ISLAMABAD: More than a hundred Afghan women, who illegally immigrated to Pakistan, have been jailed in Pakistan's southern Sindh province, but their children are not under arrest, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said on Friday, amid criticism over the images of locked-up Afghan children circulating online.
Pakistani police detained at least 1,200 Afghan nationals, including women and children, who entered the southern port city of Karachi without valid travel documents, officials said this week.
Pictures of some Afghan children crammed into a cell of the Karachi central jail went viral on social media platforms, drawing appeals for their release along with their parents.
Memon said around 129 Afghan women were jailed in the Sindh province and their 178 children were staying with them in prison in accordance with Pakistan's laws.
"Let me tell you these children are not arrested. Our law says that if a woman [prisoner] has a child aged less than 7 years, then they should be allowed to stay with their mother," the provincial minister said at a press conference on Friday.
"Where will the child go if their father and mother are in jail? They are kept in prison, but not as a prisoner."
Police and local government officials say the detainees will be deported to Afghanistan after serving jail sentences or when the paperwork for their release is completed by their attorneys.
Millions of Afghans fled their country to Pakistan during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, creating one of the world’s largest refugee populations. Since then, Pakistan has been hosting Afghans, urging them to register themselves with the U.N. and local authorities to avoid any risk of deportation.
The recent detentions also underscore strained relations between the two South Asian neighbors.
This month, Pakistan twice briefly closed a key border crossing in the southwestern town of Chaman after clashes erupted between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces over the fencing of a remote border village.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, sweeping into the capital, Kabul, and taking the rest of the country as US and NATO forces were in the final weeks of a pullout after 20 years of war.
Since then, over 100,000 Afghans have arrived in Pakistan to avoid persecution at home, although Afghanistan's Taliban rulers announced a pardon, urging their citizens not to leave the country.
