Afghanistan Working Group
This document was prepared by Shon
Campbell, who was contracted by UNICEF Afghanistan. She prepared the draft
document and extensive consultations were organized to finalized the text.
This document would not have been possible without the cooperation and
assistance of the many people working in the Afghan context who kindly
and unhesitatingly gave their time, advice, copies of relevant documentation
and suggestions during this two-month project. Their dedication and
commitment to developing effective and innovative approaches in an extremely
difficult context, and often under trying and discouraging circumstances,
is both admirable and commendable.
"Do not differentiate between me
and my brother as we are both children and have the same rights."
Afghan Girl Child
INTRODUCTION
In the largest gathering of world leaders in history, the World Summit for Children assembled by the United Nations in 1990 adopted a Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and a Plan of Action for implementing this declaration through the 1990's. This plan of action comprised goals that, within the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the UN in 1989, were considered achievable by the year 2000. In committing to pursue these goals, leaders agreed to be guided by the principle of a "first call for children" whereby essential needs of children would be given high priority in the allocation of resources at national and international as well as at family levels at all times.
This situation analysis has been undertaken in preparation for the United Nations' General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) in late 2001 to review progress made during the decade to improve the well-being of children. As such it concentrates on the changing situation for Afghan children over the past 10 years based on available documentation and interviews with Afghans and assistance providers. Lessons learned which came to light through this process have been included, along with recommendations for future directions which, it was felt, would make a difference for Afghan children.
Constraints around availability of data are inherent in the Afghan context. The diversity that characterizes Afghanistan, its population and geography, along with ongoing conflict and the collapse or fragmentation of national institutions for data collection have rendered the task of finding reliable statistics impossible. Key indicators continue to be based on projections from population estimates collected through a census prior to the onset of war. With millions of Afghans still in exile in neighbouring countries, an unknown number further abroad and massive displacement within the country itself, it has been difficult to find data even in the current situation that can be usefully compared to that of a decade ago. As a result, reporting on the End of Decade Goals and Indicators is clearly limited and data should been seen as indicative only. Nevertheless, much can be learned from examining the trends in the changing situation over this period to reflect the changes and achievements for Afghan children, and it is on these trends that this report focuses.
This analysis was originally expected to concentrate only on children in Afghanistan. However, the sheer size of the Afghan population in exile in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, as well as the permeability of the borders mean that refugees' experiences and priorities remain inextricably linked with the situation of those who have remained. Thus information is included on the refugee situation where this was available and found to be relevant to the situation of children in Afghanistan. This analysis draws extensively on the last published Situation Analysis of Women and Children, undertaken by UNICEF in 1992.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This analysis, undertaken in preparation for the United Nations' General Assembly Special Session scheduled for late 2001, reviews the changing situation of children in Afghanistan over the last decade. Research was conducted through available documentation and interviews with assistance providers working in the Afghan context. Lessons learned during the past ten years are highlighted along with recommendations for action that would make a difference for Afghan children in the coming years. While concentrating primarily on children in Afghanistan, information has been included on the situation of Afghan refugee children in Pakistan and Iran where this was available and found to be relevant. The study follows the key precepts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, considering children as up to the age of 18 years.
1. KEY FINDINGS
Where the first decade of the war focused in rural areas, the second has seen widespread destruction of urban infrastructure, increasing political isolation and lack of a functioning government infrastructure. The economic situation has worsened leaving few job opportunities outside of the subsistence and illicit economies. Conflict in Kabul and other urban centres and the repressive policies of the Taliban have led to an exodus of educated Afghans from the country in the 1990s. Afghans' capacities to cope with the changing situation have been severely weakened; where community networks were most affected during the first decade, the last 10 years have seen erosion of extended family networks - the most essential of traditional coping mechanisms. The number of Afghans who have known their country at peace is now smaller than those who have known war for most if not all of their lives. By the late 1990s, it is estimated that 10.3 million of the 21.4 million population of Afghanistan are children under 18 years of age.
a) Threats to Children's survival
Afghanistan has some of the worst social indicators in the world. Around 45 women die each day of pregnancy-related causes due to lack of appropriate medical care and indirect causes such as anaemia and malaria. A quarter of all live-born children die before the age of five years - many of them due to perinatal causes (including birth trauma and neonatal tetanus), diarrhoea, pneumonia and vaccine-preventable diseases. Iron deficiency anaemia is widespread, affecting half to two-thirds of children under 5 years, and as many as 30% of children demonstrate iodine deficiency in certain areas. Large numbers of children are chronically malnourished with 45-59% of children showing high levels of stunting, a contributing factor to maternal mortality amongst adolescent girls in a culture where as many as half of all girls are married before the age of 18. Acute malnutrition is lower at less than 10%. Malaria, successfully controlled in the 1950s and 1960s, is now prevalent 60% of the country with an increase in the more dangerous falciparum malaria and greater drug resistance. Leishmaniasis and TB remain public health problems that affect children directly and indirectly.
An estimated 400,000 Afghans have been killed or wounded by landmines with 10-12 casualties each day in the late 1990s. Half die due to lack of medical facilities in the early stages of their injuries. A third of all casualties are children (under 18 years), the majority of whom were tending to livestock or agriculture at the time. Food security has been severely undermined by the conflict; where the first decade reduced cultivable land and agricultural production, the second decade has brought economic deterioration and an increasing dependence on remittances, begging, migration in search of livelihoods and child work. The conflict has also brought new threats to food security in the form of food blockades and the deliberate destruction of civilian food and livelihood resources.
b) Threats to Children's protection
Protection and care for the nations' children has not been a priority or consideration of the political authorities over this or any decade in the past. By 2000, there is no countrywide, recognized or functioning constitution or government, no independent judiciary, and no provisions that prohibit or protect against discrimination based on sex, race or religion. The country is left to rely on localized application of varying interpretations of Islamic law and traditional codes of justice. Where widespread and widely accepted societal discrimination against women and girls already existed, the last decade has introduced systematic and institutionally sanctioned restrictions. War continues to find its way into children's play, discussions and role models as communities have been deprived of intellectuals and upstanding leaders who could supplant the commander-focused mentality.
Adolescent girls and boys and children directly affected by the conflict are among the major groups at risk, while huge numbers of children are subject to additional difficulties - vulnerable to isolation due to disability or physical harm as a result of working environments or living conditions. Children have also become incidental victims of the violence in the same way as adults. By the end of 2000, an estimated 2 million Afghans remain internally displaced due to fighting, forced evictions, relocations and, towards the end of the decade, a severe drought. It is estimated that by the end of 2000 over 500,000 Afghans had become internally displaced recently due to fighting and the most severe drought since 30 years. Increasing numbers of boys are migrating in search of work and leaving the country to avoid conscription pressures. Child work has become an important coping mechanism as a result of poverty and conflict during the last decade, with new and more hazardous types of work taken up by increasing numbers of Afghan children.
c) Children's development
Traditionally an Afghan child's physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual development is the responsibility of the extended family unit. The prolonged and ongoing conflict has affected this support at family and institutional level. Afghanistan remains firmly positioned in the lowest rank of education indicators with most Afghans, and especially women, functionally illiterate.
The last decade has seen destruction of the remaining urban-based education infrastructure, loss of many qualified staff, and the imposition of increasingly widespread restrictions by the Taliban on female employment and education. State-supported formal education is now available only to boys in Taliban-controlled areas while girls can join mosque schools up to the age of 9 years, focusing on religious and moral subjects. Private home-based schools have emerged in urban centres in response to the restrictions and the subsequent deterioration of boy's education. By the end of the decade however, 8 of every 20 school-age boys (around 1.5 million) and 19 of every 20 girls (2.2 million) across the country were not going to school. Alongside persistent low access to education in Afghanistan is a significant gender gap, an urban/rural divide, and considerable variation in opportunities between different regions of the country. Even where Afghan children have access to education, the quality may be such that there is little learning or overall educational achievement. Capacity, quality and access to primary and higher levels of education, and lack of adequate and longer-term funding remain the principal issues that must be addressed in future education provision.
Traditional forms of recreation including music, picnics, wedding celebrations, and kite flying have also been affected during the past decade as limitations on these activities imposed by the Taliban. In addition, increasing poverty at all levels of the population have also affected Afghans' capacity to organize even the traditional family events. The conflict has had a profound effect on the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. Along with Afghanistan's priceless artifacts and monuments, some forms of cultural expression are being lost while traditional social and cultural values are being replaced by political and military ones.
d) Children's participation and programming
There are few traditional opportunities for children's participation in Afghanistan and only a handful have been introduced through programming undertaken by the assistance community. While many projects benefit children, few have involved them or promoted consultative processes that take children's views into account, and understanding within the assistance community of how to do this remains correspondingly limited. The lack of capacity to work effectively with children extends to methodologies, tools and staff capabilities. Among assistance actors there is a general lack of understanding of the potential benefits of including children in programming processes, and a widely held belief that this will require additional resources that they can't afford. The understanding of rights-based approaches within the assistance community is still largely theoretical and rhetorical, and seldom operationalized in practical terms.
2. SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS
Much of the progress for children during the last decade has been the result of initiatives from the assistance community. This has included some aspects of health implementation, most notably the efforts to eradicate polio through massive rounds of National Immunization Days (NIDs) and increased efforts via the of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). For example in 1997 around 4 million children and in 2000 over 5 million children were reached during each NID round. Afghans' awareness of health and education has been increased though exposure of refugees in Pakistan and Iran to services in these sectors, leading to an increased demand for these services on their return to Afghanistan. The NGO sector has introduced new education models focusing on mobilization of communities to support education and basic competencies to assess learning in key subjects
Mine clearance programmes have made significant progress with the introduction of de-mining and awareness-raising activities. Community awareness and acceptance of disability has increased in this decade which has also seen the development of specialized and community-based rehabilitation services. More attention has been paid to issues of rights and there is greater awareness of human rights instruments including the Convention on the Rights of the Child among Afghans. There has been some attention to children in programming with development of methods for research with Afghan children and several practical initiatives with a high degree of participation developed with and by young people. Child-focused materials and methods have been developed in education, health and mines awareness education.
3. ISSUES OF CONCERN
With no reliable national level information and virtually no sex-disaggregated data on issues concerning children in Afghanistan, it is difficult to monitor trends in any sector. Compounding this is the lack of qualitative information and understanding on the changing situation, including the coping strategies and their effect on children and their families. Service provision remains inequitably distributed in all sectors, while issues of quality, loss of qualified personnel and lack of possibilities for appropriate retraining are critical constraints obstructing access to and support for Afghan children. Restrictions on mobility and work for women in Taliban-controlled areas continue to severely affect all sectors including health in spite of the fact that it is the only sector in which women can work. Meanwhile short-term approaches to funding and programming have limited development of longer-term visions and strategies that would be feasible and productive in many areas of the country.
More activities directly addressing the needs and interests of children are needed. Many existing programmes could develop more child-centred activities with minimal input if convinced of the value of incorporating this approach and provided with the opportunity to develop the appropriate capacity among existing personnel.
in pdf* format