The plight of Afghan migrants and asylum seekers in deportation procedures across the globe has received renewed attention since U.S. and other international military forces completed their evacuations from the country in August 2021, effectively ceding control of the country to the Taliban. In recognition of the vulnerabilities these people would face back in Afghanistan, […]
Afghanistan: Covid-19 and Detention
As of 28 May, Afghanistan had reported 13,036 cases of Covid-19 and 235 deaths related to the disease. As previously reported (See the 30 April Sweden update), the Afghan Ministry for Refugees wrote an open letter on 18 March 2020 to European countries requesting that they halt all deportations to Afghanistan due to the Covid-19 […]
Last updated: September 2021
DETENTION STATISTICS
DETENTION CAPACITY
ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION
ADDITIONAL ENFORCEMENT DATA
PRISON DATA
POPULATION DATA
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DATA & POLLS
LEGAL & REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
Does the Country Have Specific Laws that Provide for Migration-Related Detention?
GROUNDS FOR DETENTION
LENGTH OF DETENTION
DETENTION INSTITUTIONS
PROCEDURAL STANDARDS & SAFEGUARDS
COSTS & OUTSOURCING
COVID-19 DATA
TRANSPARENCY
MONITORING
NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING BODIES
NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISMS (OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE)
GOVERNMENTAL MONITORING BODIES
INTERNATIONAL TREATIES & TREATY BODIES
International Treaties Ratified
Ratification Year
Observation Date
OPCAT, Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
2018
2018
CTOCSP, Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
2017
2018
CTOCTP, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children
2014
2014
CAT, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
1987
1987
Ratio of relevant international treaties ratified
Ratio: 13/19
Relevant Recommendations or Observations Issued by Treaty Bodies
Recommendation Year
Observation Date
Committee on the Rights of the Child
§ 63. "The Committee urges the State party to develop a clear policy to monitor the
situation of internally displaced children, prioritizing timely protection support to
internally displaced, and paying due attention to their needs in terms of health and
education. The Committee also calls upon the State party to take the necessary
measures to ensure that returnee, refugee and internally displaced children are not
denied access to education and identity documents, and are not discriminated in any
other way on the basis of their ethnicity. The Committee encourages the State party to
accede to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961
Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness... § 75.(h) Ensure that detention is a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible period of time, and that it is reviewed on a regular basis with a view to withdrawing it;(i) Continue efforts to ensure that children deprived of liberty or in rehabilitation centres or detention facilities are never kept with adults, but have a safe, child-sensitive environment and can maintain regular contact with their families, and are provided with food, education and vocational training; (j) Promote alternative measures to detention, such as diversion, probation, counselling, community service or suspended sentences, wherever possible; (k) Request further technical assistance in the area of juvenile justice and police training from the Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice, whose members include UNODC, UNICEF, OHCHR, and NGOs; and (l) Take account of the Committee's General comment no. 10 (2007) on the rights of the child in juvenile justice (CRC/C/GC/10).
2011
2011
2011
Committee on the Rights of the Child
§ 43. "The Committee expresses serious concern about the continuous increase in the
institutionalization of children in the State party, especially children from poor families.
The Committee notes with concern that other alternative care options, such as foster care,
remain underdeveloped which leads to excessive institutionalization of children. The
Committee is also concerned that most alternative care facilities are unregistered and are
not adequately regulated and monitored... § 63. The Committee urges the State party to develop a clear policy to monitor the situation of internally displaced children, prioritizing timely protection support to internally displaced, and paying due attention to their needs in terms of health and education. The Committee also calls upon the State party to take the necessary measures to ensure that returnee, refugee and internally displaced children are not denied access to education and identity documents, and are not discriminated in any other way on the basis of their ethnicity. The Committee encourages the State party to accede to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness."
2011
2011
2011
> UN Special Procedures
> UN Universal Periodic Review
REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MECHANISMS
HEALTH CARE PROVISION
HEALTH IMPACTS
COVID-19
Country Updates
The plight of Afghan migrants and asylum seekers in deportation procedures across the globe has received renewed attention since U.S. and other international military forces completed their evacuations from the country in August 2021, effectively ceding control of the country to the Taliban. In recognition of the vulnerabilities these people would face back in Afghanistan, UNHCR issued a “non-return advisory” in mid-August, calling “on States to suspend the forcible return of nationals and former habitual residents of Afghanistan, including those who have had their asylum claims rejected.” (See the GDP’s Afghanistan Situation Report, 8 September 2021, https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/afghanistan-situation-report.)
However, criticism of Afghan deportations had already begun growing in the months before the military evacuation due to concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on the safety and health of Afghans in return procedures across the globe. On 16 December 2020, after a nine-month interruption in deportation flight arrivals due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 11 Afghans arrived in Kabul after being deported from Austria and Bulgaria. Other European countries—including Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria and Hungary—also began deportations at about that time. After Germany, which had suspended deportations to Afghanistan from March 2020 to December 2020, resumed deportation flights in early 2021, the German human rights organisation Pro Asyl said that it was “completely irresponsible to stubbornly continue this flight into the unknown despite a national lockdown.”
In July 2021, the Afghan government called on European states to suspend deportations for at least three months as security forces battled Taliban offensives. Afghanistan’s refugees and repatriation ministry said that “the escalation of violence by the Taliban terrorist group in the country and the spread of the third wave [of COVID-19] have caused a great deal of economic and social unrest, creating concerns and challenges for the people. The government’s decision emphasises that host countries should refrain from forcibly deporting Afghan refugees for the next three months.”
In response, the German government said it would consider Afghanistan’s request but that it planned to hold discussions with European partners first. On the other hand, due to the worsening security situation in the country, Finland suspended deportations in July 2021. Sweden quickly followed and stopped all deportations to Afghanistan in July stating that conditions had deteriorated “after the Taliban movement [took] control of large parts of the country.” At the end of July 2021, thirty NGOs including, Save the Children, ECRE, and several national refugee councils, called on the European Union to suspend deportation flights of Afghan nationals and also asked national asylum authorities to “re-examine all final negative decisions for Afghan asylum seekers still present in European countries in the light of the current situation in Afghanistan and foreseeable risks of future persecution being identified as a result of this new situation.”
Meanwhile, Greece announced shortly after the announcement of the U.S. pull-out from Afghanistan that it was constructing a 40-kilometre wall and surveillance system along its border with Turkey, vowing that it would not be a “gateway to Europe” for Afghan refugees. According to UNHCR, 45 percent of migrants arriving in Greece in June 2021 were from Afghanistan. Since Greece announced in June that Turkey was a “safe third country” to which asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Bangladesh could be safely returned, the majority of Afghans in Greece have been rejected and are awaiting return back to Turkey.
Data released at the end of August 2021 showed that the UK refused 400 Afghan asylum cases in the previous year and returned 13 Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan (5 of them since the start of 2021). 497 Afghans were placed in immigration detention during this period, 130 of them since April 2021 when the Taliban had already began its advance. Refugee advocates and lawyers in the UK have argued that given the fundamental change in circumstances in Afghanistan, all Afghans in the UK should be granted full refugee protection, including expedited rights to family reunification; that those forcibly returned in the past year should be brought back to the UK; and that those in immigration detention pending deportation should be immediately released.
Back in Afghanistan, prior to the takeover by the Taliban, the COVID-19 pandemic had taken a considerable toll on the population. As of 7 September 2021, the country had recorded 153,626 cases and 7,144 related deaths. The WHO fears that due to the Taliban’s hostility to vaccinations, there could be a rapid and uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in Afghanistan. In an update, the WHO said: “Disruptions at [the] airport are delaying urgently needed essential health supplies. Crowding at health facilities and IDP camps, due to rising conflict in the country will limit implementation of infection prevention protocols, increasing the risk of COVID-19 transmission and outbreaks of other diseases.” While the country has begun a national vaccination campaign, it had only administered a total of 1,872,268 doses by 14 August out of a total population of 40 million people.
(For a fuller update on the situation of Afghan refugees in countries across the globe, see the GDP’s Afghanistan Profile Page, https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/asia-pacific/afghanistan)
As of 28 May, Afghanistan had reported 13,036 cases of Covid-19 and 235 deaths related to the disease.
As previously reported (See the 30 April Sweden update), the Afghan Ministry for Refugees wrote an open letter on 18 March 2020 to European countries requesting that they halt all deportations to Afghanistan due to the Covid-19 threat. On 31 March, the German government announced it would cease deportations to Afghanistan for the time being with the last flight having taken place on 12 March. The request to halt deportations came at a time where IOM reported that approximately 100,000 Afghans were deported or returned voluntarily from Iran. IOM said that 53,069 undocumented Afghans returned from Iran through the Milnak and Herat borders between 8-14 March, representing a 171 percent increase. The organisation added that since 1 January, the total number of undocumented returnees from Iran is of 136,186 persons, including unaccompanied migrant children, single parent families, physically disabled persons and elders.
On 6 May, the prison authority announced that 10 prisoners tested positive for Covid-19 out of 600 tested. A prisoner detained in the Pul-e-Charkhi prison stated that three prisoners had died after contracting Covid-19. In addition, on 17 May at least 13 detainees tested positive in a prison in the province of Herat.
On 22 April, more than 5,000 prisoners were reportedly freed, mostly women, juveniles and sick prisoners, to reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading. On the same day, Afghanistan’s new prison chief, Ahmad Rashid Totakhail, complained to journalists about widespread abuses in the country’s prison system. He described problems ranging from the lack of a comprehensive database on the length of detainees’ sentences to sexual abuse of underage prisoners and a general lack of access to medical care. Subsequently, on 27 April, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree to release over 12,000 inmates and to reform various prisons as part of measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Government Agencies
Ministry of Interior Affairs, https://moi.gov.af/en
Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations, https://morr.gov.af/en
International Organisations
UNHCR Office in Afghanistan, https://www.unhcr.org/af/
International Labour Organization - Kabul Office, https://www.ilo.org/regions-and-countries/asia-and-pacific/afghanistan
International Organization for Migration - Kabul office, https://afghanistan.iom.int/
NGO & Research Institutions
Women for Afghan Women, https://womenforafghanwomen.org/
International Rescue Committee - Kabul Office, https://www.rescue.org/country/afghanistan
Solidarités International - Kabul Office, https://www.solidarites.org/en/missions/afghanistan/
