After Return

gave them became essential for survival. Three
told of friends who, in the absence of family, had
demonstrated substantial kindness and generosity,
providing, on a variety of different occasions,
accommodation, money, clothes and food.
Lost and disrupted relationships
For five young people, the friendships they had
had before leaving Afghanistan, or managed to
form since returning, were curtailed or brought to
an abrupt end by migration or violence. Several
young people found that friends they had had
prior to fleeing Afghanistan had moved on to other
provinces within Afghanistan, or to other countries
(particularly Iran and Pakistan). For others, serious
violence had resulted in the deaths of their only
friends, with one young person describing how his
friend had been arrested and beheaded by the
Taliban whilst trying to travel to Iran (see Chapter 7
for more on this incident), and another whose friend
had also been killed by the Taliban.
This cycle of losing UK friends through forced
removal, and then losing Afghan friends through
onward migration or violence has, along with the
issues of trust and transparency outlined above,
meant that young returnees are living and surviving
in a context of increasingly fractured and fragile
social networks.
Organisations and institutions
The above-described weak social networks have
led many of the young returnees monitored to
seek support from organisations or institutions in
Afghanistan. For the majority however, such support
was difficult or impossible to obtain. Young returnees
had some success securing in-kind support from IOM,
and assistance with family tracing from the Afghan
Red Crescent. Others depended on informal support
from UK-based organisations (predominantly advice
and contacts) or individuals (finance).
Attempting to
access support
4
4
Receiving
support
4
10 10
6
IOM Afghanistan:onward travel money only
IOM Afghanistan:in-kind support for forced returnees
Red Cross Afghanistan
Other organisations based in Afghanistan
Informal support from UK-based organisations
(advice, emotional support, legal advice)
Informal support from UK-based individuals
(emotional support, finance)
Figure 14. Source of support following return
1
2
In addition to seeking assistance from IOM, two
young people had sought support with family tracing
from the Afghan Red Crescent. One had successfully
registered with them, and was still waiting (after 6
months) for any news of family members, and the
other had repeatedly failed to locate the office,
and then moved on from Kabul. None of the young
people approaching other organisations for support
(predominantly for support with employment) had
received help.
Instead, 10 young people were forced to rely on
informal and unsustainable networks of support in
the UK. None of the UK organisations contacted
have a mandate to support, help or advise young
people after return, and, in the majority of cases,
staff members had provided informal emotional
support or advice in a personal capacity, outside
of the parameters of their role. One young returnee
expressed the psycho-social value of this support,
often the only continuum between their former and
current lives, saying “maybe no-one can help me,
but just keeping in touch with [name of support
worker from UK] has helped me, because she knows
everything about me” (R18, ILD). Other young
returnees were provided with ad-hoc and informal
financial and emotional support from their UK foster
carers, teachers or friends.
0
10
3
3
Photo credit: ‘Afghan men with donkey’ IFDC via flickr.com/photos/ifdcphotography. Modifications include tinting and cropping (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
After Return 24