ISLAMABAD: Every autumn on the mountainous Karakoram Highway, part of the ancient Silk Road, groups of Pakistani merchants living in China's far west would wave goodbye to their Chinese wives and cross the border to spend winter in their home country.
As the snow piled high, the men would stay in touch with their families by phone, longing for the spring thaw that would allow them to be reunited in Xinjiang.
But last year many of their calls suddenly went unanswered.
Their families, they learned, had disappeared into a growing network of shadowy "re-education centres" that have swept up the region's Uighur Muslim minority over fears of Islamic militancy crossing the border from Pakistan.
"My wife and kids were taken away by the Chinese authorities in March last year and I haven't heard from them since," said Iqbal, a Pakistani businessman who declined to give his surname over concern about his family's safety.
Last July, he headed to China to find them, but was turned away at the border. Authorities "said my wife was in 'training' and the government was taking care of my kids", he told AFP.
"I begged them to let me talk to my daughters, but they refused."
Iqbal is one of dozens of merchants from Gilgit-Baltistan who return to Pakistan for visa reasons or to run their businesses and have been unable to contact their Uighur families living in China, according to Javed Hussain, a member of the local assembly for the Pakistani region that borders Xinjiang.
Earlier this month, the delegates passed a unanimous resolution protesting the "illegal detention" of the men's families.
"The Chinese authorities should at least allow the men to meet their wives and children," Hussain said.
"China is our friend and this incident will leave a bad taste."
China's foreign ministry said that the "two sides are maintaining communication about problems related to interactions between both countries' people", while Pakistan's said the issue was being "actively discussed with the government of China".
Like many of the men, Iqbal's family lived in Kashgar, an ancient city along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a trade route connecting China's far west to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.
In recent years, China has heavily pushed its relationship with Pakistan, investing tens of billions of dollars in CPEC infrastructure projects in the country, and Beijing has upgraded the treacherous mountain road connecting Gilgit-Baltistan to Xinjiang.
But China has had difficulty reconciling its desire for development with fears that Uighur separatists will import violence from Pakistan.
Chinese authorities have long linked their crackdown on Xinjiang's Muslims to international counter-terrorism, arguing that separatists are bent on joining foreign extremists like Al-Qaeda.
Uighurs have been tied to mass stabbings and bombings that left dozens dead in recent years across the country. Riots and clashes with the government killed hundreds more.
Over the past year, China has turned to increasingly drastic methods to eliminate what it describes as the "three forces": terrorists, religious extremists and separatists.
In 2017, the government flooded Xinjiang with tens of thousands of security personnel, with police stations on nearly every block in urban areas and tough regulations to "eliminate extremism".
This included the increased use of compulsory "re-education" for anyone suspected of harbouring separatist sympathies.
Iqbal and the other Pakistani men believe their wives -- and even business associates -- have been targeted because they received calls and messages from Pakistan.
"Any communication from Pakistan is considered a threat," said Qurban, a businessman who has worked in Kashgar for over 30 years.
"One of my employees, a Uighur, was picked up two years back just because he was in touch with me when I went to Pakistan."
Chinese authorities have denied the existence of re-education centres.
But regulations against extremism adopted by Xinjiang last March call for authorities to step up political re-education.
In Kashgar alone, more than 120,000 people -- about three percent of the area's population -- were being held in the facilities in January, according to Radio Free Asia.
An AFP review of state media reports and government documents verified the existence of at least 30 such centres and almost 4,000 cases of people being sent to them.
Regulations posted on a local website in Xinjiang's Hejing county explained that even minor transgressions of strict religious regulations can be punished with up to three months in a centre.
Ali, a businessman who lost contact with his wife in December, said she had been taken by authorities to do a "sort of training where they teach them about Communism and prepare them to be patriotic citizens".
"My wife told me that Chinese police had come to her house and asked her about the calls from Pakistan and asked her to explain her links with ETIM," said Ali, referring to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a militant group China has accused of attempting to foment Uighur separatism.
He plans to cross the border in May to find his family, but has been told his children are in the custody of the Chinese government and doesn't know if he will see them again.
"They never tell you anything, they just say your family will come back to you when they finish their training."
Pakistanis distressed as Uighur wives vanish in China dragnet
Pakistanis distressed as Uighur wives vanish in China dragnet
Separated twice: An Afghan man’s life in Pakistan and the fear of losing home again
- Lost as a child in Peshawar, Mohammad Raheem Khan built a life in Pakistan but remains undocumented
- Deportation drive of ‘illegal’ foreigners exposes legal gaps around adoption, marriage, refugee status
ISLAMABAD: Mohammad Raheem Khan was five years old when he last saw his mother.
It was at the Hajji Camp bus stop in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, more than four decades ago. His mother, an Afghan refugee fleeing war, had brought him across the Tari Mangal border in Kurram district and into Pakistan. While waiting at the crowded terminal, Khan wandered to a nearby toy shop. When he returned, she was gone.
He searched for her for two days. She never came back.
A local shopkeeper, Ali Muhammad, took pity on the child and brought him home, promising to help find his family. The temporary shelter became permanent. Khan grew up in Pakistan, adopted informally into the household, and never returned to Afghanistan.
Now 45, he lives on the outskirts of Islamabad in a modest two-room house, working as a daily wage laborer. But a nationwide deportation drive launched by Pakistan in 2023 has placed his entire life under threat.
Since November 2023, authorities have deported nearly 2 million Afghan nationals, targeting those without legal documentation. Khan, who has remained undocumented throughout his adult life, fears he may soon be among them.
“I spoke to my lawyer that I am very worried,” Khan told Arab News. “I love Pakistan.”
A FAMILY WITHOUT PAPERS
Ali Muhammad later married Khan to his daughter, Gul Mina. Together, they have six children, four daughters and two sons. Yet despite decades in Pakistan, Khan’s Afghan nationality continues to shadow the family.
Khan never held an Afghan refugee card, Afghan Citizen Card (ACC), Proof of Registration (POR), or any other formal documentation. His family assumed for decades that his informal adoption, marriage to a Pakistani citizen, and long residence would provide sufficient legal standing. They only sought legal advice when the deportation drive began threatening separation.
Without a Pakistani national identity card, his children cannot obtain Form-B, the birth registration document required for school enrolment.
“They [children] are told to get a Form-B,” Gul Mina told Arab News. “Otherwise, they will not go to school.”
Three of their daughters were forced to leave school after eighth grade.
Healthcare has also been affected. When Khan’s 13-year-old son, Ehsanullah, fractured his arm, a public hospital refused to issue a registration card without identity documents.
“Then I went to a [private clinic] in Chak Shahzad and got my treatment there,” Khan said.
The family has petitioned the Islamabad High Court to block his deportation. Lawyers say the case highlights how thousands of long-term residents fall through legal cracks created by Pakistan’s citizenship, refugee and documentation framework.
LEGAL GREY ZONE
Pakistan does not legally recognize Western-style adoption. Instead, it uses a guardianship system under the 1890 Guardians and Wards Act, aligning with Islamic principles that preserve lineage, so adopted children don’t inherit or change their family name but receive care, education and welfare through court-appointed guardianship.
“Because we don’t have a legal pathway for adoption per se, the adopted child does not get citizenship of the adopting parents automatically,” said Advocate Umer Ijaz Gillani, a legal expert on citizenship.
Years earlier, Khan’s father-in-law had offered to register him as his biological son to obtain identity documents, but Khan refused, calling the move fraudulent. Because Khan later married his father-in-law’s daughter, both he and his wife cannot legally list the same person as their father on official records, leaving them without a lawful workaround.
Marriage offers no certainty either. Pakistan’s Citizenship Act of 1951 grants citizenship to foreign women married to Pakistani men, but is silent on foreign husbands married to Pakistani women.
While higher courts have, at times, ruled in favor of such men, implementation has been inconsistent. In October 2025, the Supreme Court struck down a high court order that had directed authorities to grant citizenship to an Afghan man married to a Pakistani woman.
Even the Pakistan Origin Card (POC), a long-term residency document, remains difficult to secure.
“We have experienced that in the case of especially Afghan men who marry Pakistani women, the government authorities are often reluctant to recognize this right,” Gillani said.
According to submissions made by government officials in court, authorities have received at least 117 applications for nationality from Afghan men married to Pakistani women following directives issued by the Peshawar High Court, reflecting a broader pattern rather than isolated cases.
‘NO RELAXATION’
Officials say the deportation policy allows no exceptions.
“No relaxation has been granted by the government, including for those who’ve married to Pakistani citizens,” said Asmatullah Shah, the chief commissionerate for Afghan refugees.
“If they want to live here, they should go back and apply for a visa and then they can come here with valid documentation.”
Legal experts note that deportation would send Khan to Afghanistan despite having no known relatives there, and that returning legally would require obtaining an Afghan passport and a Pakistani visa, costs far beyond the means of a daily wage laborer.
For Khan’s mother-in-law, Husn Pari, who raised him for decades as her own son, the prospect is devastating.
“When I am not able to meet [Khan] for one day, my day does not pass,” she said. “His own mother, how much pain must she be in?”
For Khan, the fear of deportation echoes the trauma of his childhood.
“Before I was separated from my first mother,” he said. “The second time I will be separated from my second mother. This is very difficult for me.”
