FRD’s Community Meeting (CM) Kandahar © FRD May 2017 (Photo: FRD)

Monthly Status Update – May 2017

Combatting Human Trafficking in Afghanistan

Highlights

IOM Partner: Organization of Fast Relief and Development

• Held 22 community based intervention events in Kunduz, Takhar, Badakhshan, Nimroz, Wardak, Ghazni Jawzjan and Kandahar provinces, aiming to bring local community members, government and non-governmental actors, community and religious leaders together in order to address human trafficking challenges in their communities, and to share ideas on combatting human trafficking in Afghanistan. These events gathered 798 participants including 278 females.

• Distributed 32,500 leaflets, 32,500 stickers and 3250 cartoon magazines to raise awareness on the risks and vulnerabilities of human trafficking in Afghanistan.

IOM Partner: Hagar International Identified three communities in Kabul which are more vulnerable to trafficking than others through risk analysis exercises. These communities are largely internally displaced by both flood and conflict and located in Kabul. These communities will be targeted for counter trafficking public awareness campaigns. Additionally, cultural leaders of these communities will be given training about vulnerabilities of trafficking and related exploitations. IOM Sub Partner: Salam Watandar, Radio

• Produced and broadcast final episode of the drama for this agreement covering July 2016 to June 2017 titled: “From the village to the town” in Pashto and Dari. The drama developed with considering cultural sensitivity of Afghan society on TIP and aims to cover contemporary forms of trafficking in persons through a radio drama series. .

• Produced and broadcasted three radio feature stories on trafficking. This month areas covered were: i) Trafficking in Persons through the use of social media tools, ii) Sexual exploitation of boys by men in power, (local term: Bacha Bazi) and iii) Forced into drug smuggling: a form of human trafficking for exploitation. All stories were aired in both Dari and Pashtu languages.

• Broadcasted 1 radio roundtable across its network of 86 radio stations. The aim of radio roundtable was to highlight key messages of radio drama series and discuss on how to address them, as well as to raise awareness among the community in particular, most vulnerable vulnerable communities To human trafficking.

IOM Sub Partner: Pajhwok Afghan News In this month, Pajhwok developed and published 2 feature stories titled: i) Exploitation of women in orphanages: A form of Trafficking in Persons and ii) Children abductions in Afghanistan: a form of human trafficking. These stories also covered ranges of services required and available in Afghanistan for trafficked victims. Please see a success story of mobilizing media to raise public awareness on trafficking on the next page.

Yousef Musazai, Pajhwok Afghan News

Agency Reporter for Kabul Province, recording

an interview for his report.

While it is not always easy to gauge the impact of media coverage

of important issues, there are some stories that clearly make a far

greater difference to people than others. Pajhwok reporter Yousef

Musazai’s piece “Exploitation through debt bondage: a form of TIP

with serious consequences for communities in Afghanistan” was

one of such case.

Yousef Musazai told the story of Ghulam Siddiq, an Afghan refugee

and his family of wife and 9 children, forcibly deported to Afghani-

stan in 2014 after seven years in Pakistan. With no source of in-

come or shelter, they went hungry for days before approaching a

wealthy landlord in Kabul for some money and offered the services

of his entire family as collateral against the loan of 50 thousand AFN

(around 750 USD). Ever since then, they were bonded laborers,

working in a fruit farm, who would never be able to earn enough to

pay off their debt.

Following the publication of the report, a civil society organization

Afghan Samoon was motivated to raise a sum of 100,000 AFN to

repay the loan of 50 thousand AFN to the lender, and give the rest

of the money to the family to invest in a shop. Ghulam Siddiq and

his family were finally free, thanks to one report in the media.

It was Yousef Musazai’s involvement in the USAID supported Com-

batting Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) project, co-implemented by

IOM and Internews that lead to his interest in pursuing this story.

With three years’ experience behind him and strong commitment to

his media career, the young reporter was able to further improve

his skills as well as increase his knowledge of trafficking in persons

in Afghanistan. The role of the media in this case was recognized

by the government at a ceremony to mark the release of the Siddiq

family at which Mrs. Malalai Shinwari, Adviser to President Muham-

mad Ashraf Ghani thanked Pajhwok Afghan News for bringing the

phenomena to the notice of policy makers and raising public aware-

ness on various facets of TIP in Afghanistan. It has also demon-

strated that, with the right skills and training, journalists can

contribute towards greater awareness and the prevention of traf-

ficking in persons in Afghanistan.

Success Story

Media report on trafficking in persons leads to family’s release

from bondage

“In the past my reporting on such issues was merely re-portage about human trag-edy. After training, I learnt to treat such stories in the TiP context, aimed at rais-ing public awareness, and to seek answers from policy makers who are responsi-ble for addressing injustice in society”.

--Yousef Musazai, Pajhwok Af-ghan News Agency Reporter,

USAID support improves re-porting on TIP issues