Fending for Themselves: Afghan Refugee Children and Adolescents Working in Urban Pakistan

Although precise numbers are not certain, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates, in the months immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes in Afghanistan in fear of United Statesled retaliatory military action and fighting between Northern Alliance and Taliban forces, as well as intertribal conflicts. At least 200,000 of them fled to neighboring Pakistan, where they joined over two million other Afghan refugees and migrants who had fled armed conflict, persecution, drought, inter-family and
inter-tribal conflict and economic deprivation in the decades following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to UNHCR reports in 2001, the majority of the new arrivals to Pakistan sought refuge in urban areas, mainly in two provinces: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan.

Fifty-nine percent of the more than 1.5 million refugees assisted by UNHCR in Pakistan in 2001 are children and adolescents under the age of 18, half of them girls. Women between the ages of 18 and 59 are 58 percent of the population.2 The majority are ethnic Pashtuns, but there are also Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks and other minority groups among them. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 3.6 million children work in Pakistan, 3 including tens of thousands of Afghan children.

Troubled by years of responsibility for Afghan refugees and with very limited international burdensharing for their care, the Pakistan government did not warmly welcome the new refugees. Pakistan’s borders were officially closed to the new arrivals. Those ultimately allowed to enter Pakistan, register and relocate to camps were permitted to do so only in designated areas that are distinct and separate from roughly 200 pre-existing refugee camps. Together with Pakistan government authorities, UNHCR is responsible for the protection and care of refugees in these “relocation camps,” which are clustered in the
Chaman area of Balochistan, along the border with Kandahar, Afghanistan, and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), bordering NWFP and several provinces in Afghanistan near Kabul, the capital. Those entering urban areas did so by skirting official channels, and they joined the ranks of most other refugees in Pakistan who have not been able to secure refugee status and remain officially undocumented with few rights recognized by Pakistani authorities.

In this context, the Women’s Commission conducted a mission to Pakistan January 16 - 31, 2002, to identify the protection and care concerns of Afghan children, adolescents and youth.4 The concerns of refugee “street children” and other working young people living in urban settings were the main focus of the investigation. The investigation did not focus on documenting abuses previously or currently suffered by children and adolescents inside Afghanistan. While the investigation was limited to conditions in Pakistan, refugee children and adolescents in other areas, especially Iran, are likely facing similar circumstances. Findings presented here are based on group and individual interviews with more than 60
Afghan children, adolescents and adults, as well as dozens of local and international NGO, UN and Pakistan government representatives responsible for refugees. Young people’s names have been changed to safeguard their protection.