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Preparations for Afghan census by Pakistan and UNHCR proceed quickly

January 14, 2005

ISLAMABAD, 14 Jan (UNHCR) - The Government of Pakistan, assisted by the UN Refugee Agency, has completed identifying the location of Afghan households in almost all areas of Pakistan in preparation for a formal census, UNHCR announced on Friday.

Census teams have finished the work in many areas, such as Karachi, and are nearing completion even in remote areas such as the Tribal Area of South Waziristan, which had been the scene of unrest through most of last year. Teams of UNHCR staff are also in the midst of distributing nearly 340,000 copies of an information sheet explaining the purpose and procedures for the census, which will be carried out in the second half of February. In the poor areas of Islamabad, where many Afghans live, people eagerly took copies of the announcement and read details of the census to people gathered around.

Afghan citizens residing in Islamabad reading the sheet explaining the purpose and procedure of the census, distributed by the UNHCR repatriation teams. © UNHCR/J.Redden

. In better-off areas, most people already knew the procedures because of television and radio news reports.

"The preparatory activities are proceeding smoothly and we are on track for the census starting in the middle of February," said Indrika Ratwatte, directing the census activities for UNHCR.

The census was announced on Tuesday after a meeting in Islamabad between UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and Pakistan's Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind. SAFRON deals with Afghan refugees.

Although UNHCR has been assisting Afghan refugees in Pakistan for a quarter century, there has never been a formal census or registration of all those who fled the fighting in their homeland.

This will provide UNHCR and the government with the first details on their numbers and background, helping in the development of programmes for dealing with Afghans who remain after the expiry in March 2006 of the agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and UNHCR on the voluntary repatriation of Afghans.
UNHCR and the Government of Pakistan agree that voluntary repatriation of Afghan citizens is the preferred goal. In the past three years UNHCR has assisted nearly 2.3 million Afghans to return from Pakistan and anticipates a further 400,000 will repatriate during 2005. However, there are likely to be many Afghans still here after the current agreement ends.

The government has estimated there are some 3.2 million Afghans -- refugees and others -- in Pakistan, while UNHCR says there are about a million Afghans in camps and an unknown number in Pakistani cities.

The preliminary phase of mapping concentrations of Afghan population in preparation for the census began in December, with teams going to every part of the country. In the next week teams will cover Islamabad and parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the last areas to start.

The census will include all Afghans who arrived in Pakistan since the beginning of December 1979, the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. All Afghans must participate and only those included in the census will be eligible to take part in a proposed registration later in the year that could provide some sort of document.

The census will be carried out over a period of approximately 10 days by teams, each with a man and a woman, who will conduct interviews with all families in their homes.

Census takers will record the gender, ethnicity, address and source of livelihood for all Afghans. They will also record when Afghans arrived in Pakistan and whether or not they intend to return to Afghanistan by the end of the voluntary repatriation programme.