Earlier, before the start of Israel’s military assault on Iran, we had written a text critiquing anti-Afghan racism. It was intended as an attempt to highlight the urgent need for a feminist struggle against racism; racism that, in complicity with patriarchy and capitalism, has rendered Afghan migrants as voiceless and rightless people, and has further deepened the crisis of social reproduction. However, due to the extraordinary circumstances of Israel’s military aggression against Iran, we postponed its publication. Now, the catastrophe we feared is unfolding before our eyes at an accelerated pace due to the war, and its darkness has spread so far that no one can ignore it any longer.
Today, following the attack by Israel and the United States on Iran, this racism has taken on new dimensions. Instead of confronting foreign intervention and defending its people, the Islamic Republic has increasingly directed its repressive rage toward the most marginalized groups. Afghan migrants appear to be the ideal targets for demonstrating authority and control over borders, those who possess no weapons, no property, nothing but their labor, their bodies, and their enforced silence.
Now, the Islamic Republic, unable to counter infiltration at the highest levels of its security, military, and governmental apparatus, which had even provided the exact addresses of its top military commanders’ homes to the Israeli regime, portrays Afghan migrants as enemy agents, who, amid the recent surge in anti-Afghan sentiment over the past months, have not even had the possibility of safe passage in the streets.
This escalation of hatred toward migrants, under the flimsy pretext of espionage, seems to serve the Islamic Republic well in the emerging post-war context. It must be understood as a continuation of the criminalization of Afghan migrants and the effort to scapegoat them for the country’s economic disorder.
At first glance and for the sake of simplification, anti-Afghan racism might be seen merely as a psychological or cultural reaction. However, we must recognize that it is part of the survival politics of a regime that sustains itself by repressing “others.” This time, that repression is unfolding within a long-standing and troubling silence, and nationalist and patriotic sentiments provide a fertile ground for its expansion.
In a text we wrote earlier, we stated that the fight against anti-Afghan racism is a feminist act, because our feminism recognizes no borders and sees silence in the face of discrimination as complicity with it. But today, in the face of the intensified racist attacks following the war, it is no longer sufficient to speak only of “discrimination” or “racism.” What is unfolding today against Afghan migrants in Iran can, without hesitation, be called fascism. Not because we seek to dramatize the situation or use the term as a label, but because we need to understand the complexities we are facing and assess the appropriate methods of resistance.
Today, this cruelty, manifested in the expulsion of those who, with empty hands, had spent years building homes for themselves, is accompanied by hollow promises of peace and progress. Yet the lessons we’ve learned from history tell us that justice, peace, and meaningful advancement will not emerge from nationalism and xenophobia, especially when they are exercised in the most patriarchal forms against the oppressed.
We are now publishing the text we had written before the war, fully aware that amid this horrifying wave of expulsions and the revival of collective detention camps, we are facing an entirely new situation: the establishment of a fascist order, one orchestrated by the monstrous state-government apparatus but also fueled from deep within society itself.
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Afghanophobia in Iran is neither a new nor merely social phenomenon; it is the product of a systematic political-ideological project that is continuously reproduced through the support of racist structures, a neoliberal economy, state media, and security policies. This process is distinctly gendered and classed. The repression of these migrants, without whose exploitation the reconstruction of Iran after the war with Iraq during the so-called “reconstruction era” would have been virtually impossible, has been unfolding before our very eyes for decades, from before the 1979 revolution to the present, with many ups and downs.
At times, activists focused on women’s or children’s rights have tried to secure minor and limited concessions on paper, such as the right to education or the right to citizenship for children born to Iranian mothers. Yet these gains were either never fully implemented or quickly neutralized by legal and political obstacles. In some instances, such as the de facto forced conscription of young Afghan men to fight in the Syrian war, or the exploitation of cheap, rightless labor, the government temporarily eased its grip, delaying deportations and repression.
However, in recent years, particularly with the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a new wave of forced migration (or flight) of Afghan citizens to neighboring countries has emerged. This, in turn, has fueled novel forms of xenophobia and structural violence, compelling us to speak out, despite our deep sense of shame, about this humanitarian catastrophe. In fact, throughout the Islamic Republic’s history, open Afghanophobia (especially in its recent wave) has been one of the few issues that has united society with the ruling regime.
What is currently unfolding in Iran under the name of deporting Afghans is a full reflection of the global condition and the blatant, expanding racism we are confronting. The brutality that is unfolding in the silence of mainstream media and the complicity of both the Islamic Republic and the opposition should logically serve as a wake-up call, causing a “national shame” to weigh heavily on our foreheads. However, paradoxically, it not only fails to provoke shame but this time the nation’s chant “Expel Afghans; a national demand” has become so intertwined with the government’s crimes that they can no longer be separated.
Here, however, we have tried to approach the issue from a feminist standpoint, because we are dealing with racialized and gendered bodies: bodies that have been deprived not only of citizenship rights, but even of the right to occupy public space. If feminism is to confront structural oppression, then this is precisely the moment and place where silence is no longer an option.
For some time now, we at the Secret Committee of Women have succeeded in establishing a friendly connection with Afghan women in one of the neighborhoods in southern Tehran, and we have had ideas for expanding and giving purpose to these connections. During our first visits to the neighborhood, we’d go to a small local park where many children were playing. Their play equipment was broken and limited, and the creaking sound of rusty metal mixed with the children’s voices. In one corner of the park, groups of young boys and teenagers were smoking cigarettes and joints. In the middle of the park, several women sat together chatting. These women, most of whom were related by blood or marriage, gathered nearly every day after finishing their housework to talk about their issues and problems, whether in their relationships with their husbands, household and economic hardships, or the violence they themselves or others had experienced or witnessed. For a working-class migrant woman, leisure time is reduced to these limited gatherings in a public space known as a park, because parks cost nothing and are within easy reach. While this space is still under the watchful eye of male family members, the women have nonetheless carved out a space of their own within it.
After the park, it’s back to the home, to work, and to the ruins that fall squarely on the shoulders of the housewife. The same is true for the children. In the summer, the park becomes the only recreational space for children who have no toys, games, or educational materials at home. Most of these children are child laborers who, after work, or on their days off, head to this small open space.
In the summer of 2024, amid the intensification of both online and offline anti-Afghan campaigns, when we returned to the same neighborhood, the women and children were no longer present in the park. In a corner of the park, a group of young boys sat together smoking cigarettes. The children’s games, the lively atmosphere, and the gatherings of women and mothers were all gone. What had happened?
With some inquiries, we learned the story. This visit coincided with a wave of violent attacks against migrants in District 15 of Tehran, which had spread to other areas of the city. The unrestrained savagery that had erupted online against migrants was now manifesting itself even more starkly in social spaces.
When we finally found the women we had previously known, we discovered that they and their young children no longer felt safe enough to move freely around the neighborhood and were increasingly being confined to their homes. The park, the neighborhood, and the city had all become spaces of fear for them. One of the women told us: “I hardly leave the house now, and if I go anywhere, it’s with my husband or my son.” Her clothing, which had previously consisted of a headscarf and manteau, had changed to a black chador. Her daughters, aged 12 and 15, were no longer allowed outside as before. The 15-year-old, who had already been denied access to formal education, used to attend a language class run by a child rights organization, but she had not left the house for some time.
In this way, the racist assaults instigated by a combination of state forces and opposition elements targeted these women not only as “Afghans,” but also subjected them to violence specifically as women. At a time when people in other neighborhoods were celebrating the gains of the “Jina Uprising” regarding women’s freedom of dress, no one was paying attention to the fact that Afghan women were being forced. for their own safety, to retreat further into their homes and into stricter forms of veiling.
At that time, we also realized that the separation of family members during the arrest and deportation of Afghans had become very common. Men, who are often responsible for financially supporting their families, are constantly at risk of arrest and subsequent deportation. Even the youngest family members, who require care, are not spared from this violence. In many cases, Afghan migrants are confronted with structures that neither recognize them nor accept any responsibility for them. In such a situation, the family becomes the only reliable source of support for survival.
These families, lacking support from governments or social institutions, shoulder the full burden of care, child-rearing, elder care, treatment of the ill, as well as emotional and psychological support. But even this last remaining institution, the family, is directly targeted by state policies. In practice, these policies not only lead to the physical displacement of individuals but also result in the collapse of caregiving and social networks that make daily survival possible.
Thus, the forced separation of family members by disrupting the caregiving and support structure of the family, becomes a tool for exerting systemic control and pressure on migrants. Forced separation is a form of structural violence that dismantles families and forces women to shoulder both the economic burden and the emotional security of the family without any institutional support. When it comes to Afghan migrants, human and family bonds are considered worthless or unconventional, and as a result, the family as a reproductive unit is threatened and pushed toward collapse. In this sense, in the recent unbridled yet systematic savagery, Afghan women and girls are by no means spared from violence.
During our summer 2024 visit, another Afghan woman told us that her husband and young child had recently been deported at the border, and her other children were forced to work in manufacturing workshops, under high pressure, long hours, and for very low wages, to support the family. Often, they are fired without pay or with only a meager wage. If they protest, the employer quickly ends the matter with a threat: “I’ll have you deported.” She said she was looking for a job she could do from home because the streets and outside work are no longer safe. They are full of humiliation, harsh stares, fear of the police, and the threat of forced return. But, as she put it, to survive and to live, “you have to work.” As she searched for solutions, she breastfed her four-month-old infant: “My kids used to go to the intersection and sell fortune-telling papers, but now they get arrested.” She said that even the State Welfare Organization of Iran cooperates in detaining and deporting children. Just last month, several people were arrested and deported along with their families. Feeding the children and paying the rent are the bare minimums, yet even these are denied to this family.
Those who remain after the deportation of Afghan migrants merely survive, earning extremely low wages and facing constant job insecurity. The meager pay for exhausting and high-volume work reflects the severe exploitation of migrant labor (in this case, migrant women), who are often employed as “invisible labor” without any legal rights or the right to protest. The devaluation of women’s labor, especially in homes or small workshops, not only benefits the formal economy but also, without recognition, places an even greater burden of social reproduction on women. This insecurity is a form of brutal discipline: it uses violence to keep migrants in a state of silence and obedience, treating them as consumable and replaceable subjects who can be discarded from society during moments of crisis.
During the same visit, a 27-year-old Afghan woman who was busy packing women’s socks told us that her husband had been deported at the border. She recounted that he was caught on his way to work, and since he had no legal documents, he was transferred to Qarchak detention camp and then deported after a few days. The machine used to straighten the socks was lent to her by her brother-in-law’s employer so that she and her sister-in-law could work from home, earning one thousand tomans for every six-pack they package. They said they have to produce 200 packages per day and spend most of their day working. Working at home for low wages is a less risky way for women who bear the responsibility of supporting their families.
It can be said that the deportation of Afghan migrants is not only a humanitarian or political issue but a socio-gender crisis. This crisis fundamentally threatens the social reproduction structure and forces migrant women to endure a grueling and unbearable situation of risk, exploitation, and collapse. The simplest response, however, is to turn a blind eye to this silent crime for the same reason that history has repeatedly shown: the complicity and consensus of society and the ruling power in constructing false grand narratives about migrants, dehumanizing and criminalizing them; cutting migrants off from social resources such as education, healthcare, and adequate housing; pushing them, beset by both national oppression and class oppression linked to their refugee status, to resort to “any means to survive”; and of course, subsequently labeling them as “thieves,” “criminals,” “dirty,” “backward,” and “savage.” The denial of access to fair trials, the inability to “purchase justice,” the generalization of criminal cases to all individuals with migrant backgrounds, and finally the demand for their mass expulsion to cleanse our beautiful, ancient, civilized, and diverse society from the impurity of foreign presence, all these are part of a process of “othering” and then erasing the “other.” This process has not only occurred in Iran and only with Afghan people but is a widespread, recurring phenomenon with many historical examples during the colonial era, and, of course, afterward in relation to “non-natives” and religious or racial minorities residing in Europe and North America.
In a world where border policies and migrant and refugee expulsions relentlessly expose bodies and lives to structural violence and destabilize daily existence, collective response is a feminist and revolutionary duty. The systematic cruelty against Afghan migrants today is exactly the moment to critically rethink “patriotism,” redefine homeland, and make “national shame” our guiding light, because “shame is a revolution in itself.”
July 2025
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