An Interview with Jasteena Dhillon, former fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

J&HR Domain: What does the NGO landscape look like in terms of advancing justice   and human rights in Afghanistan?

Jasteena Dhillon: According to ACBAR, the “Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief,” there were 1000s of local NGOs operating in Afghanistan. Until 2005, there were  even more.

In 2005, after the introduction of the new NGO law, more regulations were created that restricted the operation of NGOs. As a result many  of them were de-registered. The aim of the law was to prevent corruption and misuse of international donor funds. NGOs that did not meet the minimum requirements for taxation, by-laws and reporting were closed down. In terms of the landscape of NGOs, even while there were many local NGOs, their scope and programming was mainly limited to livelihoods, provision of water and sanitation, food distribution and governance activities.

It was under the “governance” heading that much of the justice and human rights work was implemented. Doing justice and human rights work, even in safe areas, has always been and continues to be extremely dangerous in Afghanistan. This is mostly because it is wrongly perceived as challenging the cultural and moral fibre of Afghan beliefs. These NGOs are also wrongly seen as doing the bidding of western values at the expense of Afghan traditions. Hence the NGOs that have focused on legal rights, human rights and justice have had to tread carefully.

The main body that works on advancing justice and human rights, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (a governmental watch-dog) is overwhelmed by requests and inquiries into the numerous human rights violations that occur daily. These include brutality and torture by police and other armed groups against people, lack of fair trials and corruption in the judicial system and constitutional violations of peoples’ rights by the government.

Local NGOs who work in the field on human rights, women and children’s rights, hear cases and must face opposition from members of the victims family, from local commanders and government officials who do not wish these cases to go forward and get resolved, out of fear or embarrassment. As an example, in a recent case of a gang rape of a 13 year old girl named Samia from Parwan province, just north of Kabul, her rapists were set free after a local commander pressured the judge not to proceed with the case. The family protested against this and the result was the father was jailed instead of the rapists. The local NGO advocating on behalf of the family was unable to influence this corruption. Link to Al Jazeera interview by Jasteena Dhillon

What are the major challenges and opportunities terms of reach and capacity facing both organic and localized NGOs run by Afghans and that of international or global NGOs?

In terms of work in justice and human rights, in areas where there is relative calm, NGOs operate fairly widely. International NGOs including CARE, which operates programs on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, and the Norwegian Refugee Council, which operates legal aid programs - are able to work well in the North and West and some parts of Central Afghanistan.

It is in the South where international NGOs are most restricted in their movement and reach. They also have problems moving around in some parts of the East bordering Pakistan. In some of these places, local NGOs can move more freely among the population and reach out to clients that the international organisations cannot move around to meet. (Embed captioned pictures of  local NGO - Human Rights Organisation in Shibergan City, Jawzjan addressing cases of women clients of domestic violence and local NGO Community Cooperation Committee in Bamyan conducting information sessions on forced marriage)

There are problems faced in terms of capacity. The number of trained advocates on issues of human rights, law and justice has improved with some of the training and capacity-building funds of the international community. There has also been a significant return of Afghan professionals who work in these organisations and the government which has improved the quality of the work in this area. But NGOs working on these issues versus the volume of the problems is still vastly unequal.

What kind of relationship exists between the Karzai government, the international security forces, and the NGOs on the ground? Is this the right kind of relationship, or should there be a realignment in some sense?

The relations between the government and NGOs is regulated by the NGO Act, elements of which are described above. In terms of funding, most of the money comes from international donors and so the NGOs are accountable in terms of funding to international organisations and governments. The donors, however, operate under guidelines of Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) that they have signed with the government that prescribe how the NGOs must act, report and pay taxes to the government.

NGOs are vulnerable and have to try and avoid the corrupt individuals and departments in the government. The relationship of the NGOs with ISAF is regulated by guidelines on civil – military relations officially agreed upon in 2009, but which was loosely used prior to that since 2001.

It is a tense relationship that exists between the NATO forces and NGOs mostly due to the vulnerability that NGOs feel in operating in areas where NATO operations are ongoing and which put the activities and personnel of NGOs in danger. Not all NGOs and international organisations agree that working with the military is possible – notably Médecins Sans Frontières and International Committee for the Red Cross still have reservations about the possibility. Right now with the US contingent of organisations and sub-contractors embracing the US counter-insurgency policy, US NGOs have become more closely reliant on the military for implementation of their programs.