Forced Deportation of Afghans, Gross Human Rights Violation
United Nations experts have described the forced deportation of Afghans from Iran, Pakistan, Germany and other countries as a gross violation of human rights.
United Nations experts issued a warning statement last Friday, July 18, regarding the deportation of Afghans from various countries to Afghanistan. The statement referred to the deportation of approximately 1.9 million Afghans in just the first six months of the current year (2025).
Of the 1.9 million Afghans, approximately 1.5 million have been deported from Iran and more than 300,000 from Pakistan. In the statement, experts pointed to discriminatory treatment and arbitrary detention in host countries, and expressed concern and criticism regarding the suspension of resettlement programs.
The statement emphasized: “No state should ignore these real dangers in Afghanistan; doing so would constitute an abandonment of states’ moral and legal responsibility.” The experts called on countries that have deported Afghans to halt the deportations and, while creating safe pathways for migrants, provide greater protection for vulnerable individuals, particularly women.
They also called for increased avenues for resettlement and other legal options for transferring Afghans to third countries and facilitating the departure of Afghans from host countries. UN experts also warned that Taliban restrictions on women’s work have made humanitarian assistance more difficult.
Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “The forced and mass deportations of Afghan migrants from Iran and Pakistan create a multi-layered human rights crisis that must be stopped immediately.” He also warned that deporting migrants to Afghanistan under Taliban rule, which exposes them to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, violates the fundamental principle of international law against forcible return.
Volker Türk emphasized that migrants have the right to raise such threats and governments must fairly examine these threats and claims before deportation.
