PAKISTAN - MIGRATION IN 2000

Pakistan also figured as a country of origin of irregular migrants. Various governments, including Australia and Canada, have established cooperation in setting up a national Database Registration Authority, which would issue computerized and machine readable passports and identity cards. Also various European embassies have joined forces to share information on people involved in forging visas to their countries.  Similarly, an Alien Registration Authority has been set up to monitor foreign residents in Pakistan. They will be registered and issued identification papers. The annual outflow of migrants has increased slightly, also because female workers no longer need to obtain the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Ministry of Labor. Deployment remains at around 100,000, considerably lower than a few years ago. Remittances, however, grew, also because Kuwait released some US$21 million as compensation to Pakistani victims of the Gulf War.

Refugees from Afghanistan have been in Pakistan for many years, and the Pakistani government has frequently asked UNHCR’s assistance for their repatriation. Although 2.5 million were repatriated since 1990, 1.6 million of recognized refugees still remain in camps, and perhaps another million unrecognized refugees are in the surrounding areas of the camps in Peshawar. Voluntary repatriation coordinated by the UNHCR continued to resettle refugees, albeit at a slow pace. However, a severe drought in Afghanistan brought the repatriation program to a halt and pushed more Afghanis, particularly from the provinces of Kandahar, Farh, Helmand and Nimroz, to seek refuge in Pakistan. The Taliban offensive in the Northeast in October also created another 25,000 refugees, bringing the local authorities to close the border to additional inflows.