TEHRAN - The Government of France recently announced a financial contribution of €1 million to support UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its critical program for Afghans in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The funding will enable UNHCR to intensify the provision of lifesaving assistance and protection for some of the most vulnerable refugees and their local host communities.

This contribution will help strengthen ongoing efforts to provide lifesaving assistance to Afghans and host communities, including access to essential healthcare, education, and protection services.

This new funding is in addition to a similar contribution of €1 million for UNHCR Iran in 2022.

Nicolas Roche, the French Ambassador to Iran, noted that “by contributing to UNHCR’s work in Iran for the second year in a row, we are committed to supporting the Afghan people driven out of their country following the 2021 developments in Afghanistan. It is also essential for us to support the resilience of the local Iranian population through this assistance.”

France has also earmarked €2 million to support refugees in Pakistan. The funding will enable UNHCR to boost primary and secondary level education, strengthen skills and vocational training, and reinforce access to public health care in host communities in 2023.

For over four decades, Iran has been hosting one of the largest and most protracted refugee situations in the world and has provided asylum to refugees, mostly from Afghanistan.

The recent fast-paced turn of events in Afghanistan has the potential to create additional population movements; internally displacing families and potentially driving them to neighboring countries to seek refuge.

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Despite the sanctions and economic pressures, Iran continues its comprehensive policy of providing services to refugees, and this is appreciable, UNHCR’s Officer in Charge, Inna Gladkova, said in November 2022.

The best solution and the most stable support system for refugees is that have access to schools and education just like Iranian nationals, she stated, IRNA reported.

Iran has taken effective and continuous measures to include all refugees, and the UNHCR also declares its readiness to fulfill its obligations, she noted.

In the provision of educational services, there are different aspects, she said, adding, school construction, equipping schools, providing teachers and human resources, and providing quality educational services are the main and important work done by the Ministry of Education.

There are many needs in the field of education, but in the last 10 years, the High Commissioner for Refugees has built only 95 schools in Iran, but the need is definitely more than this, she also said.

In its January-December 2022 report on the situation of refugees in Iran, UNHCR elaborated on different sections such as “community-based protection” and “child protection”.

Community-Based Protection (CBP) seeks to ensure that refugee girls, boys, women, and men are empowered, and their capacities and resilience are strengthened, enabling them to minimize exposure to protection risks and thus improve the overall protection environment.

CBP activities aim to enhance access to services, including by identifying and addressing barriers building on meaningful participation of diverse individuals and groups, particularly of women and youth.

Since the amendment of the Nationality Bill in favor of Children Born to Iranian mothers and non-Iranian fathers, more than 80,000 applications have been filed, the majority of them for children born to Iranian mothers and Afghan fathers.

In protecting refugees and asylum seekers in Iran, since 1984 UNHCR has worked closely with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, national and international NGOs, and UN agencies providing a multitude of services.

Ivo Freijsen, Representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Iran, has said Iran is an exemplary country that has acted very well in hosting refugees and has been hosting them for a long time.

Forty years have passed since Iran started hosting them [refugees]. As we have always said, Iran has had positive approaches toward refugees, we appreciate that, and we are honored to support Iran's efforts, he said in an exclusive interview with Iran Newspaper published on September 4, 2022.

In fact, Iran provides wide-ranging services for refugees such as basic healthcare services, education, and vocational training.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, those who were in Iran, whether the ones that had passports or the ones that had documentation and were [registered] refugees, received the vaccination.

In June 2022, Maha Kashour, head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Mashhad, said Iran’s efforts and activities in the last 40 years have been commendable to refugees, and in the past year, after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, has reached its peak.

Iran has so far been able to provide decent services to refugees in the fields of health, livelihood, and vocational training in cooperation with UNHCR, she noted.

The Ministry of Interior has announced to the Ministry of Education a list of 200,000 Afghan children who have the conditions to study in Iranian schools.

In May, Robin Nandy, the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Iran, said the country’s comprehensive program for the protection of refugee children is encouraging.

Making investments in programs and services to better care for and support children affected by migration and asylum will reduce costs in the future, he added.

Emphasizing the important role of non-governmental organizations in supporting refugee and immigrant children and teenagers, Nandy expressed hope that holding educational workshops will lead to the promotion of children's rights and justice for children.

Over 670,000 students of Afghan nationals are studying in Iran, and the cost of educating these students is more than $352 million, IRNA reported.

However, international organizations have paid less than 3.9 percent of the cost of education for Afghan students in Iran in the last two years.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a decree in May 2015 that allows all foreign nationals, even those who have no identification and are living in Iran illegally, to attend schools in the country.  

Relying on moral and Islamic principles, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has created equal conditions in benefiting from educational opportunities for Afghan students.

MG