After the Taliban Life and Security in Rural Afghanistan

Abstract

This book is the outcome of a study that focuses on the status of human security in rural Afghanistan. Human security analyses privilege individual or human security over a state-focused assessment of security. We focus on the following four key aspects of human security:1 human rights and personal security; societal and community security; economic and resource security; and governance and political security. Fieldwork for this study was conducted in 2003 and 2004. During this study, we accessed rural populations in several dozen towns and villages across multiple provinces. Since that time, many of these towns and villages have been, in essence, sealed off and some of the residents, particularly in the provinces bordering Pakistan, have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan or refugees in Pakistan due to high levels of insecurity. At the same time, there has been a collective failure to strengthen the justice, police, and public administration. The results are that the government is increasingly seen as weak and illegitimate, which only fuels greater instability. This stark reality makes this book extremely relevant to the current efforts of members of the international community seeking to assist Afghans to rebuild their livelihoods, increase their security, and establish systems of justice. We are not questioning the hard work of the members of the international community or the high hopes of Afghan citizens for a peaceful Afghanistan. Rather, our book reemphasizes the continuing relevance of the findings of our large-scale study on the state of human security in Afghanistan. We hope the publication of this book will serve to better inform ongoing efforts to improve the current condition of human security in rural Afghanistan. Improving human security has been an extremely difficult challenge confronting the government of Afghanistan and the many international organi-