What happened to 2 flight attendants from Pakistan who went missing in Canada

CTV National News: Flight attendants missing Flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after arriving in Canada. Heather Wright reports.

Two flight attendants who went missing after landing in Toronto sought asylum for claims involving gender-related persecution, religious persecution and domestic violence, according to a Canadian immigration lawyer who says he represented them.

The women were among the flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) who disappeared after flying to Pearson International Airport in Toronto. The government-owned airline said at least eight attendants have gone missing in the last year and a half.

PIA said similar incidents involving its staff have been reported over the last decade, but that flight attendants are increasingly frequently going missing once landing in Toronto. An airline spokesperson said the company believes all have sought asylum after arriving in Canada.

A lawyer who told CTVNews.ca that he represented two of these flight attendants confirmed that is the case for at least some of them.

"They were admitted into Canada as flight attendants... And at a certain point they just left their hotel room and moved to another part of the city and decided to make an asylum claim and never reported back to work," said Max Berger, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, in a video interview Wednesday.

"Generally speaking, the claim had nothing to do with their employer, Pakistan International Airlines. That was just the vehicle, literally, that got them to Canada."

Berger said he couldn't provide specific details about the cases because of solicitor-client confidentiality. The records are not available to the public because refugee claims hearings are held in private.

Two cases, two results

Of the two Berger represented, one was granted asylum in Canada, while the other's claim was denied, he said.

One was a Shia Muslim who sought asylum based on gender-related persecution, because she was targeted by Sunni fundamentalists, Berger said. Her claim was made in 2017 to the immigration department, which determines whether claims are eligible for a hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. She was granted asylum in Canada from Pakistan, where she was a religious minority.

His other client, whose claim was made the following year, was not granted asylum in Canada on the grounds of an "internal flight alternative."

"That means that to win a refugee claim, you have to show that there's a risk to your life, not just in your hometown but throughout the entire country," Berger said. "So the judge hearing that case decided that this woman could move to the city of Karachi and be safe there."

While airline crew members don't need a visa once they land in Canada, Berger said, there's no difference in asylum procedures for anyone making asylum claims in Canada.

"But the general rule is that once you arrive in the country, you are entitled to make an asylum claim unless you're specifically barred due to criminality or a few other factors," he explained.

Steady flow of refugee claimants

Berger said Canada regularly sees a large flow of refugee claimants from Pakistan.

"Pakistan has, over many years, been one of the main source country of refugee claimants to Canada and they have a fairly high acceptance rate," he explained.

The number of asylum claims that were made and accepted from Pakistan rose dramatically over 10 years, statistics from Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board suggest.

Last year, 1,402 claims from Pakistanis were accepted out of a total of 4,832 referred to the board. In 2022, 1,210 claims were accepted out of a total 1,894 referred to the board.

Looking back about a decade, only 642 claims were referred to the board from the same country in 2013, 267 of which were accepted.

It's unclear how many of these refugees have come into Canada through the country's airports.

‘Unique and different history’

An airline spokesperson told CTVNews.ca previously that the airline is not in contact with any of the missing flight attendants, but that its belief is that they made asylum claims.

Berger was not aware of the circumstances of other PIA employees who went missing.

"Every asylum claimant has a unique and different history," Berger said. "I'm sure that each of these claimants will have their own reasons for their refugee claim and each of them will be distinct and unique and they will each have a hearing before the immigration and refugee board."

PIA said it's in talks with the Canada Border Services Agency and Pakistani law enforcement agencies to potentially create a "legal safeguard" to curtail flight crew from seeking asylum.

Berger called the move "a very bad idea."

"It should not be implemented," he said. "The general law in Canada is that anyone who has reached this country and is in Canada has the right to make a refugee claim and there should be no special law or any bar for flight attendants from Pakistan airlines or any other airline from making a refugee claim once they are in Canada."

Craig Damian Smith, a research affiliate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto, said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca that he doubts PIA's problems with flight attendants will be a priority for the Canadian government since the number of missing workers is small.

In 2023, a total of 137,947 asylum claims from various countries were referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the highest number recorded in a decade.

That number is up from 60,158 in 2022, 24,127 in 2021 and 10,465 in 2013.

Smith said Canada is seeing a growing number of asylum claims over the years, which could partly be due to the difficulty in claiming asylum in other countries and changes to Canada's visa policies.

Still, Smith said he doesn't believe Canada has lax asylum policies.