Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged Pakistan to stop deporting undocumented Afghans, expressing deep concern over the “dark future” awaiting women and girls sent back to Afghanistan.
“It is deeply concerning that Pakistan is forcing Afghan refugees based in Pakistan back into Afghanistan, and I’m deeply concerned about the women and girls,” Malala said in an interview this week.
Despite extending the stay for Afghan refugees with permits for another year, Islamabad recently announced plans to remove illegal migrants. Since last year, over 600,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan after being ordered to leave or face arrest. Human rights monitors have warned that those deported to Afghanistan may face persecution by the Taliban, who took power in 2021 and have imposed strict Islamic laws, barring girls from higher education and excluding women from public life.
“A lot of these girls in Pakistan were studying, they were in school, these women were doing work,” said Malala, 27, who grew up in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. She relocated to the UK after being shot at age 15 for resisting the Pakistan Taliban’s ban on girls’ education in her hometown.
“I hope that Pakistan reverses its policy and that they protect girls and women especially because of the dark future that they would be witnessing in Afghanistan,” she added. Speaking on her birthday, recognized by the UN as Malala Day, the activist highlighted the plight of girls in Afghanistan, the only country where girls over 12 are banned from school.
“I cannot believe that I’m witnessing a time when girls have been banned from their education for more than three years,” she said, praising the resilience of Afghan activists. The Malala Fund is campaigning for the UN to broaden the definition of crimes against humanity to include “gender apartheid,” a term used to describe the situation in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, the UN and Taliban held talks in Doha for the first time since the latter came to power, but without women in attendance. Malala criticized these talks, calling for a “principled engagement” with the Taliban. “World leaders need to realize that when they sit down with the Taliban… and they’re excluding women and girls, they are actually doing the Taliban a favor,” she said, urging countries with feminist foreign policies, like Canada and France, to condemn such conversations.
Malala also called for an “urgent” ceasefire in Gaza, expressing horror at the bombing of schools. “It is horrifying how many schools have been bombed in Gaza, even more recently the four schools,” she said, referring to recent Israeli airstrikes. According to Gaza’s education ministry, 85 percent of educational facilities in the territory are out of service due to the war.
“It is deeply concerning because we know that children do not have a future when they’re living under a war, when their schools and homes are destroyed,” Malala added. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, faced funding challenges after several countries, including the US and Britain, suspended aid following Israeli accusations against its workers. However, countries like Australia and Germany have resumed funding when evidence could not support Israel’s claims.
“When it comes to humanitarian support, all countries should be making no compromise. They should make sure that all the immediate and urgent needs of people are provided, and UNRWA is an example of that,” Malala said, urging countries to provide aid and support for innocent civilians in need.