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The RLS is a tool developed under the European Union (EU) funded project “Displacement Tracking Matrix Regional Evidence for Migration Analysis and Policy (DTM REMAP)” to improve understanding of returnees’ profiles, living conditions and reintegration processes both in the short and long term. To this end, data is collected over the course of several years at regular intervals.
This report provides a snapshot of the sixth round of RLS data collection which took place from 18 June to 16 July 2022 among Afghan migrants who had returned from Türkiye or the EU between January 2018 and July 2021. A total of 588 returnees (510 from Türkiye and 78 from the EU) were interviewed over the phone across 98 districts in 17 provinces.
The key finding of the RLS Round 6 is that returnees continue to experience significant economic and food-related challenges. Moreover, a large majority of respondents indicated that they were not satisfied with their economic situation due to several reasons such as high rates of inflation, debt and unemployment.
The employment status of returnees did not change significantly compared to Round 5 (May 2022). The largest share of respondents (45%) reported that they were unemployed while 40 per cent said they worked for daily wages. It should be noted that daily wages cannot be considered as a stable source of employment as most returnees are not able to work for daily wages on a regular basis. Respondents who reported working for daily wages worked, on average, 14 days a month.
Twenty-two per cent of participants reported having children in the household who worked. Among the children who were working, 29 per cent worked in agriculture, 26 per cent engaged in street vending, 14 per cent worked in shops or restaurants and 18 per cent participated in any type of work that was offered to them.
At the time of the interview, 88 per cent of participants said that their personal economic situation had worsened in the last six months, while in Round 5, 77 per cent of participants reported that their economic situation had worsened. Eighty-six per cent of interviewees said that their economic situation had worsened at the household level.
Participants in the RLS remained situated in low-income brackets. Almost half of respondents (47%) earned no income at the personal level while 17 per cent of respondents also reported no income at the household level. Forty-five per cent of respondents’ monthly household income was between USD 1-561 . Thirty-nine per cent of respondents also reported their personal income being in this same range.