Afghan widows and divorced women who head their families and live in Pakistan say they are reluctant to return to Afghanistan because of fears of persecution by the country's Taliban rulers, who have enacted a series of measures severely restricting women's rights and freedoms.
The women are among the 1.7 million "undocumented foreigners" Islamabad is trying to expel. Since it first announced the deportations in October, nearly half a million Afghans have crossed into the war-ravaged country.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, Afghan women who are the breadwinners for their families warned that returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan will endanger their lives.
“We will be eliminated if we return to Afghanistan,” said Mehnaz Hijran, who served as a prison guard at Afghanistan’s notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison.
Hijran says she left Afghanistan because of relentless threats after the collapse of the pro-Western Afghan republic she served.
"We know that death is the only fate that awaits former soldiers in Afghanistan," she told Radio Azadi.
“Most of the former women soldiers who returned to Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s amnesty were either disappeared or killed," she added.
Another woman who requested anonymity says her husband, an airport guard, was killed by the Taliban during its takeover of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15, 2021, as international troops withdrew from the country.
She says her family of four children is under relentless pressure from the Pakistani authorities.
"These days, we try to hide in one house or another because we fear a raid by the Pakistani police," she told Radio Azadi.
A woman who was recently deported to Afghanistan says they are trying to survive in hiding.
"We went into exile to protect our lives. But we have returned to uncertainty back in Afghanistan," she told Radio Azadi.
Compounding fears of what those being expelled by Pakistan face, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned of the extreme winter conditions and lack of facilities in Afghanistan.
"Many Afghan returnees are vulnerable, including women and children, who could lose their lives in a harsh winter if left without adequate shelter," the UNHCR said in a report released on December 8.
"People arriving at the border are exhausted and require urgent assistance as well as psychosocial support," the report added.