Refugees and National Security in Pakistan: Myths vs. Realities

Abstract

Historically, Pakistan was among the few big foreign inflow of refugees in the world, especially with the invasion of the Soviet in Afghanistan back in 1979. Millions of Afghan refugees have found their way to Pakistan and they have settled in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Baluchistan provinces over the various decades. Although the efforts of Pakistan as a sanctuary provider has gained international attention, with the growth of the refugee population, reference to national security is placed on the issue and this intensified in the wake of 9/11. As past governments and media houses continue to assert, the settlements have been declared as hotbeds of terrorism, transnational militancy, trafficking of arms and drugs. Nevertheless, this is a connection that is not usually backed by empirical evidence and combines irregular migration and armed insurrection.
In this paper, the securitization of refugee discourse in Pakistan is critically evaluated by making the differentiation between constructed myths and documented facts. It states that uncontrolled migration of people can cause logistical and bureaucratic issues, but the image of refugees being the security threat by default is overstated and detrimental. Security agency reports, studies by various research agencies, and reports by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) indicate that the majority of refugees are non-violent persons who fall victims to persecution and war rather than the criminals. The paper discusses the process through which the stories promoting fear lead to marginalizing and criminalizing populations that are refugees and hamper both the humanitarian protection and long-term integration programs.
Furthermore, the analysis shows that the abnormality of security failures in most cases has nothing to do with the presence of refugees but with the lack of an all inclusive legal and policy framework in Pakistan to control their status and rights. This paper ends with a call to switch to rights-based rather than security-based approaches, such as national laws protecting refugees, better vetting and registration as well as better regional cooperation that can tackle the reasons why displacement takes place. These measures not only improve the overall security of the country but also make the management of refugees in Pakistan to correspond with the international standards and humanitarian expectations.