IOM has assisted vulnerable undocumented (non-refugee) Afghan returnees from Iran and Pakistan since 2009. It provides post-arrival assistance in the form of screening, referral, and provision of food and non-food items, temporary accommodation, medical services, family tracing and re-unification, and transport assistance to final destination.
From 2009 to March 2016 IOM has assisted 22,985 Unaccompanied Migrant Children. Of these, 99.4% were deported from Iran. In 2011, IOM started the process of family tracing and family reunification by having social workers ac-company minors to their provinces of final destination. During this period, including the first quarter of 2016, a total of 12,960 (56%) UMC beneficiaries were escorted by social workers to their final destination. Similarly, 5% (1,198) of the total were handed over to their families in the transit center, and IOM covered the transportation cost of the UMC and the family accompanier, additionally 1,127 (5%) left the transit centers before or after receiving the assistance packages, and the re-maining 7,707 (34%) were provided with transportation arrangements and they traveled to their final destination unaccompa-nied.
From January—March 2016, IOM assisted 1,469 Unaccompanied Migrant Children (UMC): 99.6% of the overall returnees were deported and only 0.4% returned spontaneously. Because of the budget limitation no escorts were provided during this reporting period. Of these UMCs, 0.6% (9) were handed over to their families in the Transit Center, 1.1% (16) UMCs left before or after getting assistance, and 93.3% (1,444) were provided with transportation facilities and they traveled to their final destination by themselves.
