India's Afghan refugees stuck in legal limbo
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00:00 These women have been waiting for the past two hours outside this discreet building of UNHCR.
00:05 They come here every month to apply for a refugee card.
00:09 Shazia is amongst the more than 2,000 asylum seekers who don't have one.
00:14 In a country without a legal framework for refugees, this is her only hope of accessing basic services.
00:20 But the process is long and doesn't guarantee any legal protection.
00:25 They told me to wait outside and said they'd call me.
00:28 They say my application is underway and it takes time but it's been six years.
00:32 Whenever I try to rent a house, they don't accept this blue paper, they ask for a refugee card.
00:37 No one trusts this blue paper. No one can get a job without a refugee card.
00:42 The majority of the 13,000 Afghan refugees currently registered with the UNHCR arrived years ago.
00:48 They settled in the Bhogal neighbourhood of New Delhi, also known as Little Kabul.
00:53 Amidst the vibrant market is an informal school for Afghan asylum seekers.
00:58 Ahmed Khan Anjam, himself displaced, teaches 150 kids a year.
01:03 Most of them are excluded from the public school system because they are not officially recognised.
01:08 There is no other option for them. If you don't have a refugee card, the school won't register them.
01:14 If they go to study in some private university, they need money but there is a financial problem.
01:19 In 2019, New Delhi approved an amendment to the Citizenship Act,
01:24 making Indian citizenship from neighbouring countries more accessible to persecuted religious minorities, except Muslims.
01:31 Fazal Abdali, a lawyer specialised in refugee rights, argues this makes Afghan Muslims even more vulnerable.
01:38 India is selective about its protection.
01:41 Afghan refugees are the ones who could be picked at any point of time and deported by the country.
01:46 There should be a universal, equal treatment of all the refugees who are there in India.
01:52 India currently has around 200,000 refugees but only 46,000 are registered with the UNHCR.
01:59 Most of them are stuck in a legal limbo without any state protection.