Iran Economic Crisis Forces Afghan Families to Return Home

Iran’s deepening economic crisis is pushing thousands of Afghan migrants to return to Afghanistan, even as families face limited jobs and severe restrictions on women under Taliban rule.

Mohammad Saeed fled Afghanistan with his family in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power. Five years later, they have returned from Iran with few possessions after the Iranian rial’s sharp decline wiped out more than two-thirds of their savings.

For decades, Iran’s larger economy provided Afghan migrants with jobs and refuge from poverty and political instability. But soaring inflation, tighter sanctions and disruptions to crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz have severely weakened economic conditions.

Iranian consumer prices have risen nearly 90% year over year, according to the country’s Statistical Centre, while food inflation has approached 130%. Many Afghan migrants say unemployment, shrinking wages and rising living costs made remaining in Iran increasingly difficult.

International Organization for Migration surveys found that only 29% of recent Afghan returnees from Iran had savings remaining, while average incomes had fallen by nearly one-third from pre-crisis levels.

More than 2 million Afghans have left Iran over the past two years, according to UN Refugee Agency data. While deportations and government pressure previously accounted for many departures, the latest wave increasingly includes women, children and entire families leaving voluntarily.

At Afghanistan’s Islam Qala border crossing, Taliban official Abdul Ghani Qazizadeh said about 20 to 40 families voluntarily return each day. Many complain that wages in Iran can no longer cover basic expenses or that employers have withheld payments.

Returning families face significant challenges in Afghanistan. Abdul Jabbar, who lived in Iran for nearly four decades, returned with his wife, daughters, grandson and mother after nearby missile strikes and disappearing employment opportunities. He remains unemployed two months later.

Saeed and his mother, Rezwana Jami, are attempting a fresh start. After abandoning their pizza-cheese business in Iran as inflation made ingredients increasingly scarce, they invested their remaining savings in equipment and restarted production in Afghanistan.

But the return has come at a cost for Jami’s 17-year-old daughter, who can no longer continue her education because Taliban rules prohibit girls from attending school beyond sixth grade and university.