NA- Overseas Pakistanis Committee recommends SOP and airport redressal mechanism after surge in off-loadings; FIA updates on off-loadings issue.
Committee examines expansion and strengthening of Community Welfare Attaché network; Gulf CWAs report 55,000+ welfare cases.

• The Committee directed the Ministry of Interior, FIA and the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis to prepare and publish an immediate SOP and complaints/redressal mechanism for passengers off-loaded at airports, and to display clear guidance at all immigration counters. FIA reported 66,154 off-loadings this year (including technical cases) and highlighted trafficking and fake-document routes as major drivers.
• The Committee received a comprehensive briefing on the Community Welfare Attaché (CWA) network and ordered the Ministry to accelerate planned expansion while providing a full list and performance returns for all Gulf-region CWAs. The Gulf CWAs reported having handled over 55,000 welfare cases during the current year, including tens of thousands of repatriations, emergency travel documents and prison visits.
• Chair Syed Rafiullah underscored the Committee’s insistence on both deterrence and remedy: “There must be a mechanism and SOP for redressal of Pakistanis off-loaded incorrectly — enforcement without an accessible remedy damage both people and reputation.”

Islamabad (December 17, 2025) The Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, chaired by Syed Rafiullah, convened in the Constitution Room, Parliament House, to examine: first, the growing phenomenon of passengers being prevented from boarding flights (off-loadings), and second, the role and performance of the Community Welfare Attaché network in protecting Pakistanis abroad.

2. DG FIA briefed the Committee on operational realities at ports of exit. He explained that the spike in off-loadings is multi-faceted. The Director-General told the 66,154 passengers were offloaded this year, a significant increase from the 35,000 offloaded the previous year. The FIA clarified that 51,000 of these individuals were stopped due to questionable veracity of their travel documents falling into three main categories: work visas, tourist visas, and Umrah visas. The DG FIA highlighted that illegal migration and begging rings are severely damaging Pakistan's international image. He reported that 56,000 beggars were deported from Saudi Arabia, and the UAE has recently restricted visas. Additionally, illegal migration trends have been observed toward Africa, and even on tourist visas to countries like Cambodia and Thailand. FIA officials defended the stringent measures as necessary to curb human trafficking and protect Pakistan’s international standing. The DG FIA noted that the surge in offloading is a countermeasure against fraudulent migration rings, revealing that 56,000 individuals involved in organized begging were recently deported from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, officials pointed to growing restrictions from the UAE and emerging illegal migration routes toward Africa and Europe as drivers for the heightened vigilance.

3. Members welcomed the enforcement work but emphasised that enforcement must be paired with an accessible redressal channel so that genuine travelers who are wrongly off-loaded may obtain rapid relief. The Committee therefore directed FIA and the Ministry of Interior to finalise, publish and operationalise a clear SOP for off-loading and an airport-visible complaints mechanism.

4. The Committee also heard that a risk-analysis unit has been created and an “IMMI” mobile application is being developed to improve pre-departure screening and real-time monitoring of immigration counters. Members urged immediate interoperability between FIA systems and the Protectorate/E-Protector platform so that verification and “ok-to-board” checks are done before passengers reach the airport counter. The Chair stressed that the public must be informed of how a passenger may challenge an off-loading decision and that contact details and an online complaint form be displayed at all airports.

5. The Ministry presented the CWA network briefing. Members were given a full account of the legal basis for CWAs (Emigration Ordinance, 1979), the merit-based selection process, KPIs and the Ministry’s expansion plan to restore and add CWA wings at priority stations. The Committee took detailed note of the Gulf-region returns: CWAs reported collectively handling over 55,000 welfare cases in 2025, including more than 30,000 assisted repatriations/ETDs, 3,400+ death-related interventions and thousands of prison-visits and legal-aid interventions. The Committee welcomed these achievements but also recorded persistent operational constraints — passport confiscation by employers, employer resistance to dues recovery, host-country legal limitations, language barriers and weak outreach to remote labour camps — and stressed that these constraints must be addressed through bilateral engagement and strengthened in-mission capacity.

6. On the Gulf-region performance, Members highlighted noteworthy outcomes — rapid issuance of Emergency Travel Documents, targeted repatriations, and coordinated legal support — while pressing for better prevention (pre-departure orientation and contract validation), improved employer engagement, and a dedicated legal-aid panel in mission posts to speed judicial remedies. The Committee therefore directed the Ministry to provide full, station-wise performance returns for each CWA in the Gulf (including case-level summaries, staff rosters and resourcing requests) and to table a prioritised plan for the next ten new stations envisaged in the presentation.

7. In terms of institutional reforms, the Committee recorded immediate recommendations: first, that an SOP and public complaint mechanism for off-loaded passengers be produced and displayed at all airports; and that the full list and performance returns of Gulf CWAs be submitted to the Committee.

8. The meeting of the Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development was attended by MNAs; Mr Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti, Mian Khan Bugti (virtually), Ms Erum Hamid, Ms Mah Jabeen Khan Abbasi, Mr Zulfiqar Ali Behn, Ms Saeeda Jamshid, Dr Mehreen Razzaq Bhutto, Ms Sofia Saeed Shah (virtually), and Muhammad Ilyas Choudhary. Along with officers of the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development and Federal Investigation Agency.