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An Norweigan
Refugee Council -supported school in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan,
welcomes IDP
children into its classes.- NRC/Christian Jepsen, November 2013
WOMEN
& CHILDREN INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN AFGHANISTAN
Internally
displaced women and girls are particularly vulnerable as their low economic
status, social isolation and lack of traditional social protection
mechanisms place them at higher risk of abuses such as prostitution and
early and forced marriages. Widowed women, who represent an estimated 19.3
per cent of the IDP population, are disproportionately at risk due to the
removal of their traditional social protection mechanism, a male family
member, and often poverty prevents them from making inheritance claims (Samuel
Hall, January 2014, pp.82-83, NRC, March 2014, p.59).
This is related to economic hardship brought on by lack of income and
hardships exacerbated through displacement. While domestic violence is a
national concern, women reported that violence occurred more often during
displacement, because their husbands were “more stressed” (FMR, May 2014, p. 34;
Samuel
Hall, January 2014, pp.82- 83; NRC, 2008).
Discrimination
against displaced women is often exacerbated by detrimental social norms
and practices within Afghan conservative society. In particular, the legal
status of women and the decision-making power remain linked to that of a
male relative, and they are unlikely to own land, inherit or have security
of tenure should their husband or another male relative from which they
depend die, divorce or disappear (NRC, 2014).
In eastern Afghanistan, maternal and child health, protection against
sexual gender based violence and child abuse, are almost completely absent
from sector responses and there are hardly any prevention and response
mechanisms. Access to education is lowest among conflict-induced IDPs, with
the strongest reluctance towards girls’ education (Samuel Hall/CFA 2013,
p.38 and p.85).
Children
are often forced into child labour to support their families, preventing
them from attending school and putting them at risk of child recruitment (OCHA,
November 2013 p. 15) The Taliban have used children to carry-out suicide
attacks. Interviews with children who survived due to mechanical failures
or who were imprisoned after a failed attack, stated they did not even know
what a suicide attack was (Xinhua,
August 2013, HRW,
August 2011). Afghanistan adopted a Juvenile Code-Procedural Law for
Dealing with Children in Conflict with the Law in 2005 and in 2009 a Law of
Juvenile Rehabilitation Centers which incorporate basic principles of
juvenile justice set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC). However, children in detention continue to face rights violations
including sometimes being detained with adults, not adequately provided
with food, care, protection, education and vocational training and abuse
and torture (UN
CRC, February 2011, p.17). Children are not also provided with legal
aid, including before courts, and often statements are forcibly extracted (UN
CRC, February 2011, p.17).
IDP
children who go to unfamiliar places looking for firewood during the winter
are at a higher risk of injury or fatality as they may readily mistake
‘butterfly’ mines for toys. UNAMA documented 511 child casualties in 2013
due to IEDs, a 28 per cent increase from 2012 while nearly 55 per cent or
964 child casualties resulted from actions of NSAGs (UNAMA,
February 2014, p.59).
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Afghanistan
is in a political, security and economic transition. The International
Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) will hand over full responsibility for
security to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) at the end of 2014,
a new president and provincial authorities will assume office and the
economy will need to adjust to a loss of international military spending.
During this period of transition, Afghanistan’s political, security and
economic stability are uncertain. As such, humanitarian access has become a
key concern, particularly for internally displaced people (IDPs) in rural
or remote areas where development and humanitarian actors have limited
access due to insecurity and on-going conflict. Shrinking
humanitarian space does not translate into shrinking needs and, if
anything, multiplies them. Internal displacement continues to rise against
a backdrop of continuing armed conflict, high rate of civilian casualties,
increased abuses by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) and pervasive
conflict-related violence.
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