Refugees get legal assistance and information

It’s too much responsibility for 15-year-old Afghan refugee Sayed Haroon to look after his 8-member family on US$ 20 a month. He gets this by working 12 hours a day in a filthy spray shop, painting ageing vehicles, in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Haroon’s brothers are garbage ‘scavengers’. With sacks on their backs they collect anything worthwhile, paper, bottles or pieces of metal in rubbish piles around the town for less than half a dollar a day. Three years ago they fled Saray Khoja village in Shomali Plains north of the Afghan capital, Kabul when the Taliban took away their father away - he was never seen alive again. With large number of Afghan refugees going back home, the question of his family’s future haunts Haroon. "For how long my brothers will collect garbage. I want them to do something better," he told IRIN. A search for such answers led him to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Information, Counselling and Legal Aid Project walk-in centre in one of Peshawar's sprawling suburbs. "We are looking for a better future and I hope to get something from this office," he said. His high expectations may not be met, but the project is certainly making a difference in the lives of thousands of Afghans by providing them with accurate information on the repatriation process as well as helping them settle legal matters such as those of getting back money from their landlords or settling ownership disputes. "We do not encourage or discourage repatriation, but we help refugees in making an informed decision," NRC Resident Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Lisbeth Pilegaard told IRIN. "For most people repatriation is a natural solution but it’s difficult and has to take into account many aspects," she said. In its pioneering work, the NRC has provided services to some 5,000 Afghan refugee families by offering accurate and updated information on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) assistance package, the security situation in the areas they hope to return to, as well as details of housing and employment. Two strategically located offices surrounded by refugee clusters in the city provide the service to refugees on their doorsteps. Mobile teams also travel to refugee camps for public information campaigns. The project has also taken on 600 legal cases ranging from disputes over deposits from landlords to juveniles being imprisoned for long periods on minor charges. A team of Pakistani and Afghan lawyers has resolved some 35 cases mostly through mediation and mutual agreement. Commenting on the effort, Sarwar Mamond, on the Afghan desk of HRCP told IRIN that the initiative provided for refugees who lack resources to resolve these kind of difficulties. "All refugees are vulnerable because they don’t have all the rights and do not enjoy protection," he said. The situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is compounded by the fact that Pakistan is a signatory to neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor the 1967 Refugee Protocol. There is little if any refugee-related legislation in Pakistan. "We hope that this effort would develop into specialised institutions for refugee protection," he maintained. HRCP and NRC in collaboration with other humanitarian organisations have formed Humanitarian Assistance for Repatriating Afghan Refugees, a coalition advocating more rights for refugees. Masti Notz, the head of UNHCR in Peshawar, told IRIN that the project was the first successful replication of similar efforts in other countries. "It is done in parallel to repatriation and it helps," she said. UNHCR is a major donor and partner of the project. Pilegaard explained that although they were making a smaller contribution in a larger picture, they were making a big difference in the lives of those who sought their assistance. "Hopefully we are part of the solution for those who want to return," she said. NRC is expected to expand the project into other areas of northern Pakistan and inside Afghanistan.