Credit: Luiz Rampelotto/Europa Newswire
United Nations, June 19 2012
Author and Goodwill Envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Khaled Hosseini today briefed journalists at the United Nations in New York about the situation of Afghan refugees ahead International Refugee Day.
Hosseini said that for Afghan returnees reintegration had been a real challenge.
“For those refugees who have returned home reintegration has been a real challenge and although Afghanistan has seen a real and tangible progress in the last ten years, specifically in the field of education and healthcare, the country that those refugees have repatriated to is still one of the poorest, non-African nations in the world, one that ranks 181 out of 182 on the Human Development Index and where on average 36 percent of the population live below poverty level.”
According to UNHCR, since April 2012 an estimated 427,000 people have been identified as IDPs (internally displaced persons), the refugee agency also estimates that in 2012 another 150,000 may become displaced.
Khaled Hosseini, author and Goodwill Envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):
“We need to create an environment in Afghanistan that is conducive for the refugees to stay in Afghanistan. It does no good for somebody to voluntarily repatriate and then become an IDP inside their own country. Its not simply enough to repatriate, people have to stay in their place of origin and often the reasons they leave is because of lack of jobs, basic services, so on and so forth.”
Responding to what the situation of Afghani women
Khaled Hosseini, author and Goodwill Envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):
“For Afghanistan to have any chance to be a successful prosperous nation down the road, the issue of women has to be a corner stone of the future and women have to be able to practice their legal rights without fear of retribution in Afghanistan.”
Khaled Hosseini, author and Goodwill Envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):
“Frankly its more than just a humanitarian issue, it’s also a national security issue in Afghanistan, all these sort of fast growing poor, young marginalized population that’s going from place to place within Afghanistan. These are exactly the kind of folks who are vulnerable to recruitment calls from insurgents groups.”
Source: UNifeed
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