After the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, and especially after higher education was banned for girls in December 2022, thousands of girls from Afghanistan were forced to leave their country to continue their education. Due to its geographical proximity, cultural commonalities, relatively easier visa access, and numerous universities, Pakistan became one of the most important destinations for these students.
For many of these girls, migrating to Pakistan was not simply an educational choice; it was an effort to preserve their right to education, escape the Taliban’s ever-increasing restrictions, and prevent a complete halt to their academic and professional path. Many of them left Afghanistan in circumstances where they had not only been deprived of the right to education but also had no clear outlook for their future academic and professional life. However, in recent years, especially following escalating political tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban and tighter immigration policies, life and education for students from Afghanistan in Pakistan have become increasingly challenging.
Today, many girls from Afghanistan in Pakistan live without residency stability, psychological security, or any assurance about their educational future. In this piece, I will try to describe some of the difficulties that students from Afghanistan in Pakistan, particularly girls, grapple with in their daily lives.
The Visa Crisis: A Complete Halt in Issuance and Renewal
The most significant and fundamental challenge facing Afghanistan’s students in Pakistan concerns visas and legal residency. At present, the process of issuing new student visas has been completely halted, and the renewal of existing visas is also entirely blocked. This situation has placed students in a state of total legal uncertainty.
The absence of a valid visa is not merely an administrative problem; it directly affects students’ ability to continue their education. Some students have encountered difficulties when registering for a new semester, sitting for exams, or obtaining academic documents. With the visa renewal process completely closed, students find themselves trapped in a situation where they feel that at any moment their educational path could be blocked and all their efforts destroyed, a situation that bears a troubling resemblance to the very deprivation of education in Afghanistan that they fled to Pakistan to escape.
Life in the Shadow of Economic Instability
Residency problems have also directly affected students’ economic situation. Many landlords refuse to rent housing to people with unclear residency status, and instead demand higher rents and heavy guarantees. As a result, several students have been forced to move from areas near their universities to more distant, cheaper neighborhoods. For a female student, this means waking up very early, traveling long distances to reach university, and spending a significant portion of her limited financial resources on commuting. While many Pakistani students return home after classes end, some students from Afghanistan are still hours away.
At the same time, restricted access to the labor market for students from Afghanistan has significantly increased economic pressure. A large number of students depend on their families for paying university fees, rent, dormitory costs, and other living expenses, families who themselves often face economic hardship in Afghanistan. In recent months, economic difficulties have become serious enough that some students have struggled to pay university fees, renew their registration, or cover basic living costs. The lack of easy access to banking services and the difficulty of transferring money between Afghanistan and Pakistan have further complicated these problems. At times, transferring an amount that covers just a few days of a student’s living expenses turns into a lengthy and costly process.
Security Challenges: Raids on Homes and Universities’ Inability to Support Students
Security challenges for students from Afghanistan in Pakistan have gone beyond the stage of “fear of street inspections” and turned into a profound humanitarian crisis and a clear violation of privacy. With the complete halt of the visa renewal process by the Pakistani government, many students have effectively become undocumented in terms of residency. According to reports, security forces have in some cases entered student dormitories and residential homes and detained a number of them. This situation has caused many students to feel that they have no safety or security even within the walls of their own homes or dormitory rooms, and the shadow of fear of arrest constantly weighs on their lives.
A more painful aspect of this situation is the inability of universities to support students from Afghanistan. Although universities accept these students’ academic documents and collect their semester fees in full, in practice they are unable to effectively protect them against the risk of arrest, forced expulsion, or deportation. For a girl who fled to Pakistan to escape complete deprivation of education, being detained at home or in a dormitory and facing the risk of being sent back to Afghanistan means the end of all hope and a return to conditions where she would be deprived of even the most basic educational rights. This situation requires urgent attention from the international community and human rights organizations.
Limited Access to Health Services
Health is another area affected by students’ residency status. Many students from Afghanistan delay seeking medical care when they fall ill, and in some cases avoid visiting health centers altogether due to concerns about residency and financial problems. Worries about treatment costs, residency document issues, or fear of encountering administrative problems lead some people to avoid medical centers until their health condition becomes severe. For a student far from her family, even a simple illness can become a source of worry and anxiety. This is even though access to health services is considered a fundamental human right and should not be affected by a person’s nationality or residency status.
Mental Health: A Less Visible Crisis
Perhaps the heaviest consequence of this situation is its impact on students’ mental health. Most of the girls who came to Pakistan to study have left behind their families, friends, and familiar surroundings. Now, in addition to being separated from their families, they face constant worries about the future, the frozen visa renewal process, covering living expenses, and the possibility of being deprived of continuing their education. For many students, every phone call from home is a reminder of a distance they cannot cross, and every new piece of news about immigration policy creates fresh anxiety about the future. These pressures have increased anxiety, stress, feelings of insecurity, and hopelessness, directly affecting their academic performance and quality of life.
Feelings of Discrimination and Exclusion
Although many Pakistani citizens, professors, and educational institutions have supported students from Afghanistan in recent years, some students have had experiences involving discriminatory treatment or inappropriate remarks. Such experiences, particularly within the academic environment, weaken their sense of belonging and security. When a student feels she is viewed differently because of her nationality, it becomes harder for her to focus on her studies and normal life. Universities should be environments built on mutual respect, cultural diversity, and equal opportunity, not places where political tensions between governments cast a shadow over academic and human relationships.
Conclusion and Urgent Solutions
What has been described here is the stark reality and the everyday challenges that female students from Afghanistan face in Pakistan. The continuation of this situation, and the failure to address fundamental challenges such as visa renewal and protection from police arrests, seriously threatens the continued education of this generation. To improve the current situation and prevent a complete halt to these girls’ education, it is essential to focus on the following urgent solutions:
1) Resuming the visa issuance and renewal process: The Pakistani government should resume the process of issuing and renewing student visas for students from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Students’ lives and academic futures are a purely educational and humanitarian matter and should not be tied to political tensions, disputes, or bargaining between governments.
2) Practical support from universities: Universities should not limit themselves to collecting fees and documents; they must provide more effective legal and administrative support for students from Afghanistan. Universities should consult with responsible authorities to ensure the physical and psychological safety of students in dormitories and residences, and student ID cards should be recognized as valid academic documents to help prevent unnecessary arrests.
In the end, it is hoped that just as the return of Pakistani students from Afghanistan to their own country was carried out with the necessary cooperation and facilitation, a legal, humane, and sustainable solution will also be found for students from Afghanistan in Pakistan, so that they can continue their studies in peace without worrying about their residency status. Resolving these problems as quickly as possible will not only protect the academic future of thousands of students but will also be an important step in safeguarding the right to education and human dignity.
You can read the Persian version of this article here:
تحصیل در سایه بیسرنوشتی؛ روایت دختران افغان از زندهگی دانشجویی در پاکستان
