Afghanistan & Children

Prague, 3 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Trafficking, by its nature, is a hidden problem. Few reliable statistics are available about the number of people victimized by trafficking or the countries they are taken to.

Afghanistan is no exception. There are no figures available on the breadth of the country's child-trafficking rings -- just signs that the problem is getting worse.

The number of arrests made in connection to child abductions is increasing. And since 2003, Afghan police have rescued nearly 200 abducted children -- both boys and girls -- in different parts of the country.

"In the last two weeks, police in Kabul and other provinces, but especially in Kabul, rescued more than 16 or 17 children from the grip of their abductors."

Last week on 29 April, Afghanistan's interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, said that in the past two weeks alone, some 25 people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and trafficking of children. That compared with 2003, when a total of 100 such arrests were made.

Jalali also said dozens of children were freed from their abductors in the wave of arrests.

"In the last two weeks, police in Kabul and other provinces, but especially in Kabul, rescued more than 16 or 17 children from the grip of their abductors. And this means that [child] abduction is a very serious problem facing the security organs," Jalali said.

Afghan children are being kidnapped on their way to school or while playing in parks. The Afghan interior minister says boys and girls are abducted for both domestic and international markets, to be used for sex or labor, or to provide human organs.

Jalali said last year some 750 children were abducted and taken to Saudi Arabia. Only 250 of them have been brought back home.

"The children who are being abducted are both boys and girls,” Jalali said. “They are kidnapped for different purposes. Unfortunately, in many cases, a lack of public information, the cleverness of the abductors and the extent of the abduction network is leading to an increase in abduction in different parts of Afghanistan. During the last year we arrested 100 people who were involved in abduction."

Last September, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) expressed concern about the trafficking of children from Afghanistan and said in some cases children as young as 4 years old were abducted in the northern and northeastern regions of the country.

According to UNICEF's executive director, child trafficking represents one of the worst violations of children's rights in the world.

According to a recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), trafficking in Afghanistan is attributed to several factors -- among them the decades of conflict, lack of security, and poor socio-economic prospects.

Hengameh Anwari is an expert in children's rights at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Anwari says poverty and even tradition prompts some families to willingly send their children abroad through illegal channels.

"For economic reasons, in general, families are willing to send their children to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and other places so that they work [and earn money]. From a cultural and traditional point of view, many believe that by sending their children to places such as Pakistan, they can gain a better religious education. Consequently many families send their children to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia so that they study the Islamic teachings," Anwari said.

Few parents realize, however, what awaits their children once abroad. Afghan children are sold by traffickers for use as manual labor, street beggars, or sexual slaves. In some cases, their kidneys are removed and sold on the illicit organ market.

"Reports indicate that these children -- even if they're sent to work -- are being exploited,” Anwari said. “Other reports that cause concern indicate that a number of children are abducted because of their body organs; they become victims of trafficking to foreign countries especially for their kidneys. In some cases children are kidnapped for sexual abuse."

Last week a workshop on combating child trafficking in Afghanistan was held in Kabul. A national antitrafficking action plan was discussed during the two-day workshop, which includes proposed antitrafficking legislation and raising citizen awareness about the problem.

Hengameh Anwari from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission expresses hope that the plan will come into force in the near future.

"Our hope is that within a month or two the national plan will be approved by the cabinet, so that upon an order by the head of the government the plan can be applied throughout Afghanistan. We hope that through this legal framework which is the national plan we would be able to lessen and stop the practice of child trafficking and turn it to zero," Anwari said

Feb 4/05 -RFERL - President Hamid Karzai, accompanied by his Iranian counterpart, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, traveled to Iran's eastern Khorasan Province on 27 January, international news agencies reported. While there they inaugurated the new highway linking Herat and Dogharun. Karzai said at the ceremony, "Today, with the inauguration of the Herat-Dogharun road, not only do we facilitate travel and transit for the people of Afghanistan and Iran but also for our neighboring countries," Radio Farda reported. "Peace and stability in Afghanistan and the reconstruction of Afghanistan are in the interests of Afghanistan, its neighboring countries, and the region." Officials from the two countries signed cooperation documents relating to the highway's inauguration, Iran's provision of electricity to Herat Province, and the construction of checkpoints along the border. On 26 January, IRNA reported, the handover of seven such checkpoints along the shared border of Iran's South Khorasan Province and Afghanistan's Farah Province took place. Farah Governor Asadollah Falah expressed his gratitude.

AFGHANS DEMAND RECKONING WITH PAST ABUSES

Feb 4/05 -RFERL - A new report on human rights issued by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) presents Afghanistan's leadership with a dilemma. The report, released on 29 January, asserts that the majority of Afghans want people who have violated human rights in the past declared ineligible for public office. However, the leaders of postconflict Afghanistan are inclined to try to forget, if not forgive, the grave violations of human rights committed by successive regimes, warlords, gangs, and their foreign backers. They want to secure quickly the country's future as a stable and secure society based on law -- without a reckoning with the past.

Afghanistan's recent misfortunes began on April 1978, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in a bloody coup d'etat and continued through a decade-long Soviet-led occupation, four years of civil war, and five years of Taliban rule that ended in December 2001. Throughout these 23 years, Afghans suffered a variety of abuses on a massive scale. So far, no one in Afghanistan has ever been indicted for human rights violations. Not even a symbolic effort has been made in the country to address the grievances of the Afghan people.

The AIHRC, established by the Bonn agreement of 2001 that charted Afghanistan's transitional period after the defeat of the Taliban regime, was mandated specifically to consider the issue of justice during Afghanistan's transitional period. According to the 29 January press release announcing the report, from January to August 2004 the AIHRC conducted its National Consultation on Transitional Justice by interviewing around 6,000 Afghans on past human rights abuses and by making recommendations on how to deal with the perpetrators of these crimes.

Discussing the report, AIHRC Chairwoman Sima Samar said that "unfortunately, proper attention has not been paid to a fundamental element of peace and stability since the beginning of Afghanistan's transition process. That element is the realization of justice [for past misdeeds] in Afghanistan." The AIHRC believes that realization of peace without examining past abuses is an impossible task. Samar added that "the issue of deciding how and when the justice is to be accomplished is up to the people" of Afghanistan.

According to the AIHRC report, 69 percent of survey respondents identified themselves as victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes; 40 percent desire the prosecution of notorious perpetrators; and 90 percent requested the removal of human rights violators from public offices.

The survey indicated that the majority of people interviewed identified themselves as victims of human rights violations during the 23 years of conflict, and said they believe that such crimes continue today. "The people are of the opinion that continued impunity has given the perpetrators the opportunity to commit further abuses with no fear of prosecution," the AIHRC press release indicated.

In its report, the AIHRC calls on President Hamid Karzai to "articulate a political commitment to justice," initially by implementing "a series of symbolic acts that could serve to acknowledge victims." As overall policy, the report urges Karzai and his team to commit "publicly to redressing the crimes of the past though a long-term and integrated strategy, encompassing vetting, criminal justice, truth-seeking, and reparations."

According to Karzai's spokesman, the Afghan president has "noted the recommendations" in the AIHRC report, and has responded that some "of these can be implemented, while others may need to be discussed further." UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and the European Union welcomed the report's findings and have called on Kabul to take heed of the commission's recommendations.

The recommendations put forth by AIHRC are an articulation of the wishes of ordinary and voiceless Afghans. If acted upon with diligence and foresight, they could be the most effective and, indeed just, method of disenfranchising those warlords and others who are trying to secure a part of Afghanistan's political future through violating the law and abusing the rights of the country's citizens. Unless human rights violators are identified and brought to justice -- albeit even if only symbolically -- Afghanistan faces the grim prospect of having one of its main democratic institutions -- the soon-to-be elected National Assembly -- filled with people who have records of abuse against the very people they are suppose to represent. After all, the danger exists that those who have used violence and abuse in the past to intimidate Afghans will try to do again to gain votes.

Feb 4/05 -RFERL - In a 31 January letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, 31 international and Afghan civil-society organizations urged the United States to reconsider its opium-poppy-eradication programs for Afghanistan, according to a CARE press release (http://www.care.org).

The letter urges the United States not to carry out aerial eradication of poppy fields and not to overemphasize destroying the crops.

Rather, the signatories recommend that the United States should help identify major drug traffickers and fund Afghan law-enforcement agencies in order to arrest them.

The organizations are urging instead that the United States focus its counternarcotics effort on creating an alternative livelihood for farmers.

Paul Barker, the Afghan country director for CARE, told RFE/RL: "We are not so much opposed to eradication as we are a disproportionate focus on eradication. We accept that there will be some eradication this year, but eradication -- if it is the primary mode of combating narcotics here -- is going to negatively impact the poorest people in the country and do very little to actually get at the core of the problem. The problem really has not been driven by the poor farmers in the fields. It's been driven more by the processors and merchants who sell it further up the chain."

Opium-poppy cultivation has soared since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban. The illegal drug trade now accounts for as much as 60 percent of Afghanistan's economy. Last year, the number of families involved in poppy cultivation was estimated at over 350,000 (for more see, "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 1 September, 18 November, and 3 December 2004).

Experts say Afghan farmers grow poppies because they are more profitable than other crops and have greater resistance to poor weather.

The UN says the drug trade -- and not the risk of a resurgent Taliban or neo-Taliban -- is now the main threat facing Afghanistan.

The United States has taken the lead toward this end, pledging some $780 million in 2005. But only a small portion of that money is earmarked for programs to help farmers cultivate legal crops -- and those efforts are centered on only a few provinces. Meanwhile, Barker said poppies are grown in all 34 Afghan provinces.

"This new American initiative with alternative livelihood funding is targeted only at a few provinces. Whereas poppies [are] now grown in all 34 provinces in Afghanistan. We prefer to see a nationwide program to provide viable alternatives for all poor farmers in Afghanistan, and don't want to provide an incentive for people to grow poppies so that they can then benefit from an alternative livelihoods program," Barker said.

Aid organizations say if farmers are forced to give up their livelihoods immediately it could force them to sell their land or even members of their families to pay off debts.

Barker said in his opinion a better antidrug program would focus on prosecuting corrupt provincial officials and militia groups involved in the drug trade. "We would prefer to see a much stronger focus on interdiction at the mid-level and higher-level people -- getting at the opium-producing labs and at providing alternative livelihoods to the poor farmers," he said. "Unless they have some viable alternative, it doesn't do much for the country to just make poor people get poorer."

After eyewitnesses reportedly saw U.S. aircraft spraying defoliants on poppy fields in Nangarhar Province in early November, the Afghan government said that it would not allow any country to carry out aerial spraying of poppy fields with herbicides. At the time, the United States denied that it had carried out the spraying (see "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 8 December 2004). (Golnaz Esfandiari and Amin Tarzi)

Feb 4/05 -RFERL - Besmellah Besmel, head of Afghanistan's Election Commission, on 29 January said that his team will do its utmost to ensure that the country's parliamentary elections are held as scheduled during the Afghan calendar month of Saur (20 April-21 May), Pajhwak News Agency reported on 30 January.

President Hamid Karzai said on 28 January that he would be "very, very happy if they [the electoral commission] manage to hold" the elections at the scheduled time.

However on Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah told reporters on 27 January in Davos, Switzerland, that his country's parliamentary elections will be delayed until the summer, AP reported. "Even if it is not on time because of technical preparations, which are needed, it will be around one or two months from the original time," Abdullah told AP.

Meanwhile, Besmel said that the country still lacks a precise census and that some donors have yet to provide funding they pledged for the elections, thus leaving the door open for a delay of the election.

According to the Afghan electoral law, the boundaries of electoral districts should be determined at least 120 days before the election can take place. Unless that law is amended, the possibility of holding elections on 21 May has already passed (see "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 31 January 2005). Besmel did not mention the current Afghan election law. (Amin Tarzi)
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