Policy Brief: Women and Girls and Internal Displacement in Afghanistan
Afghanistan remains one of the world’s most complex emer-gencies. Sustained conflict has resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries, and protracted displacement. Between January and December 2019, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 3,403 civilian deaths, a five per cent decrease as compared to 2018. UNAMA also documented 1,202 women casual-ties (345 killed and 857 injured), a four per cent increase from 2018. The surge in returns by an estimated 1.7 million documented and undocumented Afghan refugees during 2016-2017 remains a pressure on the country’s institutions and economy. The situation deteriorated in 2017 and 2018 with large-scale displacement due to drought. In 2019 the total number of undocumented and registered returnees reached 504,605 people.
Internal displacement and large-scale return within a challenging economic and security context pose protec-tion risks for both displaced and for host communities. The cumulative impacts of decades of war, combined with chronic poverty and recurrent natural disasters including the severe drought of 2017 and 2018 and massive flooding in early 2019 has put pressure on service delivery systems and has increased competition for already scarce public services and economic opportunities.