Human rights in afghanistan with special reference to the drug war

“ Open a school so that a prison can be closed”

Human rights abuses in Afghanistan are a grave concern to the world community. Opium was not always grown in Afghanistan; it was after Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan that the government lost large parts of the country. The Mujahideens and warlords expanded their operations massively to fund the war. With the downfall of Afghanistan’s economy the farmer are now forced to grow opium to feed their families. Farmers grow poppy because they don’t have a choice and Taliban does it to fund its activities. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of afreen (literally meaning allusion) or opium (90% of the world’s trade). . Opiate abuse has increased gender based violence in Afghanistan.

For much of the rural populations, the opium poppy economy is an essential source of basic livelihoods and human security. When access to the opium poppy economy is cut off, such as through bans on cultivation or eradication large segments of the rural population face economic immiseration and deprivation, even in terms of access to food medical and schooling for children. Further because of the current situation in Afghanistan many educational institutions have been shut down thus denying the Right to Education to a large population of the Afghan youth. This has led to an increase in the amount of drug abusers in Afghanistan.

Over the years many policies have been adopted to eradicate opium or poppy production, starting with the compensation eradication program which was deployed by Britain in 2002-2003 in which US $350 was paid to farmers to destroy 1 jerib (unit area) of poppy they themselves eradicated but this policy was absorbed in year. In the subsequent years Interdiction and Manual Eradication was carried out by USA and Central Afghan forces but even these were not able to substantially cut down on production. Manual eradication focused on destroying poppy fields by force and providing the farmers with alternate sources of living but this policy failed to curb the farmers from going back to the growing opium because the jobs provided under this scheme were generally for short term and failed to provide a living for the whole year.

The United Kingdom will try to aid Afghanistan in any way possible so as to reduce the opium production and reduce the human right abuses. The delegate of United Kingdome believes that forced eradication of opium has counterproductive effect and alienates farmers and local population from national government thus creating a key opening for Taliban mobilization. The delegate proposes that improving access to treatment for addicts and undertaking smart approaches so as to prevent opiate abuse should be far more extensively be funded than has been the case so far.

United Kingdom feels that the important subtopics to be discussed are gender based violence, opium production in Golden Crescent, How to counter drug abuse? Legalization of drugs, is forced eradication an option? The delegate looks forward to fruitful debate and hopes that the committee would be able to solve the issues at hand today.