Will Brehm  0:05
Brad Blitz, welcome to FreshEd.

Brad Blitz  3:11
Thank you very much.

Will Brehm  3:12
So, can you tell me exactly when you realized that the American -and the British and I guess other NATO members who were in Afghanistan- when their evacuation of Afghan civilians was actually going to leave people behind?

Brad Blitz  3:27
Well, I should say, even before the evacuation efforts we were in touch with colleagues in the field. And we had asked them to make sure that they were okay. We made it clear to them that we wanted to make sure that whatever they did, they were not putting themselves in danger. And so, we were having those conversations, actually in July. But it was, I would say, the first week of August when we started to ask people if they needed to consider getting out. And then it was probably the middle of August when we were actively working on evacuation.

Will Brehm  4:01
And how many, do you think, were actually left behind? Do we even know?

Brad Blitz  4:06
It’s very difficult to get a figure. And that’s because we’re not just talking about people connected to universities. But these are also people who work for NGOs. These are people who are activists, artists, journalists, they’re in that, if you like, that creative sector. And we do know that there are over a 1,000 people. And I can tell you that because I’ve seen some of the lists. So, we originally had over 350 names. And that was the list that we presented to a number of governments, including the British government. The most recent list has 252 names. These are colleagues who worked as our enumerators. So, they were, if you like, our research assistants and field researchers on the ground. But they were also the people that were helping us with some of the peacebuilding and impact-generating activities. So, in that context, we were drawing from colleagues working in the NGO sector and in related sectors. And that number of 252 includes people we are calling “principals”, if you’d like, the heads of household, but also their families, and these are large families. So, that’s why we’re seeing these numbers.

Will Brehm  5:13
Were these “principals” prioritized in any way? Like, were these people that were supposed to get out but did not. Or were just simply never on a priority list from any government?

Brad Blitz  5:25
When the ARAP (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) scheme was first designed, they were included at the very bottom, if you’d like, among the other categories. They were not defined, right. So, there was very little discussion around academics. There was discussion, and there was inclusion of those who are at risk as a result of their activities. And that was principally aimed at let’s say, those who were working within the NGO sector, and they would be in category three or four. But they were certainly considered a lower priority by the various governments that were keen to evacuate Afghans and their own nationals. They were considered a much lower priority than those who were directly associated with the military presence and with the foreign governments that were there.

Will Brehm  6:09
Including dogs if I’m not mistaken, right? There was animals that were evacuated before these individuals that work in partnership with universities.

Brad Blitz  6:19
Yes. And it might be interesting for listeners from outside the United Kingdom to know a bit about the story. But there were over 200 animals that support if you’d like the British military. So, these are dogs -highly trained dogs I should add- and they were given permission to leave, whereas our colleagues weren’t. And as a result of tremendous lobbying and pressure, some vets and 200 dogs and cats were evacuated before our colleagues. And in fact, yesterday I heard, it was both on BBC Radio and in The Guardian, about a Mynah Bird that was evacuated to Abu Dhabi. This was a child’s pet. And while it’s quite a sweet story about how the French ambassador sought to comfort this young Afghan girl who was herself being evacuated, and he offered to look after her pet Mynah Bird. The story focused very much on the protection of this animal and not on the evacuation of those who are truly at great risk. And those are humans. Those are our colleagues.

Will Brehm  7:24
And have you been in touch with some of these colleagues who were not able to be evacuated while the British and the UK governments were doing the evacuations? Have you been in touch with them since the military presence has left Afghanistan?

Brad Blitz  7:37
Yes. We’ve been in touch with a number of people on Signal and WhatsApp, and even by email. Interestingly, some have even started to use Twitter in spite of the fact that there is a Taliban presence. So, we’re in regular contact, and we are constantly updating our lists.

Will Brehm  7:54
What are they saying? I mean, what is life like for them right now in Afghanistan?

Brad Blitz  7:59
People are terrified because we’re hearing about the searches that are taking place, the beatings. Some of the children of colleagues have now been pressed into forced marriage. So, a couple of weeks ago, I heard about three young women who were forcibly married to members of the Taliban. We’ve heard some people who have actually been shot. These are people working in law enforcement. And that was reported actually by the international media. Then there are others who have reported that the interrupted supply of food and medicines etc., is already having a significant effect. And so, for example, one doctor we were in contact with, he hadn’t fed his children for about four days. And this is because of the interrupted supply, the fact that people are too scared to go out. The fact that the country is still in a state of chaos.

Will Brehm  8:52
Is the UK Government trying to do anything for these individuals who were on a priority list, even if low priority, but were simply left behind?

Brad Blitz  9:03
What is so shocking is that on multiple occasions, the British government has actually put these people at greater risk. So, some of the people on our list have seen their emails compromised, their data has been made public. Now this was reported in the British and the international media. But we now know because we’ve received copies of the emails that were sent to colleagues who had applied under the ARAP scheme, and as a result, they were contacted by people in the Ministry of Defense. And their details were made public. That happened once. It was reported as more than 250 interpreters and others saw their details made public. But then this happened again, a couple of days later, that was also reported. Then we received copies of these emails. Just two days ago, a colleague in Afghanistan forwarded an email they had received where the Ministry of Defense -in fact it was the ARAP team, it came from an ARAP specific email- was encouraging them to make their way to a border, the Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or Pakistani border and to seek assistance from the British High Commission or embassy in these countries because that would then set off the process for their relocation to the United Kingdom. They said that you have the right to come here, the transport will be facilitated by the IOM, but we’ve encouraged you to make your way to one of these borders. Now, for people who’ve already seen their details made public, for high profile people -because generally you have to be quite high profile to be on this ARAP scheme and to at least be at the front of the queue, let’s say- this would only further endanger them. That they would need to get past Taliban checkpoints, and then they would need to cross the border. It’s just astounding. It’s just astounding. And as a result of this brazen activity, or lack of concern, let’s say, for these Afghan nationals, we know of at least one law firm that is pursuing a legal claim against the British government. And we have written to them and offered to share the information that we have. And we’ll explore whether or not we should participate in this claim because I truly believe it’s outrageous that the British government has not only left people behind, but it is now forcing people into hiding, and has made them even more vulnerable.

Will Brehm  11:31
And encouraging them to put themselves at risk by trying to cross borders. Individuals that have been trapped in Afghanistan, trying to get out, whose details have been leaked by the British government, who have been prioritized to leave but have been left behind. Do we know of any cases where people are trying to cross borders illegally? Because that seems to be the only solution, right? If the British government is telling you to go to Pakistan, but you know, if you try and cross legally into Pakistan, you might get caught? So, you know, wouldn’t it make logical sense to then try and cross the border illegally into Pakistan, which causes a whole new set of problems, I would imagine?

Brad Blitz  12:06
The border is now heavily policed. But what we’re finding is that there’s considerable black-market activity and the sale of visas and gate passes has just multiplied as a result of the fact that these borders are closed. We know of people who have been evacuated on humanitarian flights but they’re being charged between $1,200-$1,500 a head for what is really just a half hour or 40-minute flight from Kabul to Islamabad. There’s a lot of profiteering that’s happening alongside these supposedly humanitarian activities and there are very few people who can take advantage of them. So, in fact, one of our colleagues and their family was evacuated to Pakistan last week. And it was with the support of international NGO, or rather, a foreign NGO that had raised the funds to pay for the travel for themselves and their six children. So, they were lucky but most people don’t have the $15,000 to hand enables them to get on the plane and make that journey.

Will Brehm  13:14
And the connections, right?

Brad Blitz  13:15
And the connections. That’s right.

Will Brehm  13:18
It’s just so amazing to think that there is this humanitarian effort that has emerged in the last 40 days or so in the absence of government. I mean, it’s just sort of mind boggling. You know, the solution of flights is actually quite easy probably, and governments can manage and have flights. But yet here we are, where people have to raise money for individuals to try and get to Islamabad or other countries so they can go to the High Commission and get their onward travel to the UK where they already have a right to resettle. I mean, it’s just mind boggling to me.

Brad Blitz  13:50
It is absolutely outrageous that individuals -in this case, we’re a group of academics- that we are having to take on the responsibilities of states and humanitarian actors in this instance. That we are having to look for exit options and knock on the doors of so many countries. I mean, I’ve been in touch with over 20 countries recently trying to secure permission so that our colleagues are able to get on the few flights that are leaving. So, we know that there are flights to Islamabad there are flights to Doha, there will be flights to Turkey as well, they haven’t yet started. But again, the only way you can get on one of these flights is if you have permission for onward travel. Pakistan is not issuing visas. Other countries aren’t either. If these host states that have offered 5, 10, 20,000 spaces for Afghans to be relocated. If they were really sincere about this, they would be facilitating their travel. They would be issuing the documents so that people can actually get on planes.

Will Brehm  14:56
So, tell me about this group that you have been working with. Trying to facilitate the flights and evacuation of all of these Afghans who have been left behind. Like, how did this group come together and start working towards this goal?

Brad Blitz  15:12
We are now presenting ourselves as the Afghan Solidarity Coalition. We are a very loose coalition of partners who’ve all been working together with colleagues on the ground in Afghanistan. We came together as a result of a research program, which I’m part of. I’m co-director of a program, which is actually part of a hub, led by the LSC. And this is a hub sponsored by the British government. And it is called the Gender, Justice, and Security Hub. The reason why it’s a hub is because it actually draws together 44 projects across six streams. And I’ve been co-leading on the migration strand. And within that strand, we’ve been leading multiple projects. So, within the migration stream, there’s forced migration, return migration, skilled migration, those are projects that have been taking place concurrently. And within the forced migration project, which I’m directing, we’ve been working in six countries, one of which is Afghanistan. And the focus of all of these projects is on questions of gender security. In this instance, we’re looking at gender security, and how that plays out in the context of migration and displacement. So, we were working with field teams in Afghanistan, conducting surveys and interviews when things started to unravel. And when we saw that this was coming, we convened a meeting. Now, we were all connected through actually London universities, right? So, the LSE is the lead actor here, UCL is involved. Middlesex University is involved. And in addition, we’ve been working with these NGOs through the ICAN network, this is the International Civil Society Action Network. And the director of that Sanam Anderlini, is also the director of the Center for Gender, Justice, and Security at the LSE. So, we all came together, and we started to compare notes, look at our lists of people who’ve been working on the various projects. And then we also learned of other colleagues at other universities who similarly have researchers in the field. These included partners at City University and other universities, and we said that we should be the voice for these people. And we did a quick mapping of those who have been funded by the British government or through multilateral assistance, through EU-funded programs let’s say, who are currently in Afghanistan, or have been working in Afghanistan with locals. And as a result of that we were able to put together this list of 252 names.

Will Brehm  17:59
Wow. And so, what’s the plan? What is this group going to be doing?

Brad Blitz  18:03
We were trying to help evacuate our colleagues in late August. We were encouraging them to apply for ARAP, we helped them with those ARAP applications. How we were pressing British governments, the American governments, the Canadians, and other European governments, I should say, as well to take people on the evacuation flights. Now, we managed to get 25 people out to Poland and that was truly by accident. So, what happened was, one of the people on our list is a doctoral student and they already had the visa for the United Kingdom, and they were waiting to leave. But in the meantime, they received a phone call from the Polish embassy in Delhi, and they were invited to board a plane to Poland. And that was because of connections with the Open Society Foundations, having studied in Poland, having had that opportunity. And we were on the phone and I said, “Don’t wait for the British. Get on that flight”. And then they entered that process, which we had seen on television where people were crowding at the airport, they were trying to get to the gates, they were trying to get past the gate. And we were on WhatsApp for hours on end sharing details as to where they were, what they were wearing, sending messages. So, at one point, they were unable to progress any further. I sent a tweet. That tweet was picked up by the Polish ambassador in New Delhi, who then contacted someone in the consulate, who then contacted one of the NATO officers who fished out our colleague and their family and so that they were able to get beyond the gate. And as a result of that process, we had established these contacts and acquired mobile phone numbers actually. And we sent our list to the Polish ambassador and said look, can we please continue with this? And so over the next three nights we did. And a small group of us followed colleagues as they were going through this process. We were sharing information as they got to the airport, what they were wearing, the process became more systematic as well. So, Poland sent information, advising people to hold up something red and white, to mark the palm of their hands with a “P” so that when they raised them in the air, they would be identifiable. And we were sharing information. I’m very fortunate that the Polish government had very tight communications. So, this was possible for a few days. And as a result of that, we were able to get 25 people beyond the gate to Poland. And then we tried that similarly with other countries. We were less successful there. But one managed to get to Sweden, one managed to get to Spain, and one managed to get to Italy. And then it just became unsafe. And that was when there was a shooting at the airport, there were beatings taking place, people were crushed in the crowd. And then of course, there were the suicide bombs. And then the evacuations stopped. So, that sort of took us up to this point where we are now exploring how we can get people on commercial flights, raising money to do so, and petitioning governments to grant them permission.

Will Brehm  21:17
Permission for what? To live in these countries where they’re flying to.

Brad Blitz  21:20
In some cases, it’s simply, do they have permission to board a flight which is allowed to land such that they will be given temporary protection upon arrival? And once they’re there, they can then apply for relocation to one of the major host countries. And those are principally now Canada, which is now offering to take 40,000 Afghans in addition, I should say, to the Private Sponsorship Scheme, which works really very well. So, Canada is offering to take the lion’s share, let’s say. But then there’s still a sincere effort to try to get people into the United States if they’ve applied for P-1, P-2, or SIVs (Special Immigrant Visas). And of course, the United Kingdom, which has also made promises to these people. And not just those who applied under the ARAP scheme but also this Afghan Citizen’s Resettlement (ACRS) scheme, which has yet to get off the ground in part because they keep circulating the ministers. They are not staffing the scheme.

Will Brehm  22:16
So, some of these individuals that are stuck in Afghanistan, the possibility here is that they may be able to get on a flight that takes them to a third country. And in that third country, they would go to an Embassy of Canada, of America, of the United Kingdom, and potentially from there, get the onward travel and right to go and live in one of those countries. That’s sort of the idea? That’s the pathway in a sense, to the escape?

Brad Blitz  22:48
That’s right. So, for example, one of our colleagues who had been given permission to travel to Sweden never managed to get to the airport. The Swedes had organized transport for them to the airport and put them on a bus. But that bus never managed to get there. They were driving around Kabul for about 15 hours. And then they gave up -rather the Swedish government gave up on that particular evacuation flight. But they did receive an email saying, if you’re able to get to Sweden, we will honor our promise to resettle you. Of course, that promise doesn’t really mean much when you cannot cross continents and you’re still stuck in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. But again, we do know that there will be commercial flights. So, we’re asking the Swedish government, would you not issue a letter simply so that person can, when the airport fully reopens, purchase a ticket and fly to Sweden?

Will Brehm  23:47
And did they?

Brad Blitz  23:48
Not yet.

Will Brehm  23:49
It’s just so amazing to think, you know, all these states that have promised to allow these individuals to live in their countries, they’re just not even providing the minimum of a letter?

Brad Blitz  24:00
No. And you know, what’s interesting here. We used to talk about -I think people may still talk about- the United States having a wet-foot-dry-foot policy with respect to refugees. So, for example, Cubans who were able to get on boats and wind up within the vicinity of Florida. If they could be picked up on fishing vessels or otherwise, or even make themselves onto an island or even onto the mainland would be given the right to settle in the United States. Of course, other nationals were not given such protection and arguably, in the United States, protection refugee policy mirrored US foreign and security policies. And that’s what we’re seeing now. Even in the best possible cases, right. So, countries like Sweden, which have historically welcomed refugees, which have really well-established infrastructure to manage refugees. Now they’re saying if you can get here, you can stay. And that has become the most benevolent position of these countries now,

Will Brehm  25:05
Just unbelievable. What’s the least benevolent?

Brad Blitz  25:09
That we won’t take you. We won’t have you at all. We’re not even going to respond to you. And job done.

Will Brehm  25:15
Which countries have been?

Brad Blitz  25:16
Most countries will not allow Afghans even to transit through their airports. There are possibly six. And in fact, during the evacuation, there was some private charter flights set up. And there was some Afghans that were flown to Uganda because they didn’t need visas to land in Uganda. And now they’re finding that these people are going to be stuck there for a very long time because they cannot get permission to be resettled in another country.

Will Brehm  25:41
So, I mean, Brad, you have studied migration as a professor and have written about it extensively. Now here, you are sort of part of this, I don’t know, ad hoc humanitarian effort that is using Signal and WhatsApp and it’s just sort of unbelievable, what has happened in the absence of state power and support. Has this experience over the last close to two months, has it changed your mind on sort of some of the ideas that you’ve been studying for so long? Or have you learned something new?

Brad Blitz  26:15
I think it’s actually solidified some of my thinking. Because for many years, I’ve worked on issues of refugee return. I’ve worked on questions of statelessness as well, where we’ve looked at people who’ve been in situations of protracted displacement often for generations, and they just have not been integrated in the state. And I should say, the two are related. So, when I was doing research in Croatia, many years ago, I was interviewing people. Sorry, why have you not been rehoused? How is it that you’re still here after 11 or 12 years? And they said, well, you know, we didn’t have citizenship. And what I have found is that once people surrender themselves to the state, and seek either state protection or international protection, right -it could be you know, you are simply registered by, say, the UNHCR and you wind up in a refugee camp- it can take years, it can take decades actually before you’re able to see your life return to any normal existence. That is, you surrender your control, you’re subject to not just the protection, but the paternalism of these organizations. And while they may be working, and they may have workers who sincerely want to help, the bottom line is that people’s lives are truly changed. That they surrender all sorts of freedoms of mobility, and it has a tremendous effect on their livelihoods, on their health. And it is not a good outcome. It may be necessary at times for people to be in refugee camps but ultimately, it is not good for people. And therefore, I find it very difficult to advocate for it. In fact, I don’t. I don’t anymore. And I’ve seen many instances where people’s lives have been truly damaged as a result of this. And arguably, where people have been able to restart their lives, it is generally where they have been able to either self-settle, or where they have been taken in by locals or through community initiatives. So, for example, if we think about Kosovo, many years ago now 800,000 people were displaced, largely divided between Macedonia and Albania. In Macedonia they had camps, in Albania they were taken into people’s homes. And they were ultimately able to return because they didn’t spend so long in such a situation. They were then able to work towards the establishment of an independent state. People were able to recover a sense of normality. But in other settings and situations where people have been stuck in camps, they’ve only seen their life chances deteriorate.

Will Brehm  29:07
God. And here we are sort of at this precipice where potentially some Afghans are going into refugee camps or might end up in refugee camps. And then others might end up in homes with other families in other countries.

Brad Blitz  29:22
Well, this is why the Pakistan option is not a good option -the idea of encouraging people just to go to Pakistan. Because if they wind up destitute in Pakistan, or they become refugees in Pakistan, it will be years or decades before they can actually leave and return to Afghanistan or be resettled in third countries. These are supposed to be durable solutions. The UNHCR talks about durable solutions and repatriation and resettlement are among them. But when you look at -I know you’ve worked in Southeast Asia- when you look at just how long it took to find homes in safe third countries for Vietnamese, Cambodian, and others from the former Indochina, let’s say. It was decades. And really it was only, I think, 20 years ago when the last lot were actually resettled in Central California, actually.

Will Brehm  30:17
You know, the human tragedy is just sort of hard to even get my head around. But you also are a head of department in a university. In fact, my head of department where I work. And this experience really raises some issues about partnerships. So, we’ve been encouraged to have partners in the quote, unquote, global south. And you have set up big research projects, obviously, through this hub with many different countries, one of them, including Afghanistan. What does this experience tell you and teach you about this idea of partnerships?

Brad Blitz  30:49
That words are cheap. That the British government put 1.5 billion pounds into this research program that was premised on the idea of partnership. Equitable partnerships, actually, that’s the term they use. And yet when the chips were down, UKRI (United Kingdom Research and Innovation) -that’s the umbrella grouping, if you like, for the UK research councils- backed away. They’re not advocating for our colleagues. And it has simply fallen to us who have other jobs, as you rightly point out, to advocate for people who’ve been collecting data in the field for us. Not just to advance what is a British and a UN agenda, but also to advance the interests of our universities. So, there are many people who have benefited from these GCRF -that’s the Global Challenges Research Fund- programs. They’ve established careers, they’ve seen their careers advance on the basis of these awards. But what about these Afghans who are hired as truly contract labor? And now they need protection, and they’re not being given that. It raises very serious questions, in my mind, fundamental questions, as to whether or not we can truly engage in partnerships with people in the global south if we cannot guarantee their safety. And in fact, that we’re not prepared to put our money where our mouth is. I mean, Afghanistan is a particularly bad neighborhood, let’s say, but we have colleagues working in other conflict areas. And even in areas where even if there’s not high-level conflict, there are serious security risks, right? So, in places like Guatemala, where we also have a project, Kurdistan, Lebanon, there are all sorts of risks that we could not foresee when we carried out our initial risk assessment, risk analysis and reached agreements with these countries, rather with these partners in these countries.

Will Brehm  32:45
So, that’s sort of at the institution level. What about at the individual academic level of someone working in a university in the global north trying to put bids together to do research in different countries around the world in partnership with colleagues in the global south. What can individual academics do given this scenario that has unfolded over the last two months?

Brad Blitz  33:07
Well, I think there are two questions here. I mean, I think there’s the question like, what can we do in general? Which is also that we need to check ourselves when we make promises of partnership. But specifically, there are things that we can do to support our Afghan colleagues. And that is we need to stand behind advocacy efforts, we need to hold our governments to account, and we need to make it clear that it is not acceptable, and also that research is not incidental to other seemingly higher priorities, right? So, people who are asking questions about gender justice in a country like Afghanistan are at great risk. And it’s not that they are at any less risk, let’s say, than interpreters who’ve worked with the British government who might be identified. But these are largely also women who are at risk because they also don’t have the contacts and the connections and the power to advocate for someone to put them on planes to help them. The fact that there are more advocates for dogs and cats than for Afghan female researchers is just astounding. And unfortunately, when we look at who has got out, overwhelmingly, it is the people with the connections, and the people who have had the opportunity. It’s highly gendered. And if we are truly going to stand by our values then we need to be advocating also for those who don’t have the power to speak for themselves, who don’t have the means to get themselves out and get on planes. And yet, whose lives are at risk as a result of their engagement with us and our governments.

Will Brehm  34:46
And what can listeners do to support this coalition that you’ve been working with?

Brad Blitz  34:51
So, we’re raising funds, and it would be fantastic if people were prepared to make donations through ICAN, which has a dedicated website that’s receiving donations. And we’re using that to purchase tickets in the hope that soon Afghan colleagues will be able to board flights. And we have some promises of temporary protection, we’ve got promises of humanitarian visas that will enable people to get on some long-haul flights, and from there, working with other humanitarian actors to get them resettled. So, raising funds would be fantastic. But also it’s possible to sponsor individual students and scholars. So, among us we have a student who I believe you taught actually. We have a student at the IoE at UCL whose family members are still in Afghanistan. They have visas, they have the right to enter the United Kingdom, but they cannot afford the plane fare. We need to help them as a community, we should stand behind our values and stand behind them. We should help them to purchase what is just -you know 1,000 pounds will get this family to the United Kingdom in the first instance. Then, of course, they’ll need other support. But there are things like that which listeners can do. And then there are other community sponsorship initiatives. So, when it came to the Syrians a few years ago, a number of universities paired up with community-based organizations, faith-based organizations to support them and their integration. So, we know Canada has a community sponsorship scheme but the UK is also talking about it in line with ACRS. It worked very well. About five or six years ago, the London Borough of Barnet received 15 Syrian families and they did so with the support of the local university, with Citizens UK, with some of the faith-based organizations, there was a local synagogue, actually, that had set up coffee mornings for them and provided integration services and language services. And as a community, these groups came together and they drew upon their resources to support these families. They provided them with accommodation, they provided them with language instruction, and they made them feel welcome. That worked. So, I truly think we should try to replicate that where possible.

Will Brehm  36:59
Well, Brad Blitz, thank you so much for joining FreshEd. And thank you for all the work you’re doing trying to support all of our Afghan colleagues who have been stuck in Afghanistan.

Brad Blitz  37:09
Thank you.

Want to help translate this show? Please contact info@freshedpodcast.com

Related Guest Project/Publications
Brad Blitz website
The politics of evidence-based policy in Europe’s ‘migration crisis’
Common agenda or Europe’s agenda? International protection, human rights and migration from the Horn of Africa
Policy response and global discourses on the rights of non-citizens and stateless people

Mentioned

Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP)

Afghan Citizens Resettlement (ACRS) Scheme (ACRS)

UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub

International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)

Open Society Foundations

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Temporary Protection or Stay arrangements for refugees

Private Sponsorship Scheme – Canada

US Refugees Admissions Program Priority 2 for Afghan Nationals

Cuban migrants in the United States

An overview of US Refugee law and policy

Refugee resettlement – UNHCR

Resettlement for South and Southeast Asia refugees

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) –

Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)

Afghan staff left behind as animal boss evacuated from Kabul with dogs and cats

Related Resources

What’s next for Afghans fleeing the Taliban?

Sustainable Resettlement and Complementary Pathways Initiative (CRISP)

How to support Afghanistan right now

Relocation programs

Resettlement

Stories of nine women involved in the evacuation of Afghanistan

Evacuations from Afghanistan by country

Power, policies, and priorities in North-South research partnerships

No refuge: Why refugees have shrinking options

Harnessing big data to improve refugee resettlement

Refugee integration: Research and policy

Resilience and the rise of speculative humanitarianism

Support Organizations

International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)

Afghan Coalition

Women for Afghan Women

Women for women International 

International Women’s Media Organization

Afghan Journalists Safety Committee

Help Afghanistan

Islamic Relief USA

Rescue Afghanistan

Friends Afghan Concern

Mina’s List 

Have any useful resources related to this show? Please send them to info@freshedpodcast.com