The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) has published a country of origin report on Afghanistan called „Key socio-economic indicators. Focus on Kabul City, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat City.“ During 2018, Afghanistan ranked second among the countries of origin of asylum seekers in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland with 45,300 applications.
This report is an update of the previous report from 2017. The report specifically addresses the topics of economic growth, employment, poverty, food security, access to education, health care and housing, and also internally displaced persons, returnees, women and children.
According to the UNICEF data presented in the report, about 60,000 children work in the streets of Kabul, where they sell goods, collect trash or beg instead of going to school. Children are also used as work force in the brick kilns, carpet, mining and poppy industries as well as being exposed to sexual exploitation. According to a report by the UNHCR, the issue is probably far greater than what is reported due to fear of stigmatization and cultural issues.
Regarding the rights of women, it is pointed out that women face a number of specific obstacles regarding access to health care due to lack of education, limited mobility and limited access to money. Due to the ban on providing medical services to women for male doctors, there are severe consequences for women, bearing in mind that only 15% of medical staff and 2% of doctors are female.
The report also discusses in detail the movement within Afghanistan and road safety, economic climate, unemployment, poverty, food shortages, gender differences in access to education, access to psycho-social care services, access to drinking water and property rights issues.
An update to the security situation report on Afghanistan from May 2018 is expected.
Photo by Huib Scholten on Unsplash