SAEDNEWS: Iran has deported just a fraction of Afghan refugees over he past few weeks, according to a senior government official responsible for labor issues.
Malek Hosseini, who leads employment affairs at Iran’s Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, said on Sunday that less than 700,000 Afghan refugees have left Iran as part of a program to deport the refugees that began in late June.
“Based on the official statistics .... nearly five million (Afghan refugees) are still present in the country, and they are mostly working in the unofficial labor market,” said Hosseini in a news briefing, according to Press TV.
The official said that only less than 10% of the Afghan refugees, or nearly 434,000 people, have the legal documents to live and work in Iran.
The comments come against the backdrop of reports suggesting that Iran has been deporting Afghan refugees on a mass scale after some Afghan nationals were arrested on charges of facilitating the Israeli aggression on Iran.
Iranian security officials say the Afghans arrested in recent weeks are suspected of involvement in sabotage and espionage operations carried out by the Israeli regime in Iran.
However, economic experts have warned that any plan for the mass deportation of Afghans from Iran could seriously harm the country’s labor market.
Hosseini said that more than half of the Afghans who are legally working in Iran are employed in the country’s construction sector, adding that nearly 19% work in manufacturing plants and more than 11% work in agricultural projects.
He said, however, that a majority of Afghan refugees who live in Iran without having legal documents, which he said are nearly three million people, are working in family or group businesses, adding that the community forms a major part of Iran’s unofficial labor market.
