Afghan women refugees hold their children as they stand at a makeshift camp after their arrival from Pakistan near the Afghanistan-Pakistan Torkham border in Nangarhar province on April 20. Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
In the blistering heat of Islamabad summers, Zahra Mousavi climbs into a cracked container on a rooftop with her four-year-old daughter, remaining motionless for hours to evade police raids. Inside the suffocating heat of Pakistan’s capital, she says she whispers lullabies to calm her child. “She cries and asks for water after becoming thirsty,” Ms. Mousavi said. “But I have to keep her quiet so the police don’t find us.”
Ms. Mousavi, a former teacher and prominent women’s rights advocate in Afghanistan, once led protests to defy the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education and restrictions on women’s economic participation. She continued her protests until the Taliban placed her on a wanted list, forcing her to escape to Pakistan in March, 2022, to save her life and protect her family.
Now she is among nearly 60 Afghan women’s rights defenders, former lawyers and journalists living in fear of imminent deportation back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan under a sweeping crackdown by Pakistani authorities.
Pakistan has ordered the expulsion of all undocumented Afghan nationals and the 800,000 holders of Pakistan-issued Afghan Citizenship Cards.
Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have escalated over the past year, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of harbouring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militants, responsible for a string of deadly attacks inside Pakistan.
The Taliban deny the allegations, but Pakistan has retaliated with military strikes inside Afghanistan and intensified its crackdown on Afghan refugees. Government officials accuse the refugees of fuelling crime and militancy, with ministers labelling them terrorists and traitors.
Rights groups warn that the deportations of female activists amount to a death sentence, as many of those who fled Taliban persecution now face being forcibly returned to the very regime they escaped.
Humaira Alim, 34, a prominent Afghan women’s rights defender, spent seven years working to help women through education and employment opportunities. Even before the Taliban’s return, Ms. Alim, who worked in the government’s finance department and was also a leader in Afghanistan’s women’s movement, faced threats for her activism, particularly after facilitating civic education training for girls.
“If I go back, they will torture me and kill me, and no one will even know,” Ms. Alim told The Globe and Mail.
When the Taliban seized power in August, 2021, they raided her home repeatedly, accusing her of inciting women against the regime. Then, they discovered that her brother, Haroon Alim, who is currently living in Pennsylvania, was affiliated with the U.S. military. “That’s when we knew execution was imminent,” Ms. Alim said.
In the last week of December, 2022, while heavily pregnant, she fled Kabul with her husband and four-year-old son, crossing into Pakistan through the Torkham border.
Deporting Afghan refugees to the Taliban is a death sentence, said Liliana Harrington, a senior campaigner for the global advocacy group Avaaz. “Pakistan would not only abandon these brave people to their oppressors but also abandon its proud legacy of protecting vulnerable Afghans.”
Instead of abandoning Pakistan’s principles, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “needs to grant immediate protection to those who risk being silenced forever,” she said.
The UN Human Rights Council, the International Organization for Migration and others spoke out on behalf of the refugees and those awaiting resettlement to Western countries were initially spared. But their status became precarious in January when the Trump administration halted refugee admissions to the United States. Thousands now remain stranded in Pakistan with no pathway forward.
Since September, 2023, Pakistani authorities have deported at least 844,499 Afghans, according to Amnesty International.
The killing of women’s rights activists such as Mursal Nabizada, a 32-year-old Afghan parliamentarian, and Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old economics lecturer, were widely reported after the Taliban’s return to power.
As of June, 2024, the Centre for Information Resilience’s Afghan Witness project documented 332 cases of femicide, with many of the victims being women’s rights activists.
But Ms. Mousavi says it is just “the tip of the iceberg” and the actual number is much higher. “The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on the media to investigate or report, making it difficult to get accurate data of slain women activists,” she said.
Since arriving in Islamabad, she has continued her activism, leading protests for Afghan women’s rights. She doesn’t have a valid travel document to stay in Pakistan and says police in plain clothes detained her along with her daughter only to release them after two days following an outcry by human-rights organizations. Now, as deportations accelerate, she remains in hiding.
“At times, I, along with my family, wander for hours in remote areas, streets and open fields to avoid being caught by the police,” she said.
Despite calls from the UN and other international bodies, Pakistan refuses to reconsider its policy, citing similar deportation efforts in the U.S. and Europe.
“The Pakistani authorities are violating the rights of Afghan refugees with impunity, subjecting them to arbitrary decisions that are shrouded in secrecy, totally lacking transparency and accountability,” said Isabelle Lassée, deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International.
For women like Ms. Alim, the situation grows increasingly desperate.
“The Taliban fear dissenting women because we expose them to the world. They are scared of us,” she said. “And that is why they want us dead.”