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KABUL (SW): In recent years, the proportion of emigrants hiring human smugglers to take them to other countries has increased drastically as a result of widespread poverty, unemployment, and insecurity in Badakhshan. The young emigrants who have experienced the bitter taste of immigration said that the smugglers transported them to Iran and Turkey and have tricked them into forced labor and have even held them hostages due to circumstances.
Shabir Ahmad is an 18-year-old, who was deported back from Iran a few months ago, and since then have started driving his own taxi by taking a loan from a Bank.
Shabir Ahmad worked for an Iranian employer and could hardly get 50% of his wages from him; however, he spent that money to pay the human traffickers who took him to Iran.
‘After insisting to get his 40 thousand AFN salary from his Iranian employer, Ahmad was faced with a harsh reaction from his employer and therefore the police deported him back to Afghanistan’, Ahmad added.
Non-payment of wages, detention, torture, and humiliation by border guards, the sale of emigrants by one human trafficker to another, are the miserable fate that Afghan refugees experience in the neighboring countries.
Rahmani is another Afghan youth who was trafficked to Iran and then to the Turkish border with the empty promises of a good life in western countries. However, despite being tortured by the Iranian police in the refugee camps, also all his money and belongings were looted by the Iranian police, and he even couldn't enter Turkey.
A number of these young emigrants told Salam Watandar that the human traffickers after crossing the border into Iran took them as hostages in order to receive all their money.
Saboor Rahimi, who was taken to Turkey by these smugglers, said that people can be hostage up to three months until the smugglers receive their money.
According to the officials at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Badakhshan, said that government statistics have shown that more than 50 percent of the young population in Badakhshan has illegally emigrated to other countries.
Arifa Nawid, the director of AIHRC in Badakhshan in a conversation with Salam Watandar told that poverty, unemployment, and insecurity caused the youth to be trapped in the hands of the human smugglers. According to Arifa Nawid, out of 100 young people in each village in Badakshan, 50 have migrated to Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey.
Shafiq Ayubi, Director of Labor and Social Affairs in Badakshan said most of the emigrants in the province are under-age children, who have been used as forced-labor against the international laws in neighboring countries.
The Afghan government, under the Anti-Trafficking and Immigration Law, is obliged to combat the human trafficking in addition to establishing international coordination and cooperation in the fight against human trafficking but also to protect the victims and prosecute the perpetrators.
Aminullah Amini, head of the Judiciary and Secretary of the Provincial Commission on combating the human trafficking in Badakhshan, told Salam Watandar that relevant institutions, especially the security and intelligence agencies, have not succeeded in fighting human trafficking and smuggling of emigrants in Badakshan.
However, the security officials in Badakshan said that most of the smugglers are not in Badakhshan and the Ministry of Interior must arrest them. Sanaullah Rohani, the spokesperson for Badakhshan police said the list of 25 human smugglers who have been living in the Nimrooz and Uruzgan have been sent to the Ministry of Interior for investigation.
According to a US Department of State report, Afghanistan is at the lowest level in combating human trafficking. However, the government of Afghanistan considers human trafficking to be a global phenomenon and has called on the domestic and international institutions to increase their support and cooperation with the Afghan government in this regard.
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