wfn.org | Afghanistan: Ajmal, Skilled Carpet Weaver Wants to Be a Doctor

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Church Agencies Care for Afghan Refugees in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan/GENEVA, 30 October 2001 (LWI) - Ajmal Gul haltingly
searches for the right words to express himself in English. The
14-year-old Afghan boy lives in the Pakistani town of Quetta, close
to the border with Afghanistan. Every evening, between 8 - 9 p.m. he
attends school. "I learn English and the local language, Urdu," he
says. During the day-for twelve hours-he works as a carpet weaver, as
do his older brothers and sisters. The children must work so the
family can survive.

Ajmal's mother left Afghanistan with her children shortly after the
Taliban killed her husband. She says the family fled to Pakistan
where they have been living in one of the big refugee camps for the
last four years. The Guls belong to the minority Farsi-speaking
Hazara people, who traditionally live in central Afghanistan, and
make up 27 percent of the 22- million strong Afghan population. The
Hazara are Shia Muslims who have been involved in an ongoing struggle
with the ruling Taliban, who are Suni Muslims from the Pashtun tribe.
As a result of the conflict thousands of Hazara people were driven
from their homes, many making their way to Iran, a predominantly Shia
Muslim country. Others have fled to Quetta in Pakistan.

Ajmal accompanies his mother to the Quetta Church World Service (CWS)
compound to help her carry home raw materials for quilts. His mother
is involved in a three-month quilt-making program launched by CWS in
early October and implemented by its local partner Shuhada. The CWS
working on behalf of 36 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox communions
in the United States collaborates with churches and organizations in
more than 80 countries, meeting human need and fostering
self-reliance for people in particularly difficult situations. It is
a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT), a worldwide network of
churches and related agencies meeting human need through coordinated
emergency response.

ACT is based with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and World
Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. Allen Armstrong from the
LWF Department for World Service (LWF-DWS) India program led an ACT
assessment coordination team to Pakistan October 15-29, together with
Guy Hovey, United Methodist Committee on Relief, and Milon Khan,
Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (formerly an LWF-DWS program) in
Bangladesh. The mission met with ACT implementing members present in
Pakistan including the CWS, Norwegian Church Aid and Christian Aid,
an agency of churches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Their
discussions centered around cooperation, coordination and reporting
on the humanitarian crisis in the wake of the United States-led
strikes on Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on the USA.

Other Quetta-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs)and the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) consider the
CWS quilt-making project extremely useful as it supports the refugees
that have been here for a long time as well as new arrivals. It has
been proposed that other NGOs buy the quilts from the refugee women
to enable the CWS expand the program.

Ajmal is not the only child working in the refugee camps. Aid workers
say that most workers in the carpet-weaving industry are children.
"The refugee situation drives them into a state of poverty and one of
the results is child labor," says Marvin Parvez, CWS director in
Pakistan. The project aims to alleviate the situation people like the
Gul family find themselves trapped in, by at least providing the
women with an opportunity for income. Each quilt earns them 50 rupees
(84 USD cents). The women are also learning a skill they can use once
the project is completed. But the majority of men have no regular
income. They are forced to rely on odd jobs as daily laborers,
earning small incomes. "The only way to fight child labor is to
improve the situation of families so that they have enough income to
send their children to school," says Eileen Kiran Laldin, CWS project
coordinator.

It is particularly difficult for refugees who have been living in
Quetta for many years as they have had very little support or
attention focussed on their plight. "Urban refugees are totally
ignored," an aid worker says. "The millions of dollars being pledged
now to help people are all for new arrivals."

According to UNHCR estimates Pakistan is already hosting two million
Afghan refugees, the world's largest refugee population. Its border
is still officially closed to Afghanistan and the estimated 25,000
families that have crossed illegally since the closure have put
enormous pressure on existing camps. Those who complete this
harrowing journey often end up with relatives or friends in these
camps-places of refuge that are already overcrowded. Aid workers say
the people's needs are growing daily.

Marium Gul (no relation to Ajmal's family), along with her husband
and eight children arrived in Quetta during the first week of
October. They have found refuge in a single room in the refugee camp
that they share with four other families-40 people crowded into a
room with no access to gas or electricity.

Marium and her daughter are working together on a quilt. Her husband
has left for town in hope of finding work as a daily laborer. Even if
she and her husband manage to scrape together 100 rupees-not more
than USD 1.5-it is simply not enough for a family of ten, Marium
explains.

"I only want peace so that we can return home," says the 42-year-old
woman. With their livestock, more than 100 sheep and 300 goats and
land, the family always had enough to eat. "We drank a lot of milk,"
recalls this mother who can barely feed her children now. Marium
recounts how nearly two months ago, the Taliban burnt down their
house. The family lost everything. "They attacked us three times,"
she says. She recounted how women were beaten and abused. After being
driven from their homes, the family lived in a tent before coming to
Quetta in early October. They traveled by truck part of the way and
the rest of the journey from central Afghanistan by foot. "We had to
walk for 24 hours and we had no food," Marium recalls.

The ethnic conflict in Afghanistan has completely changed life in
Quetta where refugees make up a large proportion of the population-a
situation that has led to growing tensions with refugees and locals
competing for very limited job opportunities. The fact that the
refugees offer their services at relatively lower cost than the
locals only creates a highly volatile and tension-filled atmosphere.
A severe drought over the last four years has added to increased
tensions-a scenario that is playing itself out not only in Quetta,
but in many of the areas where the big refugee camps have sprung up.

Mehr Niger who lives in another crowded room under the same roof as
Marium Gul's family, shows a sack with hardly any flour in it, all
she has left for her family of seven. "This lasts only for two more
days," she says. She then begins to cry. With so little food left,
all the men have gone off in search of work.

Ajmal has mastered the art of carpet-weaving. Although this is what
he has been doing for the last four years, he wants to achieve more
in life-like his father, a teacher, or his uncle, an engineer. Both
men were killed in the conflict between the Hazara people and the
Taliban. "When I grow up, I want to become a doctor." He nods his
head firmly. "This is what I want to be."

(By Rainer Lang, ACT Press Officer in Quetta)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now has 133
member churches in 73 countries representing over 60.5 million of the
64.3 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on behalf of its
member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development
work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material
presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of
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