NOAS, April 2018
This report by the Norwegian NGO NOAS provides some new insight into Afghanistan-related migration policies in Western Europe. In the summary, the report says:
As the only country in Western Europe, Italy has declared the whole of Afghanistan as unsafe. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland have defined insecure areas based on updated security assessments of the situation in Afghanistan. Most countries do not have publicly available information regarding their security assessments. (…)
Except Italy, all other respondents state that internal flight in theory can be applied to Afghan asylum seekers. Many countries make use of the internal flight alternative in Afghanistan cases, but most countries have exceptions for vulnerable groups.
As for the question of forced deportation of Afghans, (… o)f 16 countries, ten (…) are forcefully returning failed Afghan asylum seekers. In the period of 2015 – 2017, Norway has forcefully returned most Afghan asylum seekers, followed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In 2016, Norway accounted for 65 % of all forced returns from Europe to Afghanistan. As in Norway, most of the countries that carry out forced returns have exceptions for vulnerable groups, (for example unaccompanied minors), single women or families with children (…). Norway, together with Denmark and the Netherlands, are the only countries that in reality return Afghan families with children.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
