Sabera's Journey: Livelihood Restoration for Afghan Returnees through the Afghanistan Community Resilience and Livelihoods Project
Afghan families returning from Pakistan to Afghanistan. @googlesearch
Afghanistan has experienced decades of conflict, leading to significant numbers of Afghan refugees seeking asylum in neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Iran, as well as further afield in Europe and North America. In September 2023, the Government of Pakistan started a campaign to expel millions of Afghans refugees in their country. Having fled the country with nothing, refugees were forced to return to their home country with only the few items they could carry amongst their family members.
Sabera was a refugee in Pakistan for eight years. She was living in a rental house paying 5,000 PKR monthly. Her husband was a rickshaw driver and his monthly income was 10,000 PKR. She has one daughter and three sons. Her eldest son is 12 years old and the others are below the age of 10. All her children are school students.
‘’I had a normal life in Pakistan. Beside my husband’s income, I was also tailoring clothes and earning 6,000 PKR monthly.’’
Returnees often struggle to find sustainable livelihoods and face high levels of unemployment and poverty. The situation for women returnees is exacerbated by the restrictions placed on them by the political regime.
‘’We faced a trauma two years ago when my husband had a car accident and got sick (his legs do not work) and since then he is unable to work and support us financially.’’
After returning to Afghanistan in February 2024, Sabera’s financial situation was not good. She had to stay with her mother-in-law for some time until she could rent a house for her family. She also got cash, food and other essential items on loan from the shopkeepers for her daily expenses and to feed her family. She has to pay back 12,000 AFN to them.
‘’It has been four months since I returned back to Afghanistan and now it is my thirteenth day working in this project as an unskilled laborer. I am so grateful for this opportunity because I can support my family and will payback my debts.‘’
The CRL project is providing job opportunities to households that qualify as poor and in need of work. Able-bodied adults in these households will be eligible beneficiaries for employment in this project. The 42-year old Sabera was informed by the Wakil-e Guzar (leader) of her community that she is an eligible person to work with the CRL project as an unskilled laborer. She was so happy to hear this.
Sabera’s children are all students in a governmental school where education is free, but they always ask her to buy them notebooks, pens and bags for their studies. Now that she has started working with the CRL project, she can provide those items to her children.
Decades of war in Afghanistan have resulted in thousands of women becoming the primary breadwinner for their families due to the loss of male relatives or their inability to work due to permanent injury and disability.
The CRL Project is working closely with communities to support the vulnerable women by providing them with employment opportunities in the cash-for work and labor intensive activities, distribution of social grants and training on capacity building and boosting their self confidence.
Besides working as laborers at the project site, the project has enabled womens to convene, develop social networks and discuss common issues. This has positively impacted the psychosocial life of women working on the CRL project.
‘’I have made so many good friends here. We often go to each other’s house and share our concerns. In a society such as Afghanistan, women need emotional support especially from their own gender. It gives me a great feeling when I am able to talk to my female friends about the challenges and difficulties that I have faced and we also share our ideas on how to make our lives better. Therefore, I am really grateful to this project. Maybe for you it is just a project, but for us it is a source of hope and inspiration and it has changed our lives for the better in so many ways.’’
The activities that are being done by the female laborers in the construction site are mostly sweeping the streets, curing the concrete, controlling the traffic at the construction sites, keeping the children from the project site, sewing masks, cleaning the construction site and other light works which are culturally acceptable in the communities . As of June 2024, the CRL sub projects in urban areas have employed 1,503 returnees from Pakistan in the small construction works being implemented using the labour intensive works modality. 195 of these returnees are heading their households.