IOM helps qualified Afghans return home

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has announced a US $208,000 funding package from Sweden for the second phase of a project to support qualified Afghan refugees, predominantly female, who wish to return home to find work. Since the programme began in March 1999, the agency has provided relocation assistance training grants to 76 qualified Afghans, more than 60 percent of them female, to work with NGOs in the health and education sector. "The Afghans who we helped return and resettle more than a year ago are still in Afghanistan working for the same NGOs," Christina Hellgren, programme officer for IOM in Islamabad, told IRIN on Wednesday. Most of those returning, of their own will, were educated in Afghanistan and became refugees in neighbouring Pakistan after fleeing war, poverty or famine in their home country. Many subsequently found work in Pakistan. IOM provides counselling to potential returnees and refers them to organisations in Afghanistan which are interested in recruiting them. The agency's employment referral unit in Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province [NWFP] has a database containing some 800 applications from qualified Afghans who have indicated a desire to return home, Hellgren told IRIN on Wednesday. The emphasis in phase two of the IOM project is on support to female returnees in view of specific constraints on female employment and lack of access to social services for women in Afghanistan, Hellgren said. "Single women, all of whom are qualified as teachers, doctors, nurses and other skilled professions, are required in Afghanistan to be accompanied at all times by a blood relative - either a father or brother - which doubles their relocation cost," she said. If IOM cannot help the relative to find employment, then it provides a grant to subsidise the cost of travel, she added. IOM has prioritised recruitment for the health and education, while also focusing on sectors such as construction and basic social services.