Human Wrongs Watch
Afghanistan provides 90 per cent of the world’s opium, most of which is shipped through Iran and Pakistan, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports.
*Photo: Todd Huffman | Wikimedia Commons
According to the UNODC Opium Survey 2011, released last month, despite increased efforts to combat poppy harvests, “rising prices and growing demand boosted cultivation by seven per cent in 2010, spreading to new regions of Afghanistan.”
“Drugs pose a threat to the health and security of not only Afghanistan, but Iran and Pakistan as well, and many other countries beyond,” its adds. Since 2007, the three countries have been involved in the UNODC-sponsored Triangular Initiative to coordinate their efforts to combat trafficking.
Achievements?
For his part, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, said on the eve if the Bonn international conference on Afghanistan on December 5 –which brought leaders from over 100 countries and international organisations– that “Over the past decade, our unity and resolve have been tested.”
“And yet, we have persevered, together, on behalf of the Afghan people,” he stated. ”Looking ahead, we know the challenges are large – but we will not be deterred.”
According to UN chief, “… we know that the cycle of suffering has not been broken.” He stressed “I am deeply concerned that violence remains a constant factor in the daily life of the Afghan people. It is hard to build when violence hijacks the reconstruction and development agenda.”
Then Ban talked about “the many achievements over the past decade with international support.”
“They include the return of 4.6 million Afghan refugees, the enrolment of 7.3 million more children in school, and better health care. In addition, 80 per cent of the country is now polio-free, infant and maternal mortality has declined, and more women are empowered and representing their communities,” he said.
What About Torture, Mothers, Children…
Ban Ki-moon, however, did not recall last month what a UN report said last month: “There is a long way to go before the rights of Afghan women are fully protected,” stating that the Afghan government “has not yet succeeded in applying a two-year-old landmark law to the vast majority of cases of violence against women.”
Neither the UN chief did say that a United Nations-backed survey revealed in October informed that “The cultivation in Afghanistan of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin and other drugs – has increased by seven per cent this year because of continued insecurity and higher prices.”.
Not did he refer to the findings of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s report on Oct. 10, which talks about “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees, or 46 per cent of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in the 47 facilities of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), “experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced “systematically” in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.”
Related: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40617&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=
*Photo credit: Todd Huffman http://www.flickr.com/people/99287245@N00 | Wikimedia Commons
Also read:
Occupied Afghanistan Has ‘Long Way to Go’ in Protecting Women
Afghan and U.S. Troops Forcing Civilians to March Onto Mined Roads?
U.S.-led “Enduring Freedom”: Systematic Torture and Abuse in Afghan Prisons
Sharp Increase in Afghan Opium Production and Consumption
U.S-Backed Afghan Police and Militia Behind Killings and Rape
Afghanistan, The Worst Place To Be A Mother Or A Child
Baher Kamal
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
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