Pakistan: Still at Risk: Internally Displaced Children’s Rights in north-west Pakistan

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^{31 December 2009}

North-west Pakistan saw the biggest and fastest conflict-induced internal displacement in the world in 2009. At least three million people fled fighting between insurgents and security forces. Many were able to return after hostilities ended but at least 1.2 million remained displaced at the end of the year.

Since 2002 the, Pakistani Taliban has combined a radical theological agenda with anti-NATO rhetoric to threaten tribal institutions and state authorities in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and later North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). After the breakdown of a peace deal between the Pakistani Taliban and the government, the army moved into the Swat Valley in NWFP in May 2009. Encouraged by the security forces, more than two million people fled towards the Peshawar Valley, and by late June, 2.1 million IDPs had been registered by the government, of which 85 per cent were staying with host families.

In July, the government and the UN signed a return policy framework, following which 1.6 million IDPs were encouraged to return. Some returnees were then displaced again as they found the areas were still unsafe, and their property and means of livelihoods destroyed. By December 2009, at least 370,000 people remained displaced.

During the second half of the year, the security forces re-launched operations against the Pakistani Taliban-led tribal militias in FATA. Some 190,000 people were displaced from Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber and Orakzai Agencies, adding to 550,000 people who remained displaced after fleeing sectarian violence, Taliban abuses and military operations there in 2008. Out of all these groups, an estimated 450,000 people were still displaced in FATA at the end of the year, the vast majority staying with host families or in rented accommodation.

Finally, during October and November, up to 430,000 civilians fled another army offensive in South Waziristan in FATA, over half the population of that province. Fighting, roadblocks, and their lack of resources prevented other civilians from leaving the areas of conflict. At least 290,000 people remained displaced in the neighbouring districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank at the end of 2009.

Restrictions on humanitarian and media access made it hard to evaluate the difficulties facing returnees; meanwhile the prospects for effective local integration seemed slim.

The national response was significant. The National Database and Registration Authority registered the IDPs and issued them with national identity cards. However, the process was not universally applied: many IDPs who had been displaced from areas which the government did not recognise as conflict areas, or from tribes associated with militant groups, were excluded from this process. Some women-headed households also struggled to obtain an identity card, but a considerable number of displaced women did obtain one for the first time.

Initial assessments indicated that the IDPs, who were mostly in an urban environment where they relied on savings and support from relatives, primarily needed cash to pay for food, rent and utilities. Registered IDPs in NWFP were thus equipped with cash cards credited with $300 per family. Many of those displaced in FATA similarly received cash cards but with only $60 per family. In addition, UN-led agencies provided food assistance to 4.3 million people and health services to several hundred thousand IDPs.

Specific groups had particular protection needs. A higher proportion of internally displaced women than men had difficulties in accessing basic services, and were forced to move or return against their will. They also more frequently experienced family separation and intra-family violence. Internally displaced men were more concerned about replacing lost identity cards and the looting of livestock and property during displacement.

The military offensive resulted in widespread destruction of infrastructure and the loss of livelihoods for pastoral and farming communities. 77 hospitals were destroyed or damaged, and many of the 4,500 schools used as shelter for IDPs were not reopened by the end of the year. In an attempt to address this, the government initiated a post-crisis needs assessment exercise supported by the World Bank, the UN, the Asian Development Bank and the European Commission, to build consensus on recovery and peacebuilding strategies.

The limited information on displacement in Balochistan Province indicated that clashes between the army and Baloch separatists displaced up to 60,000 people in Bugti district in 2009. Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani recognised the difficult situation of the IDPs in a speech to parliament in December and offered $12 million for their rehabilitation and settlement as part of the Balochistan Support Package. However, despite the acknowledgement of the displacement, the Package was rejected by nationalists.

10 December 2009: Displaced children in urgent need of shelter and schools as winter approaches

At least 130,000 Pakistani children have been forced from their homes in South Waziristan since October 2009, according to OCHA. In recent weeks, renewed military operations in Bajaur and Khyber agencies have added to their numbers. Altogether, more than 500,000 children are thought to be displaced with their families in Pakistan.

As winter approaches, they may find it harder and harder to find warm shelter and adequate schooling. Hundreds of thousands of children have missed up to a year of school. Almost 5,000 school buildings have been occupied by IDPs in hosting districts, and as of mid-November, less than half of them had been refurbished ready for school to start again. In addition, hundreds of schools in the area of fighting have been targeted and destroyed, a disproportionate number of them schools for girls. With winter setting in, humanitarian agencies anticipate it will be even harder for families to return home, and recognise the need to provide warm shelter for families, and to reinstitute school programming so that children can access education in their place of refuge.

Children displaced within Pakistan face difficulties in accessing school and risk being exploited, according to a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Since August 2008, more than two million children have been forced from their homes in north-western regions of the country by fighting between government forces and militants of the Pakistani Taliban. Around 800,000 children are still displaced in mid-2010. Over a million have returned to their home areas, but they still face hardship because of the extensive destruction of homes, schools and other infrastructure, and risk being forced into early marriage or child labour as their families face destitution. (...)

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