Anum Hamid

Bakht Meena husband left for work on a fine morning and never returned. Ms Meena, 45, An Afghan living in Peshawar said that her husband disappearance left her taking care of two children, an eight years old boy and five years old girl.

“The children do not know whether their father is dead or alive,” she said. Ms Meena said that she does not want to return to Afghanistan for the safety of her children. “I am living a peaceful life here and my children can go out for schooling and playing,” she said.

Besides, some other refugee women, belonging to Eastern Afghanistan, now living in northern Pakistan are facing another fear. These women fear that armed groups would recruit their children as child soldiers, once they returned to Afghanistan.

One of the women demanded the Pakistan government to allow them the stay in the country so that their children are not forced to lose their innocence to war and violence.

“Once in Afghanistan, it will be impossible for us to defy Taliban and they forcibly enter our houses and murder our families,” she said.

Gul Bibi, another refugee girl told Al Jazeera TV that her brothers were used as suicide bombers in Afghanistan.

She said that school buildings there have always been a major target during the war in Afghanistan so it is impossible to get education there. “There is always the fear that children studying in schools might lose their lives.”

Refugees’ fear of returning to Afghanistan is based on the very high prevalence of violence in their home country.   According to the data compiled by the United Nations, 4804 non-combatants lose their lives in Afghanistan in 2019 alone. Another 8,199 were injured the same year. Similarly, Human Rights Watch said that at least 4,000 civilians were killed in attacks across Afghanistan in 2018. Overall, more than 42,000 civilians have been killed and 80,000 have been wounded in there in the last 20 years

A United Nations report released in June last year confirmed that many sides fighting in Afghanistan deploy young boys as soldiers. The report said that Afghan children who either drop out of school or have not attended any school at all, were asked to take part in military activities.

This problem is also reflected strongly in a report released in 2018 by the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF). It says that nearly 3.7 million children have never gone to school in Afghanistan and that more than half of them were young girls.

Healthcare situation is equally bad in Afghanistan. The World Health Organization said in a 2019 report that 264 healthcare centers in Afghanistan were forced to close because of the security problems.

Afghan women living in Pakistan, therefore, say they are not willing to leave Pakistan as their families are well-settled here and they are living in peace. They say their children were enrolled in schools and they were served by healthcare facilities that are much better than those in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s position as Afghanistan’s neighbor was never easy. The country had long struggled with the violent spillover of war in Afghanistan and the dangers of Talibanization within its borders.

The Afghanistan refugees living in any country are still waiting in anguish, for the world to recognize their unfortunate situation.

According to Else Berglund, a social services officer in UNHCR’s Peshawar sub-office much has changed. “In the beginning there were lots of funds which were spent without the idea of sustainability. Now, we have realized this and started many income-generating and self-reliance projects.”

A major achievement of UNHCR, the provincial government and NGOs in the refugee camps was the establishment of Basic Health Units (BHUs) which include outreach male and female health workers as well as trained birth attendants. Dependency is less apparent among these new refugees, probably because urban Afghans – including the women – tend to possess skills that can be more readily utilized in routine life.

Anum Hamid is a lecturer at the Iqra National university, Peshawar