Afghan Pashtun asylum seekers’ deportation issues and self-inflicted violence in Germany

Resumen

This article describes the migration experiences of Afghan Pashtun asylum seekers who fled to Germany from Afghanistan. The acceptance rate for asylum applicants from Afghan refugees has experienced a decline, coinciding with the government's attempts to enhance the number of deportations. This policy is justified by the claim that certain regions inside Afghanistan are considered "safe" for deportees, despite the escalating levels of violence observed in the country. This ethnographic study focuses more specifically on how deportation difficulties drive asylum seekers to self-inflicted violence and suicide. Existing German migration research frequently focuses on three primary domains: asylum system restrictions, deportation adheres to under the nation-state approach, and far-right attitudes towards asylum seekers. Nonetheless, there has been a striking paucity of scholarly attention paid to how asylum seekers intentionally hurt themselves in order to delay the ongoing deportation process. The primary goal of asylum seekers' deliberately self-inflicted violence is to demonstrate before German asylum officials that they are not mentally stable and must postpone their stay. In this case, the German asylum system grants them Duldung non-status. Despite using self-inflicted violence, some asylum seekers have been deported.