The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has ordered the issuance of Pakistan Origin Cards (POC) to the Afghan husbands of Pakistani women, who have been living in the country for many years.
The PHC heard the petitions of several Pakistani women, who had married Afghan nationals and faced difficulties due to the lack of legal status of their spouses. The bench, comprising Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Shakil Ahmad, directed the federal government and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to issue POCs to the eligible Afghan husbands in accordance with the law.
The POC is a document that grants certain rights and privileges to foreigners who are married to Pakistani citizens, such as visa-free entry, work permit, and property ownership. However, it does not confer voting rights or Pakistani citizenship.
The petitioners’ counsel, Advocate Saifullah Muhib Kakakhel, argued that the NADRA Ordinance and the NADRA NOC Rules 2002 allow the grant of POC to any foreigner who is married to a Pakistani citizen. He said that denying POC to the Afghan husbands of Pakistani women was a violation of their fundamental rights, as well as the international and national laws and conventions related to the rights of migrants.
He also cited the case of Sharbat Gula, the famous Afghan woman who featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine in the 1980s and was deported from Pakistan last year on charges of forging identity documents. He said that Gula was welcomed and respected by the Afghan government, while the Pakistani women and their Afghan husbands were being harassed and discriminated against.
The additional attorney general, Sanaullah Khan, and the NADRA counsel, Shahid Imran Gaggiani, opposed the petitions, saying that the Afghan husbands of Pakistani women were not foreigners, but refugees, and therefore not entitled to POC. They said that one of the conditions for a foreigner to get POC was to have a passport of their own country, which the Afghan husbands did not possess.
The court, however, accepted the petitions and ordered the issuance of POC to the Afghan husbands who met the required criteria. The court also sought assistance from both international and local legal experts, and asked the attorney general’s office to facilitate the court in this matter. The detailed judgment will be issued later.
The decision came as a relief for hundreds of Pakistani women who had married Afghan men over the past four decades, when millions of Afghan refugees fled to Pakistan due to the various cycles of war in their country. Many of these couples have built families and led content lives, but faced uncertainty and hardship due to the recent government crackdown on undocumented foreigners.
The court had also previously decided in favor of several Pakistani women who had sought Pakistani citizenship for their Afghan husbands under the Citizenship Act, which grants citizenship to a foreign woman who marries a Pakistani man, but not vice versa.