Germany deports single migrant women and elderly migrants to Afghanistan

According to a regulation by the Hesse Interior Ministry of 17 May 2005 there will take place large scale deportations of former refugees to Afghanistan. Single women and elderly people up to 70 years may be deported, too. Only refugees who had completed their 65 years on 19 November 1998 -and who consequently today will be at least 65 years old- will be exempted from the deportation.

 

According to the refugee organisation Pro Asyl the deportation of old people who have no family in Afghanistan to a country where are not even basic structures of social security may constitute a death sentence for the concerned migrants. These plans conflict strongly with reports from human rights organisations.

The Frankfurt lawyer Victor Pfaff, who does legal consultancy for European-Migration-Law.Net, too, has been to Afghanistan a few weeks ago to catch up on the situation of women in the country. In the context of the planed deportation of single migrant women he said “If a woman has no backing by her family she is considered to be fair game – regardless the formal guarantee of equal treatment in the Afghan constitution. It is impossible that a single woman –with or without children- rents a flat – even if she had money.

 

Who does not want or who is not able to subordinate under the patriarchal society of Afghanistan risks to face violence and arbitrariness - not only from a few fanatics but from the state as well. Pro Asyl reports that fourteen of sixteen women who have been at the transitional prison of Kabul in April 2005 have been accused of fornication. The criminal offence of fornication may be fulfilled in Afghanistan if a woman talks in public to a man who is not her husband.

 

This February, there took place consultations between the German Federal Interior Ministry and an Afghan government delegation. Within these consultations Afghanistan declared to accept unilateral return measures by Germany. However, unlike with other countries, there has not been adopted a formal return agreement. According to Pro Asyl, Germany did not want such a tripartite agreement involving the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) because otherwise there would have been introduced the international return standards which are based on the voluntary “return in dignity”.