IRIN
PAKISTAN: Quake orphans and widows lose safe haven
8 November 2006


HATTIAN, 8 November (IRIN) - The sound of children playing, which till a 
few weeks ago could be heard all around the building housing the Ashiana 
shelter for women and children, has faded away.

Home to orphaned quake victims, widows and the elderly over the past 
year, the Ashiana shelter was shut down in late October as a result of 
wrangling between officials of the government's Ministry of Social 
Welfare (MoSW) and the NGO which ran the operation.

The shelter was set up to house orphans, widows and the destitute soon 
after last year's earthquake, which devastated parts of the North West 
Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, leaving at 
least 73,000 dead.

An abandoned residential complex, located around 80 km northeast of the 
federal capital Islamabad near the small town of Hattian in the Attock 
district, was selected for the purpose.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who had originally set up a 
shelter scheme for children and women left on their own after the quake, 
took considerable personal interest in the venture, with his wife 
visiting the facility to find out the welfare of those housed there.

An agreement was reached in late 2005 between the MoSW and the Khubaib 
Foundation, a local NGO, to run the shelter - envisaged as a permanent 
home for children and women. The shelter housed 650 people at one stage, 
and with vocational training workshops for women, classrooms, playground 
facilities for children and clinics manned by experts and offices all in 
place, it buzzed with life.

The Khubaib Foundation said at the time it planned to run the shelter 
for as long as it was required and would assume guardianship of orphans, 
widows and destitute women there.

But hopes that the shelter would serve as a model housing solution for 
some of the most vulnerable quake victims quickly disappeared. Wrangling 
over financial matters, accusations by the Khubaib Foundation of undue 
interference by ministry officials and a resultant breakdown of trust 
eventually led to closure before it had completed even a year in 
existence.

Those housed there at the time of its closure have been dispatched to 
relatives, handed over to orphanages or entrusted to the governments of 
NWFP and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"We spent 40 million rupees [about US $666,000] on setting up schools, 
establishing health facilities and other services at the centre, but the 
ministry refused to pay half the sum as had been agreed in the 
Memorandum of Understanding," a spokesperson for the Khubaib Foundation 
told IRIN.

Till early October, the NGO was said to be making efforts to extract the 
sum from the government.

Ministry officials firmly deny the allegations made. Additional 
Secretary Mohammad Noor Saghir Khan has said that the shelter was closed 
down as it was "never supposed to be a permanent organisation".

The result though, is that many women and children have lost a place to 
live where they had found some semblance of security after the trauma of 
the quake.

"I was happy at the shelter. Now I am living with relatives near my 
village in Muzaffarabad, but I feel as if I am a burden to them," said 
Kulsoom Bibi, 24, a young widow who spent seven months at Ashiana along 
with her son, now three years old.

In June 2006, the Federal Minister for Social Welfare and Special 
Education, Zobaida Jalal, told Pakistan's upper house of parliament that 
there were still 141 women with no relatives and 463 orphans, 
unaccompanied and separated children from the earthquake-affected areas 
of NWFP and Kashmir.

Some of these children remain at camps in Muzaffarabad or other 
locations, others at temporary shelters. Observes say there is still a 
need to find a lasting solution to their plight, and meet the need for 
safe housing, security and a source of livelihood that many still 
urgently need over one year after the quake that shattered their lives.


IRIN-Asia
Tel: +90 312 454 1177
Fax: +90 312 495 4166
Email: IrinAsia@IRINnews.org


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