Preparation for Afghan census underway

In preparation for a full-scale census of Afghans living in the country, the Pakistan Census Organisation (PCO), in collaboration with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), conducted a pilot census earlier this week across the four provinces of the country. "The exercise was basically to check the operational procedures and make the enumerators prepared to deal with any particular condition," Jehangir Khan, head of the Commission for Afghan Refugees (CAR), told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad. "We've come across certain problems during the pilot census, which we have discussed with the UNHCR officials and hopefully tomorrow we'll finalise the recommendations." In January, the government of Pakistan and the UNHCR agreed to conduct a census and record vital information about all Afghan refugees in Pakistan arriving after December 1979. The census would record the number and profiles of Afghans, including details of their arrival, their place of origin, where they are living now, current livelihood, as well as their intention to repatriate. The test exercise was conducted by the PCO census teams in the four selected districts of Karachi, Sialkot, Pishin and Peshawar. UNHCR teams monitored all stages of the process to ensure that agreed procedures were followed by the PCO enumerators. "The pilot tests were also to check the full range of housing areas that have been identified during two months of mapping of concentrations of Afghan population throughout Pakistan - in camps, rural areas and urban centres," Jack Redden, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told IRIN in Islamabad. Since 2002, UNHCR has assisted 2.3 million Afghans to voluntarily repatriate under the tripartite agreement between the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and UNHCR that runs until March 2006. UNHCR has been undertaking several promotional activities to ensure that Afghans are aware of the importance of participating in the census. "We are airing the advertisements on Khyber TV - the only Pashto channel in the world and popular among Afghans. We are advertising in about four Pashto newspapers of Karachi and Peshawar. Besides, a 15-minute radio programme is also being aired on Radio Pakistan from Quetta and Peshawar," Redden noted. The UNHCR official further added that the refugee agency had already distributed thousands of information leaflets, posters and banners amongst the Afghan community, encouraging their participation in the census. The data collected by the census teams would be entered into a database and the first results would be available for detailed analysis by the second half of March. Accordingly, the information would help the government of Pakistan and the UNHCR to develop future policies for Afghan refugees living in the South Asian nation after the tripartite agreement expires next year. Meanwhile, a high-level meeting in Brussels this week, arranged by the UNHCR and the European Commission, stressed the continuing problems facing displaced Afghans in Pakistan and Iran. The UNHCR head, Rudd Lubbers, on Wednesday urged Islamabad and Tehran to take a "more relaxed attitude" towards their Afghan populations and look at them as productive migrant workers as many may decide against returning home.