September 13, 2018: Founder CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Dilawar Khan was invited to speak at the National Defense University, Islamabad, for the National Security Workshop on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (NSW-FATA) being held from September 10 -19, 2018, to discuss issues related to the merger of FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), especially with respect to the dynamics of national security in relation to the merger and the governance of the former tribal areas.
Mr. Dilawar Khan spoke in detail about the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, providing the attending FATA representatives—including politicians, journalists, civil society, students, and academicians—with an in-depth background into the history of their entry into Pakistan. He put the Afghan refugee situation in Pakistan in the context of Pakistan’s absence from any international legal obligations as it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 protocol. Mr. Dilawar Khan provided a timeline of the presence of Afghan refugee in Pakistan. He shared that the mass exodus of Afghan nationals across the border into Pakistan after the Soviet attack on Afghanistan in 1979 resulted in a prima facie acceptance of Afghan nationals, as well as the children born to Afghan nationals in Pakistan, as refugees. He further elaborated on the subsequent measures taken by the government to manage the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, which included the introduction of Proof of Registration (POR) cards, the repeated extensions offered with regard to the validity of the POR cards and the recent initiation of Afghan Citizen Cards (ACCs).
Mr. Dilawar Khan informed the audience that a Comprehensive Policy for the Management and Voluntary Repatriation of Afghan Refugees had been adopted in light of the February 2017 Federal Cabinet meeting. He also shared some details about the further action on the drafting of a national refugee legislation, a flexible visa regime, border management, and the registration of undocumented Afghans in Pakistan. Mr. Dilawar Khan further highlighted the following three areas of concern with reference to Afghan refugees in Pakistan: their impact on national security, their contribution to national economy, and the level of international assistance for them in Pakistan.
The presentation by Mr. Dilawar Khan was very well-received and was followed by a note of appreciation by the chair of the session Amb. Riaz Khokhar who presented him with a shield. Other noted speakers in the NSW-FATA included Mr. Sartaj Aziz, Mr. Rahim Ullah Yusufzai, Mr. Ihsan Ghani, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Naeem Khalid Lodhi, and Dr. Ejaz Akram, with more to come in the following days.