An Afghan
scholar has traveled the long journey from Afghanistan to Europe crossing many
borders of different countries along with the Afghan refugees to see how
dangerous this journey is and what are the main problems of Afghan refugees
while crossing borders of countries mostly on foot, a journey that takes months
or years without a specific destination. It is a journey for a safe place, a
run for the life, a run to find peaceful environment with kind people. This journey
is one of the hard decisions for the Afghans to make because it requires a lot
of money and may take all of the properties and housing accommodation and the
lands they have in Afghanistan as well as the amount of they might have managed
to save so far. Most of them don’t have the money yet. They borrow from a
friend or they thing they can yearn it on the way of the journey by hard work
as labor in the host countries. They begin to cross Pakistan, Iran, Turkey,
Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and
the UK.
This journey may
require a whole life time to reach and for many they will never reach to where
they wanted to go and they end up in prisons of these countries or drown in the
Mediterranean Sea.
If they don’t
die on the way, they have to face a lot of problems and challenges they have
never heard of or they have never experienced before.
In this article
you read about these challenges which take the lives of human beings on the way
of their journey for a safe place. This article is supposed to serve as highest
safety measurements for the refugees to let them know of the problems on the
way so that they can save their lives by not being so naïve and unaware of
these problems.
The countries on
the way are not full of nice and kind people. There might be some racist, xenophobe
Islamophobe, and chauvinist people who will try to create problems for the refugees.
They may invite them for a free ride inside a refrigerated truck and if they
fall in that trap, they will die for sure.
The first thing
they should know is that once you are inside the European countries, you are
not allowed to work which means you will not have income and it means you don’t
have anything to eat.
The European
countries have got very good laws for workers and employers but they are all on
the paper or they are being used only for the citizens of European countries
but not for the refugees. The refugees from Afghanistan face these problems in
all over European countries:
No work
permits
Most of the
young refugees from Afghanistan who come to Europeans countries, they mostly do
not receive papers to make them recognized as refugees for 5 to 10 years and
therefore they do not exist and they do not have the rights to work and earn a
living.
Exploitation
Those refugees
who come from Afghanistan, in case if they get a work permit, but they have not
been to school there in Afghanistan during the war and thus they do not know
their basic human rights. They are mostly being exploited by the firms and
companies who hire them by different means. They are paid less than the minimum
wages or they do not receive the same rights as the citizens of the European
countries, for example they will not have the same paid leaves which is
recognized the law of the relevant country or they are asked to work longer
hours than the usual norms or they are given unspecified load of work to make
them work instead of many other labors.
Low salary
All the Afghan
refugees who work for other organizations receive the same minimum salary which
is 1200 Euro per month. Despite the fact that those who live under the poverty
line in European countries and earn less than 16000 Euro per month are exempted
from paying the taxes but still the poor Afghan refugees are paying heavy taxes
despite living under extreme poverty conditions, earning the least amount to
survive. Those refugees who have managed to start a private business, they are
also subject to heavy tax burdens as well as higher prices of energy and
accommodation which will in turn lead to bankruptcy in the long run.
Food intervention
They easy role
is that you should not eat what you are offered from the unknown people because
many Afghan refugees died on their way through food contamination or food
poisoning.
Most of the
refugees from Afghanistan employed by the private organizations are deprived of
food subsidy checks available for all other workers. On the other hand they
receive some kind of extra food intervention as fruit and nuts which are not
examined to be healthy. They are mostly collected from the other workers extra
food which cannot be consumed by the citizens of the European countries and
given to the refugees. There are special food-aid-programs designed only for
the refugees and the food stuff comes in the conserved cans labeled as NOT FOR
SALE in the markets and only for refugees. There should be a firm to check the
quality of such food stuff to make sure that they are edible and not harmful
for human consumption.
Health
intervention
The refugees
from Afghanistan in European countries are being vaccinated at the different
stages. Vaccination is a process in which people are injected some level of
microbes to get immunity against that specific microbe. Vaccination can also be
misused to expose and inject refugees a higher level of microbes to make people
sick by injecting different levels of different kinds of microbes inside their
bodies. The current situation and the high level of hatred and xenophobia in
Europe, there is a highly risk of misusing health intervention against the
refugees which requires the attention of the relevant governments to protect
their citizens.
There is a totally
different health system for the refugees in Europe. The refugees receive
different kinds of medicines and treatments than the European citizens. For
example, the Afghan refugees without income receive genetic medicines while the
European citizens receive other sorts of medicines.
When the
refugees go to the drugstore in Europe, there are two types of medicines, type
A is for the European citizens while the types B is for the refugees. Type B is
the genetic medicines. The Europeans believe that it is a discrimination
against refugees and they believe the type B is counterfeit and cheap medicines
while no one really knows what the genetic medicines refer to.
Such kind of
double standard and discrimination is an obvious breach of human rights and
Geneva Convention.
No safety norms
and standards or minimum standards
Safety measures
are there for the protection of the labor force but in European countries most
of the norms and standards are being used against the health and well-being of
Afghan refugees. For example the safety caps and safety shoes for the construction
workers are the best way to protect labors from unpredictable accidents on the
work-site but if they are old and used by 30 to 40 people before and never
cleaned could be infectious for the Afghan refugees. Unfortunately we have
witnessed that Afghan refugees receive such kind of old foot-ware and safety
clothing and uniforms which brings so many diseases to Afghan refugees without
any kind of attention because it will cost money for the relevant
organizations.
Lack of
information about International Labor Organization and its conventions
The conventions
of the International Labor Organization are one of the ways which can improve
the work conditions of the Afghan refugees in Europe. The organizations which
employ foreigners should be aware of the international norms and standards for
the improvement of the work conditions. They should also understand the basic
rights of the workers as well as the human rights.
Discrimination
in labor markets
Afghan refugees
have little chance of getting a normal job in the European countries. There is
a high level of discrimination against Afghan refugees. Only minor jobs and no
one else is ready to do that will be given to Afghan refugees with minimum salary.
Afghans try
their best to learn the languages but the language is used as a means to
justify the high level of discrimination against them.
Lack of
transparency of laws
When the Afghans
get a work contract, the contracts are not inclusive of all details and that
makes it difficult for Afghan refugees. For example the work-site and work
location is not clearly mentioned so that the organization can take them to
anywhere they wish to work. The norms and standards to volume of work are not clear
so that the organizations can ask them to do the most they can and sometimes
more than the ability of a person. For example if it is excavation in the
construction sector, there should be a fixed measurement and norm for the
ability of a labor to show how much can a person excavate during a normal
working day. If it is not clearly mentioned, then the workers can be exploited beyond
the norms and abilities of a normal working day.
Racism and Chauvinism
in the labor market
Work
opportunities are allocated based on race, religion and color of skin and
language preference. That makes the citizens better off with the Afghan
refugees are as usual less chance to get a job. The companies and firms who
want to employ refugees will give the chance to other refugees who are closer
to them rather than the Afghan refugees.
Lack of
privacy
The Afghan refugees
have no privacy in the private lives because in the most of the European
countries, the owner of the apartment has another key and the manager of the
building has another key. When the Afghan refugees get out of their apartment,
others can go inside the apartment which makes Afghan refugees very vulnerable
and insecure. The Afghan refugees should mention all these issues in the
contract and make the other parties responsible for having a key, as if something
happens for the Afghan refugee, the owner and the key holders should be held
responsible.
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