Nearly 600,000 Afghan migrants were subjected to a campaign of abuses and threats by Pakistan police in the last year, the latest report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The migrants forced to go home included 365,000 registered refugees, who were unable to go back to their home areas because of extreme insecurity and poverty. The 76-page report, called "Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The mass forced return of Afghan refugees," highlights the role of Pakistan's police and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in sending back migrants to Afghanistan. "Because the UN refugee agency didn’t stand up publicly to Pakistan's bullying and abuses, international donors should step in to press the government and the UN to protect the remaining refugees in Afghanistan," said Gerry Simpson, senior researcher and the report's author. UN complicit in refugee rights violations The report detailed the ways and means used by Pakistan's government agencies to push out Afghan refugees. These included an insecure legal status, threatening to deport the asylum seekers in winter, arbitrary detention and nocturnal police raids. "In July, 11 soldiers and police came to our home at 3 a.m. They entered without asking and threw all our things on the floor. They demanded to see our refugee cards and said they were expired. Then they stole all our money and told us to leave Pakistan," an Afghan refugee told HRW. The report said the UNHCR effectively promoted these forced returns through its cash incentives for refugees going back to Afghanistan and its failure to provide them with accurate information about the situation in their homeland. The coercion of refugees, according to HRW, violated the international legal prohibition against refoulement - or the obligation to not return a refugee to a place where he or she faced the risk of persecution or a risk to life . UN's cash incentive promoting returns "The UN refugee agency should end the fiction that the mass forced return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan is, in fact, mass voluntary return," HRW's Simpson said. The forced returns come as violence against civilians has peaked for the first time since 2009. 1.5 million civilians have been displaced and one-third are destitute. The NGO demanded that the Pakistan government extend refugee permits until March 31, 2018 and that the UN publicly challenge any pressure Pakistan puts on Afghan migrants to go back home. Additionally, Afghan refugees claiming asylum in Europe are also facing the threat of deportation, with EU member states like Germany labelling Afghanistan as a "safe country of origin." HRW said EU members needed to defer deporting Afghan refugees until the situation in Afghanistan was clear and Kabul could cope with the influx. Author: Manasi Gopalakrishnan