Pakistani police cracking down on migrants are arresting Afghan women and children, activists claim

KARACHI: Pakistani police are arresting Afghan women and children in southern Sindh province as part of a government crackdown on undocumented migrants, activists said Saturday.

More than 250,000 Afghans have left Pakistan in recent weeks as the government rounded up, arrested and kicked out foreign nationals without papers. It set an October 31 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave the country voluntarily.

The expulsions mostly affect Afghans, who make up the majority of foreigners living in Pakistan. Authorities maintain they are targeting all who are in the country illegally.

Human rights lawyer Moniza Kakar said police in Sindh launch midnight raids on people’s homes and detain Afghan families, including women and children.

Since November 1, she and other activists have stationed themselves outside detention centres in Karachi to help Afghans. But they say they face challenges accessing the centres. They don’t have information about raid timings or deportation buses leaving the port city for Afghanistan.

“They’ve been arresting hundreds of Afghan nationals daily since the October 31 deadline, sparing neither children nor women,” Kakar said.

Last December, Afghan women and children were among 1,200 people jailed in Karachi for entering the city without valid travel documents. The arrests brought criticism from around Afghanistan after images of locked-up children were circulated online.

In the latest crackdown, even Afghans with documentation face the constant threat of detention, leading many to confine themselves

to their homes for fear of deportation, Kakar said. “Some families I know are struggling without food, forced to stay indoors as police officials continue arresting them, regardless of their immigration

status.”