PHOTO STORY: A day in the life of UNAMA's human rights chief, Georgette Gagnon

15 Dec 2013

PHOTO STORY: A day in the life of UNAMA's human rights chief, Georgette Gagnon

JALALABAD - Alongside its focus on political affairs and development and humanitarian issues, the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also covers human rights. The person charged with overseeing the Mission's human rights work is Georgette Gagnon. In this photo story, we provide a snapshot of this UN official's recent field trip to eastern Afghanistan.

1) Georgette Gagnon, an international human rights lawyer, currently serves as the Director of Human Rights for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and as the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the country.

The UN Security Council mandates UNAMA to "monitor the situation of civilians, to coordinate efforts to ensure their protection, to promote accountability, and to assist in the full implementation of the fundamental freedoms and human rights provisions of the Afghan Constitution and international treaties to which Afghanistan is a State party, in particular those regarding the full enjoyment by women of their human rights."

The UN Mission has 90 human rights officers based in 12 locations across Afghanistan and led by Gagnon. They analyze and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan and engage in protection, advocacy and capacity-building activities. Based in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Ms. Gagnon and her team make frequent field visits to Afghanistan’s regions – here, she catches up on reading while flying to the eastern province of Nangarhar. 

2) Nangahar is one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, located some 240 kilometres from Kabul and around 45 minutes flying time with one of UNAMA’s MI-8 helicopters. It shares a border with neighbouring Pakistan and has a population of 1.3 million people. Human rights issues in the province are similar to those throughout the country: the protection of civilians in the armed conflict, violence against women and girls, ill-treatment and torture in detention facilities and the promotion of an inclusive and just peace process.

On this visit, Ms. Gagnon will arrive in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, to meet with interlocutors on human rights, including government officials, representatives from civil society, local human rights’ and women’s rights activists and Afghans who have experienced human rights violations. From Jalalabad, Ms. Gagnon will travel by road to Asad Abad, the capital of neighbouring Kunar Province, for discussions on the human rights situation there. 

3) On these field trips, no time is wasted. Soon after disembarking in Jalalabad, Ms. Gagnon heads for her first meeting of a busy day in pursuit of the Human Rights Unit’s overall strategy of “embedding human rights in Afghanistan” or promoting “human rights everywhere all the time for everyone” in support of all Afghan people.

UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit implements this strategy through targeted research, reporting, advocacy and engagement in strategic partnerships and dialogue with Government, military, international and civil society actors, and communities across Afghanistan in the four priority areas: protection of civilians in the armed conflict, violence against women, peace and reconciliation and detention.

Afghanistan is at a critical juncture with its ongoing political, security and economic transition concluding in 2014 – all of which will have an impact on the human rights of its citizens. While the country has experienced distinct human rights achievements over the past 12 years, these are fragile, and many Afghans have expressed concerns about a deterioration in the human rights situation on several fronts. 

4) UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit documented a 16 per cent rise in the number of Afghan civilians killed or injured in the country’s armed conflict in the first eight months of 2013 compared to the same period last year. The situation in the country’s eastern region is even starker, with the UN Mission having documented a 54 per cent rise in civilian casualties across the four eastern provinces of Kunar, Laghman, Nangarhar and Nuristan.

“Nineteen per cent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan took place in the eastern region in the first eight months of 2013,” according to Ms. Gagnon (shown here arriving for a meeting), who added that UNAMA recorded a total of 499 civilian casualties, with 81 deaths and 418 injuries in the four provinces in the first eight months of this year – a 63 per cent increase over 2012.

5) Shown here, Ms. Gagnon meets with the Deputy Governor of Nangarhar Province, Muhamad Hanif Gardiwal. Meetings with officials are “two-way street” encounters – not only does she inform and on UNAMA’s findings on key human rights issues, but the information exchanged can assist in the Human Rights Unit’s substantive analysis of the situation across Afghanistan, in raising concerns and proposing and advocating for measures to improve the promotion and protection of human rights.

6) The situation of Afghan women has improved dramatically since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, with distinct human rights achievements – but they are fragile. Afghan women, in particular, have expressed fears that the overall human rights situation is worsening in the context of the country’s transition.

In 2014, the country will hold Presidential and Provincial Council elections, with the former marking, for the first time in Afghanistan’s history, a transfer of power from one elected government to another. UN officials have described next year’s elections as critical to the country’s future stability and continued international support.

The political transition coincides with a security and economic transition. In June this year, Afghan security forces, for the first time since 2001, assumed full responsibility for the security of their country from their international allies. The international military forces will complete their combat mission by the end of 2014, accompanied by a general scaling-down of international funding and support to Afghanistan. 

7) Shown here, Ms. Gagnon meets with representatives from women’s activist groups and the provincial office of the Department of Women’s Affairs to hear first-hand their concerns and challenges in the province.

According to Ms. Gagnon, from her discussions with women over recent months, a major concern for women is that the gains Afghanistan has made in women’s rights since 2001 will be either rolled back or compromised in light of the country’s political, security and economic transitions throughout 2014. Early signs include efforts to weaken the 2009 Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law and increasing attacks and violence against women active in public life, including police women, officials from departments of women’s affairs and women’s rights defenders.

“All of these factors coming together have caused women’s rights activists to be very concerned that gains they’ve achieved since 2001 will be negatively affected. These include less attention to issues affecting women and less political and financial support, including to women’s groups to address widespread violence and harmful practices against women.” Ms. Gagnon said.

8) Here, Ms. Gagnon meets with Sabina Hameedi, the acting head of the local office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Nangarhar Province. With offices throughout the country, the AIHRC is the key national institution mandated by the Afghan Constitution to promote and protect human rights.

However, there has been national and international unease stemming from the appointments process of its five new commissioners.

On a recent visit to Afghanistan, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay highlighted the body’s role as an “extremely important national institution” and warned that there are “real concerns” that the appointments process was “sufficiently flawed” for it to lose its ‘A’ status under the Paris Principles, an international peer-run system of accreditation for national human rights bodies, which now exist in more than 100 states worldwide.

“This would be a very serious and regrettable setback for one of the current Afghanistan Government’s most notable achievements in the area of human rights,” Ms. Pillay said in September. “It is essential that the AIHRC is strengthened, not weakened, and I made a strong plea to President Karzai, who is in a position to rectify the problem, to do his utmost to strengthen the position of the AIHRC.”

9) Before leaving Jalalabad, Ms. Gagnon pays a visit to 16-year-old boy, Malang, seriously injured by an improvised explosive device (IED) detonation. According to UNAMA’s 2013 Mid-Year Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in Afghanistan, the number of Afghan civilians killed or injured in the first six months of 2013 rose by 23 per cent compared to the same period last year.

In the report, the UN Mission documented 1,319 civilian deaths and 2,533 injuries – a total of 3,852 civilian casualties – in the first half of 2013, marking increases of 14 per cent in deaths and 28 per cent in injuries over the same period in 2012.

The report observed that one of the main factors driving the increase in the number of deaths and injuries to Afghan civilians in the first half of 2013 was the increased use of IEDs by Anti-Government Elements, particularly in areas populated or frequented by civilians. 

10) After two days in Jalalabad, Ms. Gagnon departed for Asad Abad, the capital of Kunar Province – a one-hour drive. Shown here, a goatherd guides his flock along the main road between the capitals of the two provinces.

Security in the area is volatile which means the UN official must travel in a two-vehicle convoy of armoured cars. In the latest report on Afghanistan to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and its direct impact on civilians. “Security remains problematic in a number of mostly rural areas... A rise in civilian casualties – bringing deaths and injuries back to the highest levels (in 2011) documented post-2001 – is of concern,” said Mr. Ban.

The rise in civilian casualties in the country the first six months of 2013 reverses the decline recorded in 2012, and marks a return to the high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries documented in 2011.

While IEDs used by Anti-Government Elements remained the leading cause of civilian casualties, ground engagement between Afghan security forces and Anti-Government Elements emerged as the second biggest cause of civilian deaths and injuries with civilians caught in the cross fire – a new trend that poses an increasing threat to Afghan children, women and men.

11) In this image, local residents cross a street in downtown Asad Abad, capital of Kunar Province. Daily life in Afghanistan can be of great risk for such civilians. Of the total number of civilian casualties recorded between 1 January and 30 June 2013, 337 of those involved the deaths of women and children and 770 others were cases of injuries for women and children.

“The growing loss of life and injuries to Afghan women and children in 2013 is particularly disturbing,” said Ms. Gagnon. “Deaths and injuries to women and children increased by 38 per cent in the first half of 2013 reflecting a grim reality of the conflict today in Afghanistan.”

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, Ján Kubiš, has said that the increase in the indiscriminate use of IEDs and the deliberate targeting of civilians by Anti-Government Elements is particularly alarming and must stop.

“The violent impact of the conflict on Afghan civilians marked by the return of rising civilian casualties in 2013 demands even greater commitment and further efforts by parties to the conflict to protect civilians who are increasingly being killed and injured in the cross-fire,” he said earlier this year. 

12) Shown here, Ms. Gagnon meets with community representatives and members of Kunar’s Provincial Council. One of the topics discussed was violence against women – which remains endemic in Afghanistan, especially in rural areas. UN officials have urged the authorities to do their utmost to speed up and improve the implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law, which President Hamid Karzai passed in 2009.

The law criminalizes numerous forms of violence against women and harmful practices, including child marriage, forced marriage, the selling and buying of women for the purpose or under the pretext of marriage, the traditional practice of ba’ad which requires the giving away of a woman or a girl to settle a dispute, forced self-immolation and 17 other acts of violence including rape and physical abuse, while also specifying punishment for the perpetrators.

13) The Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW law) is a topic which often comes up in ms. Gagnon’s meetings. UNAMA releases reports annually on the implementation of the landmark EVAW law. It’s latest report, from December 2013, found that Afghan authorities registered more reports of violence against women under the law over the past year, but prosecutions and convictions under the law remained low, with most cases settled by mediation.

“The landmark law on the Elimination of Violence against Women was a huge achievement for all Afghans,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said about the report. “But implementation has been slow and uneven, with police still reluctant to enforce the legal prohibition against violence and harmful practices, and prosecutors and courts slow to enforce the legal protections in the law.

The annual report, entitled this year A Way to Go: An Update on Implementation of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan found that police and prosecutors were mediating more cases registered under the EVAW law and that large numbers of cases were still resolved through informal dispute resolution mechanisms such as jirgas and shuras. 

14) Here, Ms. Gagnon listens to a colleague during her meeting with the head of the province’s Department of Women’s Affairs, Nasima Sadat.

In addition to the EVAW law’s implementation, this meeting covered topics such as violence against women and issues affecting women’s participation in the 2014 elections were discussed, including ways to ensure Afghan authorities provide the necessary protection and security to facilitate women’s participation in the elections as voters and candidates. 

15) With international military troops focused on fighting insurgents, Afghan security forces, including the police, have had the main responsibility for providing security for local communities.

Women’s rights activists and other human rights defenders having been subject to threats from different groups and elements in society and they are concerned that such threats will increase with less focus on these issues by authorities in power. Here, Ms. Gagnon meets with the chief of police in Kunar Province, Said Khil.

16) Shown here, senior police officers listen during Ms. Gagnon’s meeting with the chief of police in Kunar Province, Said Khil. Afghanistan has 157,000 police officers – only 1,500 of them are women.

The authorities have a goal of recruiting up to 5,000 women into the police force over the next few years. To reach this goal, UNAMA has called on the Ministry Of interior to improve the working conditions and overall situation of women working in the Afghan National Police. 

17) Here, Ms. Gagnon meets with the Governor of Kunar Province, Shuja-ul-Mulk Jalala. The importance of human rights awareness at senior levels of the Afghan Government and other institutions cannot be overstated – reaching as high up as those running for President in the country’s 2014 polls.

Recently, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission organized a one-day gathering in which it invited candidates to present their views and positions on the support for and promotion of human rights in the country. “We want the candidates to have human rights issues at the top of their priorities as they prepare their programmes and policies ahead of the election,” said the AIHRC Chairperson, Dr. Sima Samar. Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of human rights violations in the world, according to the AIHRC. 

18) Getting the message out on human rights in Afghanistan, through both national and international media outlets, is an important part of Ms. Gagnon’s work, and she meets with members of the Afghan media at the end of regional visits.

“In the eastern region, ground engagements are the leading cause of civilian deaths and injuries – more than double any other tactic – including IEDs and targeted killings,” she told journalists at the end of her visit to Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. “We reinforced [in our meetings with authorities] our call to parties to the conflict to take all measures to protect civilians – attacking civilians is a war crime.”

Shown here, before leaving Kunar Province, Ms. Gagnon takes questions from local journalists about her visit.