These abuses embrace threats, circumstances of torture, mistreatment and arbitrary arrest and detention, in response to the UN Help Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The report mentioned these violations had been dedicated in opposition to Afghans “based mostly on their profile” and focused ladies, media staff and civil society members in addition to people affiliated with the previous authorities that fell in 2021 and its safety forces, regardless of the Taliban’s claims that such people profit from an amnesty.
“Nobody needs to be returned to a rustic the place they’re vulnerable to being persecuted due to their identification or private historical past,” mentioned Volker Türk, the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights.
“In Afghanistan, this example is much more pronounced for girls and women, who’re subjected to a sequence of measures that quantity to persecution solely on the premise of their gender.”
Since 2023 and the beginning of large-scale deportation campaigns launched by Iran and Pakistan, tens of millions of Afghans have returned to their nation. In 2025 alone, greater than 1.8 million folks have returned to Afghanistan, 1.5 million of them from Iran.
Ladies below home arrest
The UN refugee company, UNHCR, not too long ago estimated that the whole may attain three million by the top of the yr, returning to a rustic going through a extreme humanitarian disaster.
The state of affairs of ladies forcibly returned is especially dire. A former tv journalist, who left the nation after the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, described how, after being involuntarily returned to Afghanistan, she noticed her prospects vanish.
“I’m very fearful for my private security and really feel immense frustration with the present state of affairs imposed on ladies in [my province]. I can unequivocally say that I’m successfully below home arrest. There are not any job alternatives, no freedom of motion and no entry to schooling – whether or not to study or to show – for girls and women,” she testified.
Many individuals are additionally compelled to dwell in hiding since returning to Afghanistan resulting from actual or feared threats from the de facto authorities. That is the case for people affiliated with the previous authorities and its safety forces, who’ve had to enter hiding for concern of reprisals, regardless of the general public amnesty introduced by the de facto authorities.
Dwelling in hiding
A former official described how, after returning in 2023, he was detained for 2 nights in a home the place he was severely tortured, crushed with sticks, cables and wooden, subjected to water torture and confronted a mock execution.
Different refugees returned from Iran should often change areas to keep away from being recognized, equivalent to one former choose.
“I attempt to keep hidden as a result of I do know that the prisoners who had been detained due to my choices at the moment are senior authorities officers and are nonetheless on the lookout for me. In the event that they discover me, I’m positive they’ll kill me. They already threatened me once I was a choose,” they mentioned.
Confronted with these critical abuses, the UN is urging States to not return anybody to Afghanistan who faces an actual danger of great human rights violations.
“Member States ought to broaden resettlement alternatives for at-risk Afghans and guarantee their safety, giving precedence to these probably to endure human rights violations if returned to Afghanistan, together with ladies and women, people affiliated with the previous authorities and safety forces, media professionals, civil society activists and human rights defenders,” the report mentioned.
