The Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women.

Economic and Social Situation of most Afghans

Still Remains Precarious

23 December 2008, Kabul-Afghanistan

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) is releasing its third report on the economic and social rights of Afghans. This report evaluates the progress and challenges faced by the Afghan government in ensuring the social and economic rights of its citizens over the course of the past year and a half, and contain specific recommendations about promoting and protecting human rights in the country.

The AIHRC regional monitoring teams with the assistance of the UNHCR has interviewed more than 15000 people in 34 provinces and the information gathered is the main source in this report. Also, most of the quality inputs in this report are due to numerous interviews with government representatives, the United Nations and civil society in order to have the view of all three sides on the issue. It is mentionable that vulnerable groups and people who are living in remote regions have a special focus in this report.

The evaluation standard of this report is based on two legal and principle sources:

· Afghanistan’s Constitution and the International Covenant on Economic,

· Social and Cultural Rights, which Afghanistan has ratified in 1983.

Other relevant indexes like Afghanistan’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Afghanistan National Development Strategies (ANDS) are also considered.

“The Afghan government has responsibility in ensuring the political and civil rights of the people, and, in addition to this, has responsibility to ensure their social and economic rights as well as to improve health conditions, education, and adequate living conditions and sustainable livelihoods, and to this end must take effective action” said Dr Sima Samar, the Chair of AIHRC.

Summary of Main Findings in the Report:

· The field monitoring information of the Commission shows that 37% of rural population is daily wage workers, 30% of them work on their own land, and 20% rent plots of land, while, according to official statistics 33% of able population of Afghanistan are unemployed. The Commission field monitoring investigation indicates that income rate, from various sources, for most of the population is to cope and survive.

· In Afghanistan, the informal economy is an important source of livelihood and income. Post war state has provided grounds for the development of such economy. Aside from the poppy economy, it is not clear to what extent the issue is being addressed. In this kind of economy not only tax revenues is missing, but the rights and well being of workers are also a human rights concern.

· AIHRC human rights border monitoring team has interviewed 1137 deportees at Zaranj and Islam Qala border. Nearly 80% of deportees experienced “bad or very bad” treatment by Iranian authorities and all of them had been forced to pay the

cost of deportation themselves.

· Child labor is prevalent in Afghanistan. An assessment of child labor in Kabul shows that nearly a quarter of Afghan children between 7 and 14 years old work. The duration of work is often above the permitted hours per week. Most of them work for long hours and under hazardous environment and are exposed to unfair treatment and physical and health dangers.

· This report shows that the livelihood situation of most of the families is not stable, and 62% of the interviewees reported that they were indebted. Although it is nearly three percent down from the numbers of indebted households reported last year. But there has been an increase in the quantity and amount of depts. For example the average amount of money being owed last year was 77195 Afs and our findings for this report show the average amount to be 90002 Afghanis.

· Effective and equitable social protection and aid to persons with disabilities has been extremely politicized. For this reason a large number of them have been discriminated against. The AIHRC’s position in this regard is that assistance to the persons with disabilities should be given on the basis of disability and need, not by previous or current political affiliation.

· Underage marriage disproportionately affects girls. Among the families surveyed, 1662 children were reported to marry underage. Of these, 1494 (90%) are girls and 168 (10%) are boys. 10% of the families said that they had their children married before they reached their 16 years of age. Fifty-five percent of the underage marriages were taken place to solve economic problems; another 30% were Badal, also linking into economic issues, because in Badal marriage cost and expenses will go low.

· Providing housing, large return of refugees and increasing of property prices have caused housing issues in the cities. HRFM respondents reported a number of cases of illegal occupation, 208 households were forced out of their homes by unknown individuals; 146 by a member of their own community, and 51 by a “commander”, and finally 20 households had their house occupied by government officials and, 66 faced problems because they did not have documents to prove the ownership.

· A considerable number of households live without consistent access to clean water and basic sanitation facilities. According to the Central Authority for Water Supply and Sewerage, 70% of urban dwellers lack access to safe drinking water. The HRFM data shows that 40% of urban vulnerable and 70% of rural vulnerable households have problems with water for household needs and sanitation.

· The HRFM data shows that 37% of vulnerable populations make less than 50 Afs per day while 22% reported more than 50 Afs in daily income. The remaining 41% did not respond to the question; possible reasons could be reluctance to report illicit income or the absence of income. Land allocation scheme and building of small scale towns for returnees have caused massive problems for returnees. All these towns have been built without any regard to their geographical location. Most of them lack enough infrastructures. Those that have water lack road and those that have schools lack clinics. No public transportation system connects these towns to main market. The average length from towns to the closest bazaar is 12km, so travel can be extremely difficult in Afghanistan’s hot summer and cold winter.The HRFM survey shows that 15% of vulnerable people in urban areas and 30% of those in rural areas do not have access to any government, NGO or private health facilities, while only 22% of people in urban areas and 2% in rural areas have access to all.

· Despite considerable achievements in the area of education, Afghanistan faces several problems in ensuring access to education for all. The major concerns are inadequate schools, and lack of access to school as well as exclusion of girls and women and minorities. Security issues have had a detrimental effect on education. In the reporting period, Afghanistan has been witnessing disruption of classes

during conflict, attacks on schools, and the intimidation of teachers and female students by militant groups. Drop out rates are extremely high. Only 11% of boys and 5% of girls enrolled in primary school continue on to grade 12 while almost 82% of boys and 63% of girls only reach grade six.

· Attacks by insurgents on schools have dramatically been high in the last couple of years. In 2007, there were 55 security threats and more than 180 attacks carried out on schools, killing 108 people and injuring 154. The first three months of 2008 saw five threats and 24 attacks killing two people The third report on economic and social rights in Afghanistan contains specific recommendations in every section. In addition, there are some general recommendations to the Afghan Government to address these issues upon the constitution, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its other commitments: Most of the vulnerable and isolated areas are without food and this winter this will cause them major problems. So the AIHRC is requesting from the Afghan government and the international community to start their humanitarian aid in the vulnerable areas before a humanitarian crisis occurs.

The government of Afghanistan should focus on participatory development and develop necessary coordination with relevant government and non-government organs to follow up and fulfill the recommendation presented in this report. The government needs to implement the labor code, particularly with regard to daily-wage workers, work health and safety regulations, and child labor, and enforce the non-discrimination policy in securing access to services such as education and health care by women and minorities.

The government of Afghanistan needs to amend civil law where stands in violation of the Constitution and adopted international legal standards. The difference in age of majority and marriage between males and females remains as major concern. It is necessary to develop and implement family law to prohibit paying dowry, domestic violence and ensure protection of women rights.

Assuring access to the social and economic rights is one of the key issues. The government of Afghanistan should take effective actions in terms of security of people’s property and dignified return of refugees and IDPs, development of infrastructural services, establish marriage, divorce and birth registration facilities as well as offices issuing national identification, providing of health and educational services.

To protect labor migrants, the Government of Afghanistan should strengthen its cross-border relationship and efforts with Iran. And focus on gender equality and women’s equal access to service. The government of Afghanistan has to develop a long-term coping strategy to address food insecurity this includes programs to rehabilitate and strengthen rural infrastructure; decentralization of preventative programs; increased investment in rural development; and, food assistance to vulnerable populations.

The government of Afghanistan in coordination with National and International forces should take effective and inclusive actions to provide adequate security support to medical staff and health facility centers.

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Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission is a national institution mandated by the Afghanistan constitution to promote and protect Human Rights and to monitor the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan.

This report is available in the Commission’s website, http://www.aihrc.org.af in Dari

Pashto and English

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