Many Afghans have been trying to go abroad, especially to European countries, through smuggling, along with legal routes for years.
Although going to other countries through smuggling is not a new issue, the US State Department’s annual report on human trafficking has listed Afghanistan as one of the 11 worst countries from which people are fleeing through smuggling.
It was stated in the report that the Interim Government of Afghanistan has not made any efforts to prevent human trafficking in recent years and many Afghans have been forced to leave their country due to the prevailing situation in Afghanistan.
The report reads: “In the 2023 report on human trafficking, 11 countries, including Afghanistan, are in the worst situation. Afghanistan has not fully met any criteria for the abolishment of smuggling, and the Taliban has not announced any efforts to prevent smuggling, nor has it tried public awareness, and the anti-trafficking department in the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Afghanistan, which is responsible for implementing the laws in this regard, it is a so-called agency.”
It was stated in the report that most of the victims of human trafficking are children, and added that these children are forced to child labor.
The report further said that after the IE seized the power, the number of children who are engaged in child labor has increased by 25 percent.
The report reads: “Most of the victims of human trafficking in Afghanistan are children, who are involved in carpet weaving, brick kilns, domestic slavery, sex trafficking, animal husbandry, begging, poppy cultivation, salt mining, drug and weapons trafficking and forced to drive a truck. According to United Nations experts, child labor has increased after the Taliban came to power, and 25 percent of children are engaged in child labor.”
Meanwhile, the US Department of state added in its annual report that Afghan refugees are forced to do hard work and find jobs with great difficulty in foreign countries, but fearing that they may be deported to their own country, they remain silent.
The report reads: “Afghans are forced to work in agriculture and construction in foreign countries, especially in Iran, Pakistan, Greece, Turkey, European and Gulf countries. They pay money to middlemen to find work there and are forced into sex trafficking for this. Although the Afghans are in a bad situation there, they remain silent because of the fear of being deported to their own country.”
Although the United States said that the main reasons for the 11 worst countries in terms of human trafficking are forced labor, bad economic situation, activities of armed groups and some others, but analysts say poverty is the main reason for immigration and going abroad in Afghanistan.
The spokesperson of the IE, Zabihullah Mujahid, strongly rejects the report of the US State Department regarding Afghanistan and added that human trafficking from Afghanistan has not increased after the re-establishment of the IE.
Afghanistan is among the worst countries in terms of human trafficking at a time when Afghan refugees have been beaten, killed and forcibly deported back to Afghanistan in many countries including Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.
