-symonds@amnesty.org.uk

Introduction:

1. In this submission, Amnesty International UK (AIUK) focuses on the following two matters:

1. Prospects that Afghan women, men and children forced to flee the country due to conflict and persecution will be able to safely return to Afghanistan

2. Perspectives on UK asylum policy and practice in relation to Afghan women, men and children, including recent developments.

2. We address these under distinct headings in this submission; and provide some short concluding observations at its end.

Prospects that Afghan women, men and children forced to flee the country due to conflict and persecution will be able to safely return to Afghanistan:

3. Conflict and persecution in Afghanistan remain the cause of one of the world’s largest and longest current forced displacements of people. Over several decades, the scale of the displacement has remained very high, though it has risen and fallen. Over the last few years, it has risen steadily year on year. The following table presents UNHCR data concerning the total number of Afghan women, men and children identified as of concern to that agency at the end of each of the last five years.[1] However, as explained below, this data significantly underestimates the scale of the displacement of people.

4. It is of particular note that not only is there a very large population of Afghan refugees – that is women, men and children forced to flee the country by conflict and persecution – but the country also hosts a very large population of people internally displaced, which population has more than doubled in only five years.

5. The scale and protracted nature of both this displacement of people and its causes clearly indicates that there are no immediate prospects of safe and sustainable returns for the vast majority of women, men and child who are refugees from Afghanistan. It is important to recall that the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979, which precipitated a massive displacement of refugees from the country, was more than four decades ago. Whereas the warring and governing parties in the country have changed over time, Afghanistan has throughout remained a place of instability, conflict and persecution. It remains one of the world’s least stable and poorest countries. It is clear, therefore, that the return of this country’s refugee diaspora would at this time and for the foreseeable future be neither safe for them nor sustainable for the country.

6. This would be the case quite apart from the coronavirus global pandemic. The World Food Programme (WFP) has provided written evidence to the Committee concerning the pandemic’s impact in Afghanistan including the following summary:[2]

“COVID-19 has hit Afghanistan at its weakest moment. Its economy, its infrastructure and its population have been worn ragged over a very long period by war and poverty. And, whilst the population is remarkably resilient, as the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator has said, ‘the cumulative impact of four decades living with constant stress and fear, trauma and injury, drought and floods, repeated displacement and crushing poverty is now taking a terrible toll’.”

7. As the WFP confirm, violence in the country remains high. Food insecurity is “alarmingly high”. The original estimates of women, men and children in the country living in acute humanitarian need have almost doubled for 2020 to a figure of 14 million people. The prospects for children born in the country were dire, even before the impact of the coronavirus. The country’s health facilities were already ill-equipped and overwhelmed before the pandemic.

8. Moreover, the forced displacement of Afghan women, men and children by conflict and persecution must be considered in its regional context. The overwhelming majority of refugees from Afghanistan are hosted by two neighbouring countries: Pakistan and Iran. UNHCR has relatively up to date data for the former. At 31 August 2020, the agency identified 1,422,588 Afghan refugees hosted by Pakistan.[3] The agency’s data for Iran is not equally up to date, providing a figure of 951,142 Afghan refugees hosted by that country at 5 February 2015. As with that referred to above, as explained below, this data significantly underestimates the number of Afghan people displaced to these two countries.

9. Pakistan and Iran are and have long been hosting refugee populations that far exceed most other countries. Nonetheless, the circumstances of many Afghan women, men and children in these countries is insecure. The governments of each have periodically threatened the Afghan government with the prospect of forced mass returns. Each has forcibly returned or pressured Afghans to return; and each country hosts a population of undocumented Afghan people that is either close to or exceeds the size of the documented Afghan refugee population hosted by the country.

10.                     In June 2019, to mark the fortieth year since the massive displacement of people caused by the Soviet invasion, Amnesty compiled a short briefing concerning Afghan refugees.[4] Drawing on our own research and data, and that from UNHCR and IOM amongst others, we identified an undocumented Afghan population in Pakistan of around 1 million people; and in Iran of around 1.5 to 2 million people. We drew attention to the around 350,000 Afghan women, men and children forcibly returned to the country from Pakistan in 2016; and over 750,000 Afghan women, men and children returned from Iran in 2018. In 2016, a joint report of UNHCR and the World Bank had warned:[5]

“Additional returns from Pakistan, Iran, or Europe are likely to result in further secondary displacement, unemployment and instability.”

11.                     That warning has lost none of its relevance. There is no safe and sustainable prospect for returns of Afghan refugees to the country in the foreseeable future. On the contrary, compelling people to return remains likely to exacerbate conditions of insecurity, instability and deprivation in the country and thereby risk renewed and increased displacement, both within and from the country, of people returned and of people living in the country now.

Perspectives on UK asylum policy and practice in relation to Afghan women, men and children, including recent developments:

12.                     Home Office data indicates that over the last decade, the number of asylum applications made by Afghan nationals in the UK has fluctuated between 1,000 (in 2012) and 2,332 (in 2016). Over this period, official analysis indicates a generally steady rise in the proportion of these claims that are successful at initial decision (i.e. the decision made by the Home Office); and of the proportion that are successful including after appeal. That analysis indicates the proportion of claims made in 2010 that were successful at initial decision to be 32% and indicates the equivalent figure for claims made in 2019 to be 60%. The respective figures for success of these claims when finally determined (i.e. including where there is an appeal) are indicated as 40% and 69%. Over this same period, the UK has resettled only a very small number of Afghan refugees, even having regard to the significant rise in resettlement over 2017-2019. The data concerning forced and voluntary returns of Afghans indicates a sharp decline of the former and steady decline of the latter over the period.[6]

13.                     Whereas the rise in the rate of recognition of the asylum rights of Afghan women, men and children in the UK is welcome, the data continues to indicate that a significant number of Afghan nationals are refused asylum. Whereas the number of people returned by the UK to Afghanistan is relatively small (in 2019, 47 people were forcibly returned to the country, all of whom were men; and 42 people were recorded as returning voluntarily, 2 of whom where women), Amnesty both questions the safety and sustainability of these returns and is concerned about the precarious situation of people who remain present in the UK but whose asylum claims are refused.

14.                     UK asylum policy must also be considered in a regional and global context.

15.                     In 2019, the UK received 1,573 asylum applications from Afghan nationals. In that same year, around 60,000 Afghan women, men and children sought asylum in the European Union. Over a third of these people sought asylum in Greece, with Germany and France receiving more than half of the remaining claimants. The number of applications for asylum awaiting a decision was significantly higher for Afghan nationals (more than 100,000) than for any other nationality. The number of asylum claims by unaccompanied children in Europe was markedly higher for Afghan nationals (nearly 5,000) than for any other nationality. Of these claims, 425 were made in the UK whereas around 25% were made in Greece. Recognition rates across European countries varied considerably. In Switzerland, 97% of asylum claims by Afghan nationals were granted. In Belgium, that figure was 32%.[7]

16.                     Whether in respect of asylum claims by Afghan women, men and children or in respect of asylum claims by all nationalities, the UK remains a modest recipient of claims among European countries. Moreover, Europe is itself a region that is host to only a relatively modest number of the world’s refugees. That is not merely so in relation to people forcibly displaced from Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Europe’s response to women, men and children forced to flee conflict and persecution in that country has been far from universally welcoming.[8] Amnesty is profoundly concerned that just as the UK sends a poor message to its European neighbours by its refusal to effectively share responsibility with them for providing asylum, and indeed by the increasingly bellicose posturing of the government towards people seeking asylum, so is a similar message sent by the UK and its European neighbours to often less stable and significantly poorer countries host to much larger populations of refugees. These concerns certainly apply in relation to people forcibly displaced from Afghanistan.

17.                     The message that is sent can only risk encouragement to others to renege on their own obligations to provide asylum to people forced to flee conflict and persecution. In turn, that can only exacerbate the need for more people to move ever further in search of safety and security.

Concluding observations:

18.                     In conclusion, we observe that save for those who exploit the insecurity, degradation and deprivation suffered by people who have been forced to flee their home in search of safety – whether that is exploitation for financial or political gain – none of what we describe here is to the benefit of anyone. As we have summarised in this submission, in relation to Afghanistan, it sustains:

1. the insecurity and suffering of Afghan women, men and children;
2. the widespread instability and deprivation in Afghanistan;
3. the need for some Afghan refugees to move (often by means that are unsanctioned, unmanaged and unsafe) across several borders in search of safety and security; and
4. the general failure among the international community to share responsibility for providing asylum that is at the root of this.

19.                     We note that the Committee is also considering the peace agreement signed between the US and Taliban in February and the prospects for its implementation and impact. We offer the following two short observations upon these matters:

1. The prospects for women and girls, and religious and ethnic minorities, in Afghanistan in the event of extended influence of the Taliban are deeply concerning. The Taliban’s human rights record in relation to women, girls and minorities is especially appalling; and there is no indication that the Taliban’s determination to repress and deny rights including of religious and cultural expression and identity and equal rights of women and girls is diminished.

2. As regards the current situation, the peace agreement appears to have emboldened the Taliban while increasing their political influence. Whereas there is a reduction in civilian casualties from airstrikes by international forces, insecurity and violence are otherwise unabated. That violence includes deliberate attacks on civilian targets such as the killing of foetuses in utero and new and pregnant mothers in an attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul in May.[9]

3. Intimidation, harassment, threats and violence against human rights defenders in Afghanistan have intensified. In July 2020, Amnesty issued an urgent action concerning this.[10] Attacks on human rights defenders come from both the authorities and armed groups. The persistence and intensification of these attacks is itself strong indication that the peace agreement has not improved the prospects for women and girls, religious and ethnic minorities and other persons such as those who may be perceived, whether accurately or not, to be associated, whether specifically or generally, with political, religious or cultural opposition to any armed group or government authority.

Received 21 October 2020