24 November, Kabul. The protracted armed conflict in Afghanistan caused millions of people to leave their country. Forty (40) years back, Zahra’s family from Samangan province, were among those who migrated to Iran due to insecurity, poverty, and unemployment in Afghanistan. Zahra was born in Iran, to this migrant family and has grown up there, embracing Iranian customs and culture and studied at an Iranian school.

This immigrant family has to live in Iran since then in extremely bad economic conditions and suffered the misfortune of five siblings of Zahra died due to illness and lack of access to health services at childhood ages. The family’s anchor, Zahra mother, had two miscarriages that greatly affected the family. She still cries for the brothers and sisters that were not to be, if they were alive, she could have had friends and comforting shoulders to lean on, as for Afghans, the family is central to existence and grounding.

families who leave their country and cross borders as illegal refugees or as economic migrants, often find no place or standing in the host countries. Uprooted Zahra’s family faced lots of challenges in Iran. She reflects on the time “we were living in Esfahan, Iran.” and emphasizes, the poverty that visited her family, “it was like a dark cloud everywhere and her family sometimes had no food to eat”. The different culture and lifestyle was also a challenge for his new immigrated family. “Besides all, Iranian neighbors were sometimes not allowing us to rent a house in some areas……(sigh) they did not like afghan refugees.”

Zahra had a problem in her Iranian school as well, she says: “at school, all my classmates and even teachers were using inappropriate words to call me. I lost my confidence and was not able to speak with people due to hearing inappropriate words at school, society, and parks.”

Finally, came the decision point when Zahra decided to return to Afghanistan, her motherland. “I decide to return to the country that I never saw before and I have just heard some dark and bad stories from my mother, I returned to my country to see my country, to continue my lessons in university and work for my country.”

Zahra had hoped that escaping from a foreign Iran, back to the promise of her fatherland Afghanistan, would lend to better living conditions and she is happy, she took that decision. She says that she has good confidence, to recover from the time that she lost in Iran during the migration period. “I went immediately to university and started working at different government and local NGOs. I can proudly say I never had this much confidence in Iran.”

Zhara, the Afghan returnee from Iran to Kabul, registered herself with the SHURA programme.

Zahra is now living in the provincial District (PD) 13 of Kabul city. She says “Even though I am from Samangan province, am making a living in Kabul PD13 and I could not go to my parent’s province due to a lack of facilities. I got married here in Kabul, but unfortunately had to divorce, due to personal matters. I now have to live in a rented house, without any support from family or International organizations.  I pay for my livelihood and child upkeep from the opportunities that Kabul city can afford a single mother, but it’s a very difficult existence”. She feels lucky to have had an education and to have returned as a citizen of her country, Afghanistan.

A key challenge for returnees as Zahra, is not having the proper adequate housing, without the strong social safety net that defines afghan family settlements. The returnees, who arrive in the cities perceived to have the opportunity and as enclaves of peace, often face problems of tenure security, discrimination, and risk of eviction when they are looking for a rental housing a return stepping stone. Zahra faced these difficulties and shares that: “one of the challenges, she faced was having to shift houses almost every year’, then “I heard about the SHURA program from my friends and this has raised my hope to get a piece of land and my own house in the near future”. She is happy that much as the program is just starting on implementation – it has given her the job opportunity as well in the beneficiary registration center. “I am happy and thankful of UN-Habitat and SHURA programme.”

The Sustainable Human settlements in Urban areas for Reintegration in Afghanistan (SHURA), is undertaking the registering returnees and internally Displaced Afghans at two registration centers in Kabul and Herat. The total registered beneficiaries of the programme, now stand at more than 20,358 households – with more than 30% being single female-headed households like Zahra.

The SHURA is a flagship programme of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, implemented with the technical assistance of UN-Habitat, to support Afghan returnees to sustainably reintegrate into inclusive urban areas and become productive, self-reliant, and resilient citizens of Afghanistan. The programme has been made possible with the generous donation of the European Union and the Danish government – contributing to an area-based pilot that will derive lesson learning and best practice in Urban reintegration planning and will be scaled-up across all the provinces of high returns.