More Afghans are seeking asylum now than at any time since war in
Afghanistan began, figures from the United Nations show. Last year more than
30,000 Afghans sought asylum worldwide, topping 2010's numbers by 25 percent -
and those are just the recorded cases. More
than 45,000 Afghans are said to have illegally escaped into Greece alone. Australia is another popular destination for
asylum, though it is harder to pull off due to distance.
The
current protests in reaction to news of the
burnings of Korans at Bagram only underline to many Afghans just how
quickly security can unravel and just how much uncertainty Afghans
face in the future.
There is a race for the exits in Afghanistan, all right, and
it is not just the internationals running for the door.
Uncertainty about the future dominates conversations among
families, on the streets and in the news.
As discussion of withdrawal deadlines and peace talks dominates local
headlines precious few facts have surfaced about what these developments
actually mean -- and for whom. Into this vacuum fear and rumor have moved in.
"Businessmen, traders have heard that in 2014 foreigners are going to leave
Afghanistan, so most of the people are trying to leave Afghanistan," says
Muhammad, an Afghan who left his country only for a short stint during the
Taliban years. "People don't have trust in this government; they think maybe
after 2014 the Afghan government will not be able to control the security of Afghanistan."
A number of Afghans who can are sending themselves, their capital
or their children -- and sometimes all three -- out of the country by whatever
means possible. As the Guardian reported the business of smuggling people out
of the country is booming, while rents in
Kabul, long sky-high and inflated to outrageous heights by the presence of
international community, are now plunging in many areas.
In just the last six weeks, four people I have covered for years
have all headed abroad. Some have gone
to Canada, some to Europe, and some are seeking a way out through India. For
obvious reasons I have withheld their names.
Security is the reason for flight cited most regularly. Two
businesspeople I know have said that their families in the provinces are receiving
threats and night letters -- notes delivered in darkness and promising harm --
from people with ties to anti-government forces. They say these men know of
their close ties to the international community and they feel they will do less
harm to their relatives if they stay away. Both are said to be in Canada now.
"People want to leave because of security issues that are
threatening their family, but we never know if that is because it is a Taliban
issue that is affecting their security or a simple criminal element," says the
U.S. head of a non-profit working in Afghanistan that has seen several of its
clients disappear for asylum in North America. Opportunity, alongside the
threats, is what is driving the escalation of asylum cases. "Since time
immemorial, families in any country have wanted a better future for their young
people, and I think that as long as there is the opportunity for people to have
it, and they have the financial means and the roadmap on how to do it, they
will."
Another local leader close to the government who traveled in and
out of Afghanistan throughout the Taliban years said that intimidation and
beatings of loved ones from anti-government forces had taken its toll and could
no longer be endured. They are now in Europe awaiting an asylum decision.
Others, particularly twenty-somethings who have worked for foreign NGOs and aid
agencies, say that they simply see little future in their country and they fear
the consequences if the Taliban shares or takes power in the coming years.
"All the young people we have here are heading out," said one NGO
leader based in Kabul who, like most people who spoke to me on this topic,
asked not to be identified. "Some are
marrying any cousin they can find and others are getting smuggled out."
For women leaders the issue of security after 2014 is especially
critical. American officials see talks with the Taliban as the best -- and in
many ways only -- hope for any kind of peace agreement that would end the
unpopular war. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has vowed to Afghan women
that "we will not abandon you," but she plans to leave office next year. It is far from clear whether Taliban
representatives -- even if they are lured to the table -- will agree to
provisions in the current Afghan constitution that give women equal rights and
protections. Last time around the Taliban forced women indoors, off the streets
and out of offices and schools, and activists who have been advocating for
their rights in the last decade say everyone now wonders what will come next.
"What we are worried about is the increasing political change or
reconciliation -- the sort of appeasement of the insurgency that is going to
take place," says Wazhma Frogh, a human rights activist and member of the
Afghan Women's Network.
At a recent meeting of NGO leaders women discussed how best to
build support for a "women's rights defenders' protection" mechanism that would
guarantee safe haven within Afghan borders to women's advocates
threatened in their home province for their work on women's behalf.
Frogh says she knows a number of people trying to escape
Afghanistan. Some leave in hopes of finding a decent job rather than remain in
a country with soaring unemployment, but many go in fear of what settlement
talks with the Taliban might mean for them.
"I know a couple of former MPs, senior ones, who went to Sweden,
to London, and they started applying for asylum," Frogh says. "They are scared
about what is going to happen to people who have had a stronger voice. People are scared because in the past ten
years we have created all these affiliations with the U.S., with international
organizations, with the international community, so all these affiliations will
become a kind of a curse in a way."
Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women,
which runs family centers and safe houses for women in Afghanistan, says she
understands the fear.
"If I weren't a
U.S citizen already, I also would have tried to get out before civil war
starts," Naderi says. "Two of our staff
went to Helmand last week to do a round of trainings on human rights. Today one came back and said he will never go
again. ‘It's not safe,' he said. This feeling is the same everywhere in
Afghanistan."
Still, despite all that is happening, Frogh and some others say
they see reasons for hope rather than flight in the future. A sweep of
powerful, modernizing forces from education to telecommunications has changed
Afghanistan since 2001, and Afghans today have been exposed to the world in a
way they had not in 1989. More than 2
million Afghan girls are in school, and among the young generation the gender
gap in literacy rates has never been as small as it is
today.
Today, a vibrant press reports aggressively on happenings both
inside and beyond Afghanistan. The media
business is growing at double-digit rates and radio and TV stations now top more than 200
nationwide. A new generation of reporters, broadcasters and bloggers is
online, including on Twitter and Facebook.
"We will not be the same people that we were
when the Soviets left us and we started killing and beating each other," Frogh
says. "I am just a little bit optimistic
on that front, because I feel that people are going to be different,
particularly the current generation."
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.
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