VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - As the clock ticked down to the Nov. 1 deadline Pakistan set for undocumented migrants to leave the country, Muhammad Rahim boarded a bus from Karachi to the Afghan border.

"We'd live here our whole life if they didn't send us back," said the 35-year-old Afghan national, who was born in Pakistan, married a Pakistani woman and raised his Pakistan-born children in the port city - but has no Pakistani identity documents.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan said some 60,000 Afghans returned between Sept 23 to Oct 22 from Pakistan, which announced on Oct 4 it will expel undocumented migrants that do not leave.

And recent daily returnee figures are three times higher than normal, Taliban refugee ministry spokesman Abdul Mutaleb Haqqani told Reuters on Oct 26.

Near Karachi's Sohrab Goth area - home to one of Pakistan's largest Afghan settlements - a bus service operator named Azizullah said he had laid on extra services to cope with the exodus. Nearby, lines formed before competitor bus services headed to Afghanistan.

"Before I used to run one bus a week, now we have four to five a week," said Azizullah, who - like all the Afghan migrants Reuters interviewed - spoke on condition that he be identified by only one name due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Reuters interviewed seven refugee families in Sohrab Goth, as well as four Taliban and Pakistani officials, community leaders, aid workers and advocates, who said Islamabad's threat - and a subsequent rise in state-backed harassment - has torn families apart and pushed even Afghans with valid papers to leave.

The Pakistani Interior Ministry did not immediately return a request for comment. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement that the expulsion plan was compliant with international norms and principles: "Our record of the last forty years in hosting millions of our Afghan brothers and sisters speaks for itself."

Pakistan is home to over 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of whom are undocumented, according to Islamabad. Afghans make up the largest portion of migrants - many came after the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021, but a large number have been present since the 1979 Soviet invasion.

The expulsion threat came after suicide bombings this year which the government - without providing evidence - said involved Afghans. Islamabad has also blamed them for smuggling and other militant attacks.

Cash-strapped Pakistan, navigating record inflation and a tough International Monetary Fund bailout program, also said undocumented migrants have drained its resources for decades.

Despite the challenges facing migrants, Pakistan is the only home many of them know and a sanctuary from the economic deprivation and extreme social conservatism that Afghanistan is grappling with, said Samar Abbas of the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network, which is helping 200 Afghans seeking to remain.

RISE IN RETURNS

In early September, an average of 300 people crossed the border into Afghanistan daily, according to international organizations working on migration issues, who provided data on condition that they not be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. After Islamabad announced the November deadline, crossings jumped to roughly 4,000, the organizations said.

These figures are small compared to the number of people to be affected in coming days. The information minister for Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan, told Reuters it is opening three more border crossings.

For weeks, state-run television has run a countdown to Nov. 1 on the top of its screens.

Federal Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti warned that law enforcement agencies will start removing "illegal immigrants who have ... no justification" being in Pakistan after Tuesday.

They will be processed at "holding centers" and then deported, he told reporters, adding that women, children and the elderly would be treated "respectfully." Reuters could not determine how long they might be detained in the centers.

Pakistani citizens who help undocumented migrants obtain false identities or employment will face legal action, Bugti warned.

"Post-November will be very chaotic and there will be chaos in the Afghan refugee camps," said Abbas, the advocate.

FEAR AND DESPERATION

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Pakistan's plans create "serious protection risks" for women and girls forced to leave. Restrictions in Afghanistan, especially on female NGO workers, have led to shrinking employment opportunities for women there.

While Pakistan says it will not target Afghans with legal status, many with proper documents also find themselves being targeted, according to migrant advocates.

UNHCR data shows that 14,700 documented Afghans left Pakistan as of Oct. 18 2023, more than double the 6,039 in all of last year.

The agency said in a statement that 78 percent of recent returning Afghans it spoke to cited fear of arrest in Pakistan as reason for their departure.

There are more than 2.2 million Afghan migrants in Pakistan with some form of documentation recognized by the government that conveys temporary residence rights.

Roughly 1.4 million of them hold Proof of Registration (PoR) cards that expired on June 30, leaving them vulnerable. Islamabad says it will not take action against people with invalid cards, but Abbas told Reuters that police harassment has ramped up since the expulsion threat.

More than a dozen migrants that Reuters spoke to corroborated the claim, which was also repeated by Taliban diplomats in Pakistan.

Karachi East Police Superintendent Uzair Ahmed told Reuters that while there might be "one or two" instances of harassment, it was non-systemic and offenders would be investigated.

Many Afghans with legal status told Reuters they feel compelled to leave out of fear of being separated from family members without documentation.

Hajira, a 42-year-old widow in Sohrab Goth, told Reuters she has the right to remain in Pakistan, as do two of her four sons. The other two don't.

Fearing separation from her children, she plans on leaving with her sons and their families before the deadline expires.

Majida, a 31-year-old who was born in Pakistan, lives with her husband and their six children in an apartment complex in Sohrab Goth, a squalid suburb whose narrow streets are filled with heaps of garbage.

She said her family has PoR cards but has still been subject to harassment: a brother-in-law and nephew were detained by local authorities for several hours before being released. Reuters could not independently verify her account.

When Majida fell ill earlier in October, her husband refused to help her pick up medication at a nearby pharmacy out of fear of detention.

"We don't have a home or work (in Afghanistan)," she said. "Obviously, we think of Pakistan as our home, we've been living here for so long."

PRESSURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Back in Afghanistan, the influx of returning migrants and refugees has exerted pressure on already limited resources that are stretched by international sanctions on the banking sector and cuts in foreign aid after the Taliban takeover.

The Afghan Ministry of Refugees says it intends to register returnees and then house them in temporary camps. The Taliban administration said it will try to find returnees jobs.

The unemployment rate more than doubled from the period immediately before the Taliban takeover to June 2023, according to the World Bank. U.N. agencies say around two-thirds of the population is in need of humanitarian aid.

"We had our own barbecue shop and meat shop here. We had ... everything. We were guests here," said 18-year-old Muhammad just before he boarded Azizullah's bus back to Afghanistan.

"You should think of it this way: that the country is kicking out its guests." (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - The government's move to tighten import flows is aimed at protecting and supporting domestic products, Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan has said.

"Nowadays, we cannot be underestimated. We have been involved in big events such as G7 and G20; we are also increasing our cooperation in the economic sector," he added on Monday.

Besides increasing international cooperation, the government has also continued to protect and maintain local products by tightening imports, he noted.

"Previously, goods from foreign countries could freely enter our ports with cross-border imports. This practice threatened our domestic products because they were less competitive. Now, we have decided to close the cross-border for imported goods worth less than Rp1.5 million on e-commerce to save our local products," Hasan informed.

Apart from closing direct imports, the government is also tightening import controls by changing post borders to borders, he added.

"Yesterday, I also tightened fruit imports to boost our domestic fruits. All imports must be regulated and supervised, instead of making exports more difficult. We want to protect our farmers and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)," the minister said.

According to him, the import tightening could boost the development of domestic products and increase people's purchasing power for local goods.

The support to protect and maintain domestic products by the government through tightening imports has also been felt by one of the MSME owners in Lampung, Trianti.

"With efforts to ensure local products' supremacy in their own country, especially MSME products, we support the import restriction," she said.

She noted that domestic products are no less competitive than imported products.

"The competitiveness of local products is no less than imported products. However, the quality and packaging must be improved to attract consumers. By providing opportunities for local products to be known by a wider market, it has helped the growth of local MSMEs to increase their business capability and capacity," she added. (Antaranews)

VOINews, Jakarta - The Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi) will partner with the Lithuanian Basketball Federation (LTU Basketball) to develop basketball in Indonesia, especially for young players.

The partnership was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Perbasi chair Danny Kosasih and LTU Basketball deputy chair for international relations Valdemaras Chomicius in Jakarta on Monday. The signing of the agreement will be followed by various programs.

Kosasih said that the collaboration was a follow-up to discussions between Perbasi and LTU Basketball since the 2023 FIBA World Cup in Indonesia and Manila in August-September.

Lithuania, which ranked sixth in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, is a small country in northern Europe with a population of 3 million. However, it has consistent global basketball achievements and has always been in the top 10 in FIBA rankings and the FIBA World Cup.

"We have a lot of experience in terms of organization, basketball development methods, effective basketball systems, basketball development, and others. This cooperation will be good for us," Chomicius said.

He said that the entire population of Lithuania loves basketball, and almost everyone plays basketball in the country. Therefore, Lithuanian basketball can improve and become a top-ranked FIBA team.

"We are ready to transfer our basketball knowledge to Indonesia," he added.

Kosasih said that details of the collaboration between Perbasi and LTU Basketball would be discussed later by developing several programs, including developing young Indonesian players through training camps, basketball schools, and trial matches, among others.

There are also plans to develop coach and referee training in Indonesia, he added. (Antaranews)

VOINews, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) on Monday described the current direction of the global economy as difficult to predict and asked central and regional officials to remain alert.

"I often say that the world is now increasingly unclear, global economic uncertainty is difficult to calculate," Widodo said during a briefing with regional heads from across Indonesia at the State Palace in Jakarta.

The current global monetary policy is difficult to predict, he added. There are indications that only the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) has raised interest rates, but the adjustment from the most influential central bank in the world has caused problems for all developing countries due to a reversal in capital flow.

Another thing that has caused uncertainty is climate change, which has also had an impact on food production, Widodo said.

In the past, he continued, the impact of climate change was often underestimated. However, now, it has caused drought, which could ultimately reduce crop production.

As a result of climate change, Indonesia needs to import food to cover production shortfalls. However, applying for imports to various producing countries is currently not easy because the whole world is facing the threat of a food crisis.

"Secondly, climate change, (for) which (they) used to say 'ah, it is something unseen' is now clearly visible. Drought in seven provinces and several countries has reduced our rice production. We want to stop importing now and it's not as easy as before to find imported rice," he highlighted.

Widodo informed that he had spoken with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about obtaining a rice import quota. However, this could not be achieved because India is also exporting just enough to secure the country's national stock.

"But he (PM Modi) uses it himself as a backup, he doesn't dare to let it go. I've said he doesn't dare to let it go," the President said.

Southeast Asian countries, which previously offered rice for exports, such as Thailand and Vietnam, are also now limiting shipments, he added.

Widodo emphasized that global economic dynamics like these must be understood by all regional heads. Regional leaders must be aware of this global uncertainty's impact on the local economy.

"Situations like this, ladies and gentlemen, is something that we must know, so that when working, 'I have to come here to understand.' What does it mean if fuel prices increase? Inflation will rise. Rising inflation means that the prices of goods and services will also increase accordingly. We alone have seven provinces affected by Super El Nino, production has fallen, this is what everyone must be alert to," he said.

Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, and Minister of Home Affairs, Tito Karnavian, were also present at the President's briefing. (Antaranews)