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Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 68
20 - 26 July 2002


CONTENTS:

PAKISTAN: Juvenile girls wedded to old men
PAKISTAN: Hepatitis B vaccine launched nationwide
PAKISTAN: Funding cut could affect maternal mortality
PAKISTAN: Tajiks offered return home
AFGHANISTAN: New bridges to provide vital food access
AFGHANISTAN: Food flow continues despite truckers' strike
AFGHANISTAN: Special envoy on children on week-long visit
AFGHANISTAN: Good response to disarmament in north
AFGHANISTAN: Landmine kills 11 bus passengers
TAJIKISTAN: Urgent need for health education
TAJIKISTAN: Focus on trafficking
TAJIKISTAN: Government urged to reverse radio licence decision
TAJIKISTAN: No new Typhoid cases reported in the capital
IRAN: Deportations of Afghans on the rise
IRAN: UNICEF delivers more aid to quake victims
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly News Wrap



PAKISTAN: Juvenile girls wedded to old men

Women and human rights activists in Pakistan expressed outrage on
Thursday, strongly condemning a private deal between two families under
which juvenile girls were married to old men as part of a compensation
package to save four murder convicts on death row. "We strongly condemn
the deal struck at Abakhel [village] where the two parties settled the
matter with the gifting of eight girls and a large sum of money to the
aggrieved side as compensation," a coalition of women's rights NGOs said
in a joint statement to IRIN. The comments follow a news report on
Wednesday that a family in the village, located in the Mianwali district
of Punjab province, had wedded two teenaged daughters to old men as part
of a compensation. The family has reportedly promised to marry six other
young girls, as part of the deal.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29003&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Hepatitis B vaccine launched nationwide

Pakistan, suffering from a high incidence of hepatitis B, has launched a
nationwide vaccination campaign for children up to one year of age with
international help. "The hepatitis B vaccination has been included in the
national immunisation programme," Dr Rehan Hafiz, national programme
manager of the country's expanded programme on immunisation, told IRIN on
Wednesday in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The programme is supported
by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF and has been launched across
the country this year. Hepatitis B affects an estimated one out of every
10 Pakistanis, though some medical experts feel that its incidence is much
higher. Hafiz said some surveys showed the incidence of the disease to be
anywhere from two percent to 10 percent - this high magnitude meriting a
national response. However, due to a shortage of funds, the government has
planned to target the youngest segment of the population. It started the
first phase of the programme last year by vaccinating children less than a
year old in just 11 of Pakistan's 100 districts.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28981&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Funding cut could affect maternal mortality

The US government's decision to stop funding the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA) could have a critical impact on the agency's programmes in
Pakistan. Dr Olivier Brasseur, head of the UNFPA in Pakistan, told IRIN on
Wednesday that the US decision, in addition to cuts from other donors,
would reduce his agency's spending power in the country this year from US
$7 million to US $5 million. The US $2 million dollar cut is sure to
affect UNFPA programmes aimed at reducing the maternal mortality rate,
which at 352 per 100,000 live births, is one of the highest in the region.
In fact, said Brasseur, in some parts of Pakistan, like in Thatta near
Karachi in the south, the maternal mortality rate was as high as 1,000 per
100,000 live births.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28980&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Tajiks offered return home

Tajik nationals living in Pakistan, many of whom are studying in madrassas
(religious schools), are being offered the chance to return home on free
flights arranged by their government.  Some 350 Tajiks have already left
the country on three flights in May, June and July. A fourth flight is
planned for next month. "We are planning a flight from Karachi," he said,
adding that more and more Tajiks were coming forward to register for the
assistance. There are some 600 Tajiks registered to be living in the South
Asian nation in cities such as Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier
Province (NWFP), Lahore in the Punjab province, the southern port city of
Karachi, and the capital, Islamabad.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28979&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: New bridges to provide vital food access

The construction of five new bridges by the Aga Khan Foundation between
the remote northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan and the southeastern
Badakhshoni Khui province in Tajikistan, will help improve the food
situation in extremely vulnerable areas, aid workers told IRIN on
Thursday. Both provinces are very mountainous, difficult to reach and are
geographically isolated in economic terms. In order to make Afghanistan
more prosperous, Kamji said it was important not to deal with the country
in isolation, but to link it with the rest of Central Asia and
particularly it neighbours.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29004&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Food flow continues despite truckers' strike

Aid workers do not fear any food shortages in southern Afghanistan despite
the ongoing traders' strike that has affected the cross border movement of
goods from Chaman in southwestern Pakistan to Kandahar in southern
Afghanistan. Traders are protesting against the rise in transportation
fares following a rise in government duties. WFP had already transported
260 mt of food aid into Kandahar on Saturday with another such shipment
underway on Tuesday, she explained. However, some traders boycotted the
local truckers following a 15 percent increase in transportation costs
after the district government fixed truck fares. "We believe the market
should determine fares as is the case elsewhere in Afghanistan,"
Naseebullah, a leader of the protesting traders told IRIN.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28956&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Special envoy on children on week-long visit

Olara Otunnu, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative for
children and armed conflict, is in Afghanistan this week to highlight the
plight of the country's youth, who have been caught in the crossfire of
more than 20 years of war. Speaking on his arrival in the capital, Kabul,
on Sunday, Otunnu said: "I am here to see for myself, to witness and
assess firsthand the impact of this period on children, and to see what is
being done to respond to this challenge by the government of Afghanistan,
by local civil society and NGOs and, of course, by United Nations agencies
and international NGOs who are here to help the Afghan people.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28927&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Good response to disarmament in north

Some 400 light and heavy weapons have been collected so far since a
disarmament programme was started in the northern district of Sholgareh,
southwest of Mazar-e Sharif. "I think it's been a good start," UN
spokesman in the Afghan capital, Kabul, David Singh told IRIN on Monday.
The exercise is taking place under the auspices of the multi-party
Security Commission in Mazar-e-Sharif, observed and facilitated by the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). "There has been
overwhelming support from the local community," Singh added, saying that
there was an estimated 1,200 weapons in total to be collected. Earlier, he
told reporters that this was the first disarmament in Afghanistan that had
been carried out voluntarily by factions.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28928&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Landmine kills 11 bus passengers

In yet another tragic incident, a landmine blew up a bus in Afghanistan's
central Bamiyan province on Saturday, killing 11 travellers and injuring
another 13. The incident highlights the grave threat posed to millions of
Afghans, many of whom are refugees returning to their homeland, one of the
most mined countries in the world. "Despite a warning, the crazy driver
went ahead on the mined road," Latif Matin, the central region's manager
for Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (MACA), told IRIN from the capital,
Kabul, on Monday. The bus, carrying two dozen civilians, was travelling
from the town of Yakawlang to the provincial capital of Bamiyan city when
it hit an anti-tank mine near the Band-i-Amir Lake.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28925&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Urgent need for health education

The vast majority of Tajikistan's adults suffer from some kind of
infectious disease, and there is a desperate need for basic health
education, especially in rural areas, aid workers say.  Tajikistan's
crumbling health system has a budget which only stretches to US $1 per
person per year in a population of six million. Severely under funded, it
has scarce resources to deal with growing problems such as malnutrition in
children, infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS. Although some assistance is
being provided by the international community in the area of training
health professionals and upgrading laboratory skills to better diagnose,
treat and prevent illness, much more is needed. Health experts say
improving the skills of nurses is of particular importance in the
impoverished Central Asian nation, where 70 percent of the population is
rural-based. In most cases, nurses and midwives are the first and only
health care providers available to this section of the population.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29001&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Focus on trafficking

Travelling on a local bus in the northern Tajik city of Khujand,
13-year-old Lola was abducted by a woman who told onlooking passengers
that she was her mother. Despite her persistent cries for help, she was
taken to a house where 14 other girls, hooked on heroin, were kept and
sold to men every night. But Lola was fortunate. Before the traffickers
could send her abroad, the teenage girl was rescued by a local NGO called
Modar. Sadly thousands more are not so lucky and the trafficking of young
girls and women in this impoverished Central Asian nation remains rife.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28953&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Government urged to reverse radio licence decision

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged the Tajik
government to reverse its decision to deny a radio licence to the
independent Tajik news agency, Asia Plus. Government officials routinely
deny independent television and radio stations broadcast licences, and
although 15 independent television stations operate in the republic, most
are located in the north, far from large population areas and with very
limited audiences. There is only one independent radio station in
Tajikistan, and it too, has only local reach, the statement said. Earlier,
the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent a
letter to the Tajik authorities regarding this issue. "Last week I called
Mr Goibov, deputy head of the State Committee on TV and radio
broadcasting, and asked him why they refused the licence to Asia Plus but
did not get a comprehensive answer," political and media officer for the
OSCE, Maxime Filandrov, told IRIN from Dushanbe.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28926&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: No new Typhoid cases reported in the capital

There have been no new cases of typhoid in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe,
this past week, following an outbreak of the fever, aid workers told IRIN
on Monday. Elias Ghanem, acting head of delegation of the International
Federation of the Red Cross, told IRIN that 133 patients were given
treatment for the disease, but only only 59 cases were confirmed.
"However, there has been no new case in the last week," Ghanem added.
Humanitarian Officer for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), Andrea Recchia, told IRIN from Dushanbe that an outbreak
of typhoid was reported on 10 July in the capital. The Tajik Ministry of
Health had designated three hospitals for the treatment of patients and
began chlorinating water sources. Water is considered one of the main ways
of spreading the disease.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28930&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

IRAN: Deportations of Afghans on the rise

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has expressed concern
over a marked increase in the number of Afghans deported from Iran. The
announcement follows a significant number of deportations from the country
since the joint voluntary repatriation programme began in April.  While
the refugee agency had earlier been encouraged by the drop in deportations
following the launch of the voluntary repatriation programme on 9 April,
according to recent figures, the number of deportations in June jumped by
almost 50 percent on the figure from May. On 10 July alone, 541 people
were deported through the Iranian border crossing of Milak in southeastern
Sistan Baluchistan province. The total number of deportations through
Milak recorded by UNHCR between 10 March [one month before the start of
the UNHCR-assisted programme] and 10 July was 16,164, a rise that could be
linked to the recent decrease in the numbers returning through the
programme.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29005&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN

IRAN: UNICEF delivers more aid to quake victims

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has delivered 30 mt of
additional relief supplies to victims of last month's devastating
earthquake in northwestern Iran. His comments follow Monday's delivery of
three large container trucks containing 5,000 jerry cans and 10
five-thousand-litre collapsable water tanks to Razan district, 250 km
southwest of Tehran, in Hamadan province - one of three provinces affected
by the quake. Some 235 people were killed and 1,300 injured when the
quake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale, devastated 70 villages in the
provinces of Qazvin, Hamadan and Zanjan on 22 June. Destruction in the
villages ranged from 10 to 90 percent, leaving thousands homeless and
2,000 hectacres of farmland destroyed.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28955&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly News Wrap

The US Congress on Wednesday gave its final approval to US $28.9 billion
in emergency spending for the war against terrorism. A fraction of the
package, which amounts to US $110 million in aid will go to Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The three have allowed the United States to use
their air bases in the war in Afghanistan. An agreement has also recently
been reached with the government of Kazakhstan, whereby US planes can use
the airport at Alamty, the commercial capital, to refuel or in
emergencies. Since 11 September the region has been in the international
spotlight, winning new grants, aid and loans from a variety of sources.
This attention has also brought calls for the governments of the Central
Asian states to improve human rights records and encourage political
freedom.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=29027&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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