Rehabilitation Paradox

This article was downloaded by: [Williams, Christopher]
On: 15 January 2009

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 907463637]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t775653636
The Rehabilitation Paradox: Street-Working Children in Afghanistan

Christopher Williams a; Farzaneh Yazdani b
a
School of Education, University of Birmingham, England b Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, University
of Jordan,
Online Publication Date: 01 January 2009
To cite this Article Williams, Christopher and Yazdani, Farzaneh(2009)'The Rehabilitation Paradox: Street-Working Children in
Afghanistan',Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education,3:1,4 — 20
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/15595690802584083
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15595690802584083
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 3: 4–20, 2009
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1559-5692 print / 1559-5706 online
DOI: 10.1080/15595690802584083
1559-5706Indigenous, and Minority Education

1559-5692
HDIM
Diaspora, Education, Vol. 3, No. 1, November 2008: pp. 1–40
RESEARCH
The Rehabilitation Paradox: Street-Working Children

in Afghanistan
Downloaded By: [Williams, Christopher] At: 13:48 15 January 2009
Christopher Williams
Street-Working
WILLIAMS andChildren
YAZDANI
in Afghanistan
School of Education
University of Birmingham, England
Farzaneh Yazdani
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences
University of Jordan
International humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan reflects a policy discourse of “rehabilitation,”

which is very evident in relation to nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects for street-working
children. Through analysing national and international policy, professional perceptions of the children,
and field visits to see how policy relates to practice in NGO projects in Kabul, this article argues that
the discourse is a “rehabilitation paradox.” The international goal is to return “minority” children,
who are numerically the majority, to a “mainstream,” which is either mythical or a transient interna-
tional elite. John Gray argues that Western utopianism explains the misguided nature of recent
international military interventions, and this article extends that argument to rehabilitation. Without
a concept of rehabilitation, “intervention” can be an act of wanton destruction. Policymakers need to
be aware of how education can become complicit in the political arguments that are used to legitimise
questionable interventions. It is proposed that, conceptually and practically, habilitation would be a
more appropriate goal.
In 1989, the United Nations (UN) called an emergency meeting with the Afghan Taliban
because the regime had decided to shut over 100 girls’ schools, had prohibited the instruction of
girls older than eight, and was limiting the school curriculum to the Koran. Following the inter-
national intervention in October 2001, by 2004 around one half of Kabul’s boys and girls were
attending state schools, through a shift system that usually provided around 2 hr of schooling a
Correspondence should be sent to Christopher Williams, School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston,
B15 2TT, England. E-mail: chrisunula@yahoo.com
STREET-WORKING CHILDREN IN AFGHANISTAN 5
day. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) address the deficit, and many projects help street-
working children, who are a visible aspect of child vulnerability in the cities (Terre des Hommes
[TdH], 2004).
This article stems from fieldwork and an independent evaluation among NGOs assisting
street-working children in Kabul for the European Commission (EC). This entailed observation
in five projects, international and local—some assisting a few dozen children, and others several
hundred. Interviews were conducted with managers, other staff, and EC personnel. Internal
reports and evaluations were analysed, there was a focus group discussion of initial findings, and
the final report included additional comments from EC representatives (EC, 2004). To protect
the children and staff, certain details are omitted from this article.
STREET-WORKING CHILDREN
There is considerable debate about the meaning of the terms street children and working children,
and not least is the problem that even a single child can frequently shift across definitional cate-
gories. A distinction made by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
(UNICEF) in the 1980s is broadly accepted: children “of” or “in” the streets, who tend to live
and sleep on the streets; and children “on” the streets, who are more likely to work there but
return home at frequent intervals (C. Williams, 1993b.). For this article, the phrase street-working
children is used because that has been adopted by the EC projects. A distinct feature of Kabul is
that most of the children are “on” rather than “of” the streets.
In Europe, formal interventions to assist children in these circumstances can be traced back to
the 3rd Century Apostolic Constitutions, which declared that abandoned children should be
helped within orphanotrophia and brephotrophia. These were followed by the foundling homes,
agricultural colonies, ragged schools of Dickensian London, and the contemporary shelters for
young, homeless people (C. Williams, 1990, pp. 42–146). Throughout this history, the aims can
be categorised in terms of primary prevention, educative, corrective, punitive, and exploitative
(p. 112). The current wave of international concern stems from the UN Year of the Child in
1979, and a subsequent report by the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian
Issues (Agnelli, 1986). Countless organisations now specifically address the circumstances of
street children worldwide, including the production of educational materials for teaching about
the problem as part of development education (Consortium for Street Children, 2005).
AFGHANISTAN
The history of Afghanistan is complicated, and has been epitomised by external intervention
(Maley, 1998; Rashid, 2001). A simplified timeline of the past century is shown in Figure 1.
Before this, the country was ruled by the Moguls under Genghis Khan (1219), the Arabs (642),
who introduced Islam, and Alexander the Great (330 BC); and in the 6th century BC it was part
of the Persian Empire.
Soon after the latest invasion and occupation, in 2001, the UN had 500 foreign staff in the
country and was employing thousands of locals, which distorted the local labour market by cor-
ing-out the most able people from government and other organisations because of better salaries
and statuses (Dacaar, 2002). This was followed by many more and countless NGOs doing much
6 WILLIAMS AND YAZDANI
2002: International/United Nations occupation, President Karzai

1996–2001: Taliban
1992–1996: Mujahidin
1979–1989: Soviet occupation
1973–1978: Republic, Mohammed Daud
1964–1973: Constitutional monarchy
1926–1963: Kings and warlords
1838–1919: Anglo-Afghan wars
FIGURE 1 Afghan regimes.
the same. This increased demand for property in Kabul and inflated prices to European levels,
and there is concern about environmental impacts, including abandoned vehicles and electronic
equipment (C. Williams, 2004). Little has been done to mitigate the current and long-term
effects of the international community, or to plan for its exit.
Afghanistan’s history demonstrates the mythical nature of the Western belief in the linear
rational progress of human societies. In the 1970s, 60% of the students at Kabul University were
women. Pictures of Kabul in the 1970s and 1980s show a modern Europeanised city, with local
women walking the streets wearing open-neck blouses and miniskirts. Now, women in burkas,
many begging from cars, remain a common sight. Most of Kabul is still in ruins, and the average
life expectancy for the people in Afghanistan is 43.34 years (men = 43.16 years, women = 43.53
years; Central Intelligence Agency, 2007). The first impression visitors have of Kabul is of utter
devastation and decay, which has few parallels elsewhere except Iraq. The examples of “normal-
ity” are mainly built or maintained for the international community, or the new elites of warlords
and drugs barons.
The World Bank (2007a) reported that the primary school enrolment rate was 86.5 (gross
percentage) in 2005, but the completion rate was only 32.3 (percentage of relevant age group).
A drop in numbers attending school, from 2006 to 2007, to 100,000 has been noted (O’Malley,
2007). Projects, such as the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (2005), which
runs 50 projects for girls, still have to do so covertly because parents might object, and there is
an ongoing fear of fundamentalists (Meo, 2005). An Amnesty International (2007) report told of
a Taliban military rulebook that states the following:
Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must receive a warning. If he never-
theless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher continues to instruct contrary to
the principles of Islam, the district commander or group leader must kill him. Schools set up by
NGOs are to be closed or be burned down (p. 3).
REHABILITATION
The concept of rehabilitation seems intrinsic to the Western vision of progress because it
appears to provide solutions to the inevitable deviations from the linear Renaissance trajec-
tory. The prefix re- means “again” or “to restore to a previous state of things”; habilitate is to
“make able” (Oxford English Dictionary [OED], 2008). Whatever happens—war, deviancy,
or revolution—the “onward and upward” trajectory of Western progress can be maintained
through rehabilitation.
The concept underpinned social interventions in Britain in the mid-16th century, with benign
intent if not outcomes. At this time, there was a shift from the punitive response to criminality
toward rehabilitation in the “bridewells,” “workhouses,” and “houses of correction.” The 1779
Penitentiary Act made rehabilitation a function of all prisons. Foucault (1975) explained the
relevance of surveillance to this ethos in Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison. Islam also
has a concept of “corrective punishment,” Ta’zir, which is traced back to the 7th century.
The clinical concept of rehabilitation is closely linked to war. Although its roots go back
2 centuries or more, this movement became very prominent during the post-war reconstruction
programmes in Europe and Asia in the 20th century (Schwartz, 2003). The rehabilitation
sciences, such as occupational therapy, were part of the popularisation of what is often termed
the “rehabilitation movement” (Sensory Processing Disorder, 2007), particularly from the 1940s
to the 1960s.
The use of the term at societal rather than individual levels was marked by the UN Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which operated from 1942 to 1947 in post-War
Europe, and until 1949 in Asia. Strictly speaking, it was not a UN organisation because it
predated the UN and was set up by the U.S. Congress. Following representation from Jewish
organisations, its remit (UNRRA, 2007) was extended beyond citizens of the allied nations to
include “other persons who have been obliged to leave their country or place of origin or
former residence or who have been deported therefrom by action of the enemy because of
race, religion or activities in favour of the United Nations” (“President to Seek,” 1943).
The notion of “leave,” and by implication a probable goal of “return,” seem central in this view
of rehabilitation.
It is interesting that rehabilitation was not in the name of UNRRA’s immediate successor, the
International Refugee Organisation. For the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
refugees in the Near East, founded in 1949, rehabilitation was directly replaced by “works”
(whatever that means!). Perhaps it was politically too sensitive to indicate any form of return for
the people of Palestine. Probably for converse reasons, the word does appear in the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia “Arab-International Forum on
Rehabilitation and Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” in 2004 (Arab Interna-
tional Forum, 2004). The term, therefore, has many meanings beyond its social and clinical
senses, and can have political significance.
The current Internet presence of the word rehabilitation is surprising. On Google™ it
gets 65,800,000 hits. (“Sociology” gets 60,500,000 hits.) The word has become embedded in the
discourse surrounding current interventions in Afghanistan—for example, in the Bonn Agree-
ment (2001), which urged “the United Nations, the international community, particularly donor
countries and multilateral institutions, to . . . assist with the rehabilitation, recovery and recon-
struction of Afghanistan . . . .” “Afghanistan rehabilitation” gets nearly 2,000,000 million Goo-
gle hits, which embraces many different meanings—for example, in relation to clinical
assistance and disability (Coleridge, 1999), psychosocial work (Enfants du Monde Droits de
l’Homme [EMDH], 2003), offenders and child soldiers (UNICEF, 2004), and roads and other
infrastructure (World Bank, 2007b.). The phrase “Kabul street child rehabilitation” gets 168,000
hits. The Web site of the Afghana NGO provides a specific list of “Afghanistan rehabilitation/
reconstruction organisations” (Afghana, 2007). Typical of the aims is that of the Afghan NGOs’
Coordination Bureau (2007): “to coordinate the activities of Afghan NGOs working toward
emergency, rehabilitation and development of Afghanistan.” The Japanese agency, Japanese
Emergency NGOs, runs a “School Rehabilitation Project,” and the International Rescue Com-
mittee assists education through its “Afghan Rehabilitation Project.”
The question this raises, in relation to Kabul’s street-working children, is, “Should interventions
be rehabilitating these children . . . ”
• back into a mainstream society from which seemingly they have been excluded,
• back into their minority street culture, and
• toward a global–international world that may, or may not, be the context of their
future?
The dilemmas are obvious. Both the minority culture and the mainstream society are not easily
defined and are often not viewed as intrinsically positive from the perspective of human rights
and other international values. There would be little willingness to rehabilitate children back
into the narcotics trade, extremist factions, violent families that abuse their women, or even into
a communist-style nation. Yet, basing aims on the global values of the international agencies
could amount to cultural imperialism, and on a practical level may fail because of inevitable
subversion and resistance.
The standard goal of clinical rehabilitation is relatively straightforward—the return, as far as
is possible, toward the biologically “normal condition” of a human being, which is viewed as
intrinsically desirable and even has legal meaning (Hart & Honore, 1985). There is discussion
about how far this should go in relation to disability (e.g., people with hearing impairments) and
an argument that the social model of disability is equally, if not more, important than the
medical model (Coleridge, 1993), but these discussions do not negate the underlying goal.
Similarly, the basic goals of rehabilitation in the form of reconstructing physical infrastructure
and organising public services are not very contentious.
In relation to social, educational, and other psychosocial interventions, the concept of reha-
bilitation is not so straightforward, especially in settings such as Kabul. Not least, the idea of
street-working children as a minority who are in need of integration into a mainstream where
children rarely work is a recent Western construction of childhood and social organisation that is
constantly changing (Aries, 1962). In practical terms, many children in Kabul may be better off
working than experiencing humiliation and violence in bad schools (Harber, 2004), and their
contribution to household income may be very important.
If rehabilitation is the goal, the key question that should guide projects should be, “Rehabilitation
to what?” Yet, it seems that this is rarely considered at a conceptual level. This article addresses
this question by the following:
• Examining the policy context for working with vulnerable children in Afghanistan.
• Explaining the professional perceptions of street-working children in Kabul.
• Providing a critical evaluation of the links between policy and practice within projects.
• Proposing a different discourse to describe the aims of educational intervention in circum-
stances of this nature.
• Locating the findings in a broader political philosophy debate.
The next three sections of this article start with an evaluative discussion from the perspective of
an international agency view (The Policy Context), but then continue on to critically assess the
assumptions underpinning this perspective from the viewpoint of the children of Kabul and the
NGO sector. The fourth section proposes an alternative conceptual goal of habilitation, and the
conclusion locates the situation within broader theoretical and global discussions of interna-
tional intervention and utopianism.
THE POLICY CONTEXT
From an international perspective, provisional state policies in Afghanistan created a helpful over-
all framework for project intervention. The Afghan government’s National Development Frame-
work provided for development in relation to “humanitarian and human and social capital,” which
included refugee return, education and vocational training, health and nutrition, livelihoods, and
social protection. The social protection programme considered, “vulnerable populations—includ-
ing women and orphans,” and continued that “the protection of the disabled, women and children
from abuse and neglect are essential elements of a social protection policy” (Government of
Afghanistan [GoA], 2002, p. 24). It also stated that, “Opportunities for income-generation for fam-
ilies will be critical for maintaining peace and stability in our country.” The use of the word fami-
lies is significant because it embraces the likelihood that children may contribute economically, and
by implication, education planning should therefore accommodate the needs of working children.
Similarly, the Livelihoods and Social Protection Public Investment Programme (GoA, 2004)
concluded that “targeted investments in livelihood promotion and social protection to tackle
[problems such as] chronic poverty, infant malnutrition, reintegration of returnees and Internally
Displaced Persons, and inequality for disabled persons” (p. 17). The policy issues identified
include human rights and gender empowerment, and the first programme objective is “to reduce
vulnerability in the short-term through effectively targeted and appropriate social assistance” (p. 17).
The EC Country Strategy Paper 2003–6 reflects these ideals, and specifically mentions “the
promotion of human rights; the protection of children and other vulnerable groups . . . [and]
issues relating to migration and trafficking in human beings” (EC, 2002, p. 26). Within public
administration reform, the EC intent is to “improve the government’s ability to develop policy to
deliver basic services” (EC, 2002, p. 7). The policy context for educational initiatives for vulner-
able children was, therefore, rudimentary but supportive of NGO project work and of progres-
sive (by Western standards) state service provision.
These policies unashamedly reflected international values and a belief in a goal that Afghanistan
can progress toward a modern, Western-style democratic state. This was reiterated in the Berlin
Declaration (BD, 2004), which refers to
lay[ing] the groundwork for an elected Government and Parliament, and an independent Judiciary,
which guarantees the constitutional rights of all its citizens—men and women—and adheres to the
principle of human rights and the establishment of a self-sustaining, market-orientated economy (p. 1).
This assumes that such a state is both desirable and feasible, yet beyond Kabul and a few other
large towns, this form of governance and value system has rarely existed in the region. Therefore,
the smuggled assumption is that any form of rehabilitation—be it of cities, societies, or individuals—
should also fit with these policy goals, yet that assumption is plainly not generally shared by the
Indigenous community. If it were, international military protection would not be needed to protect
those trying to introduce these values, and President Karzi would not have felt it politically neces-
sary to agree to plans to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice—the organization that provided the Taliban religious police (Koghlan, 2006).
STREET-WORKING CHILDREN IN KABUL
A UNICEF survey in 1997 provided a comprehensive picture of the circumstances of children in

Kabul during the Taliban era (Gupta, 1997). Over 90% said that they were afraid of dying. Over
one half had seen torture or murder. Many had been made to watch public amputations and exe-
cutions. Over 80% said that they could not cope with events and that life was not worth living,
and 41% had lost one or more parents because of violence. Those who had these experiences are
seen as a “lost generation” who are now too old to come within the ambit of the normal public
services that help vulnerable children (Bhutta, 2002). The type of education experienced by
these children is described by Nayyar (1998), and the broader educational implications of an
extremist setting are well discussed by Davies (2008).
Surveys of street-working children are notoriously unreliable (Ennew, 1994), but studies
suggest that there has been an increase in the numbers in Kabul, from approximately 40,000 to
60,000 in 10 years. The likely reasons are increases in returnees from Iran and Pakistan, the
increasing cost of living in Kabul, lone mothers, and remarriage. This is paralleled and fuelled
by apparent increases in the numbers of drug users and AIDS cases and anecdotal evidence of
the emergence of low-level street violence and crime (De Berry, 2003; TdH, 2002).
However, the situation in Kabul is distinct from similar countries, as there appear to be very
few children living and sleeping on the streets, and orphanages seem to accommodate children
who would not normally be considered as orphans. It is reported that around 90% of these
orphans have regular contact with families. The absence of a street-living community is said to
be because of strong traditional extended-family adoption, the difficult climate, and migration to
the streets in Pakistan.
Therefore, an alternative view of the so-called “problem” of street-working children in Kabul
is that the current situation represents an astonishing success in terms of social and family
strength and cohesion in devastating circumstances. Non-exploitative work by children might be
seen as contributing to this success rather than being intrinsically wrong. Positive work can help
to hold families together, both economically and emotionally. From this perspective, therefore,
the problem is not that families are falling apart and abandoning children, but that state services
are not adequate in terms of quantity, quality, non-violence, or flexibility to meet the needs of
children who must work.
The lesson, drawn from European post-war history, is that the incidence of street-living children is
not only related to poverty but also to the perceived social value of children, as Viviana Zelizer
(1994) argued very convincingly in Pricing the Priceless Child. The image, still in the minds of
European policymakers, is that immediately after World Ware II, UN organisations were
accommodating millions of “war-vagrant” children (United Nations Educational, 1951), and
large-scale orphanages, Boys Towns, and other shelters were created. However, within 5 years,
most of these services were not needed because of widespread formal and informal adoption
and fostering. Like UNRRA, rehabilitation was not permanent. The war vagrants were seen by
European society as victims and deserving of help. They were within a post-conflict social
context that wanted to nurture its child population because children were very highly valued.
The assumption that seems to underpin assistance for street-working children in Kabul is that
the current situation is similar to post-war Europe and, like UNRRA, rehabilitation is short term.
Some projects have an overtly stated psychosocial approach, and employ therapeutic models.
For others, rehabilitation is simply taken to mean getting the children into school or into employment.
However, this takes little account of the fact that, even in the 1940s, Europe was highly industri-
alised and had experience of an effective “modern” public service infrastructure and administration
for at least 50 years, which was based on centuries of gradual evolution. Most important, in post-war
Europe, rehabilitation was a shared and completely uncontentious goal.
This assumption also ignores local custom. Although the “value” of children in Afghanistan
is seemingly high, and that probably explains why there are so few children living permanently
on the streets in Kabul, that value is often in terms of economic capital (child labour), social
capital (children can be traded for favours and status, particularly girls), and arguably a religious
capital (supporting an extended family and assisting orphans fulfils religious edicts). That is not
to say that other forms of value do not exist or that parents are all emotionally uncaring, but
simply that the exigencies of extreme poverty combined with local tradition can make other
forms of value very significant. The practical outcome is that many parents do not want their
children to attend school or educational projects; and, if they do, they want little more than free
child-minding for a particular period. Taken literally, the rehabilitation of Kabul’s street-working
children might mean preparing them to return to a social context and value system of this nature.
Yet, currently, judging by the aims in the internal project documents, street-working children are
to be rehabilitated for life in a notional, modern, Western city—a society with an effective
education system and other state-run public services, a Western view of women’s and children’s
rights, a Western-style democracy, and a capitalist economy.
NGO SECTOR PROJECTS
The EC and NGO projects for street-working children are framed in terms of the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child. They collaborate to form a Children’s Rights Consortium (CRC),
which provides an effective mechanism for encouraging cooperation and avoiding competitive
humanitarianism between projects. The consortium provides the means to coordinate proposals
from the individual projects, arrange joint training, and share good practice between projects and
with relevant government training organisations. The work of the CRC NGOs is excellent by any
international standards, and even more impressive when viewed in the context of Afghanistan’s
past and present circumstances (Cordell, 2004; C. Williams, 2004).
Projects show a good awareness of local community dynamics and potential problems, maintain
good records and case notes, and integration of children into mainstream schools seems successful
within current constraints. Unfortunately, the integration of children into schools is impeded by
the state policy that integration can only happen once a year. If children are properly supported,
the entrance points could be increased to two or three, or even open access. The range of project
activities appears progressive—including circus skills, traditional music, appropriate sports for
boys and girls, and computers donated by international NGOs. Some projects, particularly
francophone, adopt a conspicuously psychosocial approach to children and families (EMDH,
2003). All seem aware of the effectiveness of building curriculum around the children’s
needs and lifestyles, rather than imposing alien school subjects (C. Williams, 1992). Projects are
cautious about providing residential care because this can become a “free hotel” for local
children, which worsens the problem of children becoming detached from families. However,
there will inevitably be a small number of children who require “rescue” and shelter at night
(C. Williams, 1993a.).
The election in October 2004 was used by projects as a means to educate about democracy,
through activities and discussion. The organisation and management of projects attempts to be
participatory at all levels, and children are quick to express opinions. Projects adopt a clear
democratic rights approach in their education programmes, which aims to contribute to the
broader development of a democratic rights ethos in Afghanistan in the future. It is remarkable
to see how well girls and boys are integrated within the projects. Classes are usually mixed at a
primary level, and there is voluntary integration at older levels for certain activities and
classroom group work. Through employing and showing respect for local women, the projects
also model progressive gender relationships in the workplace. This all seems to be contributing
to a more international view of tradition and gender.
The projects are low-key about AIDS awareness education. Afghan tradition and the
conservatism of families are thought to minimise the likelihood of AIDS among the children
compared with similar countries, but that is likely to change. Specialist NGO workers
estimate that those infected range from 500 to 50,000; the official estimate is 21. Girls and
boys involved in prostitution (e.g., in Districts 1 & 2, the [only] Chinese restaurant, cinemas,
with truck drivers, and the military) and related employment (e.g., boy or girl dancers—
mujra) seem a clear concern, as are refugee and returnee communities. NGOs like ORA
International have an excellent awareness of the situation (ORA, 2004).
Vocational training is seen as an important aspect of rehabilitation, and projects address this, pro-
viding a range of activities from welding to artwork that is suitable for the highly decorated lorries
and coaches in the region. However, the unpredictable nature of labour markets, and life in Kabul,
means that a large investment in infrastructure to teach particular skills that may become redundant
could be wasteful. Local UN experts say that tailoring and similar skills should be avoided, as China
is increasingly providing cheap imports. Construction is the main growth area, beauty services are
seen as significant, and international catering is considered important for the future.
Providing child care on short-term project funding is inevitably problematic. The tension is
that funders want to retain control of projects and avoid open-ended commitments, but the needs
of some children are long term. When projects undertake to help a child, they make a moral
commitment to provide adequate support, if needed, for many years. However, although the
intent is that the provision of services will be taken over by the state, project workers are
well-aware that this is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. They realise that there is no
mechanism to ensure their moral commitment, and ceasing to support children because funding
has ended could be perceived as a form of child abuse by local people. This tension exemplifies
the contrast between the narrative of inevitable progress that international organisations
pervade, which is reflected in the BD (2004) and the views of those working in Afghanistan.
The official perception is that the state will soon provide adequate Western-style public services,
but this is in contrast with what local project workers say they believe will happen because they
can see the magnitude and intractability of local problems.
Most of these projects are also tiny and very labour-intensive. Some help a few dozen
children with a very high staff–child ratio. If they all closed overnight, few people, except those
directly involved, would notice. Many projects are not engaging in the “scaling-up” activities
that are essential if their influence is to be extended (Edwards & Hulme, 1992). Even if they
adopted good scaling-up practices, the Afghan state does not have the capacity to develop what
has been learned and extend it on a significant scale, so the likelihood of contributing to the
rehabilitation of the public services seems remote.
Inevitably, the projects reflect the assumptions about rehabilitation embodied in policy and in
Western views on the nature of street-working children, and this leads to “invisible” aspects of
child labour that are equally, if not more, serious, which are not well addressed. These include
the following:
1. Street-living children: Although projects believe that there are very few such children,
adult street dwellers (very dirty, dressed in all their clothes, carrying bags of belongings)
are evident near Kabul’s main shopping area, Chicken Street. The existence of street-
dwelling adults is known to attract children into street living.
2. Nomadic children: These children are usually omitted from the profile of street and working
children. Nomadic camel caravan communities are evident, even in the centre of the city,
and there may be non-Afghan children in Kabul who are not from traditional nomad
groups. Dark-skinned children, with the appearance of Southern Indians, beg from cars.
3. Drug users: There are press reports of a poderi who occupy “the worst of the city’s
bombed-out ruins—places shunned even by the most desperate homeless families”
(Meo, 2004, p. 36). The Nejah Rehabilitation Centre estimates that the number of drug
users has increased from 4,000 to 60,000 in 10 years; and 2,000 are female: “Babies are
being born addicted, children . . . working in the carpet trade are allegedly fed opium to
numb them through long hours of work” (Meo, 2004, p. 36).
4. Older street-working children: Because most projects focus on an age range of 6 to 16, most
of the youths served by these programs are young. Yet, older children have distinct problems,
especially the generation of the Taliban era, and are more likely to become involved in crime
and other high-risk activities. They are hard to accommodate within the type of projects cur-
rently running because they may be disruptive and are often unlovable in the eyes of staff.
5. Domestic labour: Normally done by girls, this work is often not viewed as “child
labour,” despite the fact that it can be equally detrimental and prevent school attendance.
There are also street aspects of this—shopping, taking siblings to school—and parents
may well push these children into street work in the hope of gaining help from projects.
Other child labour issues in Afghanistan include the following:
• Children are likely to be involved in sweatshop labour, mainly carpet making; and this may
increase as economic activity picks up. Eventually, this is likely to include hotel work.
• Children are known to be involved in the sex trade (e.g., dancers, children working with
truck drivers) and related trafficking—both girls and boys. The gateways to this include
being turned away from an orphanage or project. U.S. bases are said to create the demand.
• Street-working children are inevitably in detention centres, prisons, and orphanages,
and have the same justice and service needs as others.
6. Children of prisoners: These children will suffer economic hardship, low self-esteem,
and alienation. Asne Seierstad (2004) drew attention to this circumstance in The Book-
seller of Kabul.
7. Children of single women: The children of widows, divorcees, and unmarried mothers
are very evident accompanying women, usually dressed in burkas, who are begging.
8. Child soldiers: There is some disagreement about the existence of former child soldiers.
According to the UN demilitarisation programme, United Nations Development
Programme-Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme-Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rein-
tegration, fewer than 100 have been identified, and the problem is virtually nonexistent now.
In many countries, social workers informally admit that many street-work projects construct
their success by working with the easiest clients, and that is why children such as those
mentioned earlier are excluded (C. Williams, 1990). In theory, this can be mitigated by changing
evaluation indicators. A demand to present the numbers of children assisted, in project evalua-
tions and reports, is likely to deter projects from working with the more vulnerable children and
to encourage them to demonstrate success through helping large numbers of the “easy” children.
Formal outcomes such as lower educational achievement, poorer health, greater criminality,
and less-successful integration into schools may be positive indicators that projects are success-
fully working with the most vulnerable children. However, the underlying factors constructing
the invisibility of these children seem to arise because the children do not fit the international
vision of the future—a Western-style nation state into which Western-style children are to be
rehabilitated. Therefore, it is conceptually easier to ignore them.
If a proper statistical survey were possible, working children, together with these invisible
children, would probably represent the majority in the region. Such a survey would probably,
therefore, reveal a rehabilitation paradox about the “rehabilitating children into mainstream
society” rhetoric—that projects are notionally aiming to rehabilitate children into an elite minor-
ity society that is largely mythical, and, which, if it does exist in any significant form, may not
be sustainable, or even desirable, when international assistance declines.
HABILITATION
Faced with this probable rehabilitation paradox, how can such projects express their overall
purpose conceptually? Arguably, in the form relevant to this discussion, the word rehabilitation
is a linguistic lock-in stemming from the two World Wars when European cities were to be
returned to their former glory and soldiers were to be returned to active service or to useful
employment. Even in post-conflict zones like Sarajevo, this ethos was reasonable at political and
practical levels. However, settings such as Afghanistan are not 20th-century Europe. What is the
former desirable condition toward which a past-oriented rehabilitation is directed, in a place like
Afghanistan?
Even if this can be answered, there is a deeper conceptual problem. It might be possible to
reconstruct a building or restore artefact to a former state, although there is much debate in
conservation studies about whether even this is possible or desirable (Thomson, 1986).
However, it is arguably never possible to rehabilitate a human to “a previous state” (OED,
2008) because our biology, mental state, and social relationships change over time, and time
cannot run backward. The desirable family, community, school, or other context will never be
quite the same in the future as in the past. Arguably, this applies even to physical injuries. The
rehabilitated state of a broken foot will never be the same because the body becomes older.
The eventual state is likely to be worse, or even better, with excellent physiotherapy, but it
cannot be the same. Clinically, the aim might be expressed in terms of the foot “regaining”
function, but it could also be described simply as “gaining” function from a damaged
condition. The clinical approach and outcome will be no different, so why the past-oriented
concept? Philosophers, such as Barbara Adam (1998), have done much to introduce the time
dimension into social sciences. Perhaps the same is required in relation to the concept of
rehabilitation in all its forms.
We could well question the “re-” of many concepts. For instance, why does UNICEF have a
“reintegration programme” for Afghan child soldiers when the only regime they have known
and could therefore logically be reintegrated into is that of the Taliban? Why is the aim to help
the children to “re-enter education” when many of them have never been to school, and if they
have it was probably the insular Madrassahs that militarised them in the first place (UNICEF,
2004)? Why do the peace negotiators talk of “reconciliation” (UN, 2005) and not just “concilia-
tion” if the aim is to move forward from an intractable dispute? Why does the U.S. Congress
Bill aim “to reestablish a representative government in Afghanistan” when there has never been
a government that represents the whole population (U.S. Congress, 2000)? Is it helpful to have
language such as that in Article 8 of the Afghan Juvenile Code (which will relate to many street-
working children): “Confinement of a child is considered to be the last resort for rehabilitation
and re-education of the child” (UN, 2007). The phrase has overtones of the worst excesses of
communist China, unless social control and forcing children in a particular political mould is
actually the aim.

Conceptually, therefore, the starting point to address the rehabilitation paradox is linguistic.
Instead of rehabilitation with its implications of recreating a previous supposedly desirable, but
elusive, condition—a goal that is almost certainly delusional—it seems more useful to think of
habilitation—simply to “make able” (OED, 2008). A distinction between rehabilitation and
habilitation, in relation to younger children, is already made in some of the clinical literature—
for instance, from Sweden (Lind, 2003). To go a stage further, in 17th-century English, the word
abilitate (OED, 2008, see habilitate) appears even more useful. Abilitation is used in Russia to
describe centres for orphans (Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund, 2007), and it appears occasion-
ally now in U.S. literature. This term is arguably better in English because the goal of develop-
ing ability is immediately evident; therefore, it is the intrinsic link with education. Why use a
redundant “h,” which is pronounced by English speakers but is silent in the original French?
Another aspect of the rehabilitation paradox is that, in parallel with the past-oriented view of
social rehabilitation, the clinical perspective is now not intrinsically retrospective in practice.
The goal is usually expressed simply in terms of helping people to have the best possible
capacity for life, or toward the hypothetical “normal condition” of a human, but not a past con-
dition. The major rehabilitation models, such as the Model of Human Occupation (Kielhofner,
2004, 2007), can be applied equally well to a future-oriented abilitation as to a restorative
past-oriented rehabilitation.
In some countries (e.g., Germany), habilitation is the name of the highest academic degree,
beyond a basic Ph.D. It is the ultimate goal of education. Perhaps the significant lesson the
rehabilitation sciences can teach educationists is that the goal of education should not just be to
build capabilities that fulfil an occupation and create well-being, but that occupation and
well-being can be used to build those capabilities (Yazdani, Jibril, & Kielhofner, 2007). There
are many transferable strategies to achieve that, but the means and end must be a meaningful or
purposeful occupation. Those adjectives are missing from much education policy and practice.
CONCLUSION: THE POLITICAL PARADOXES
By international standards, the national policy context in Afghanistan appears supportive of

initiatives to assist vulnerable minority children and of progressive international best practice.
However, policy assumes an immanently achievable future circumstance reflecting a Western-

style state, which seems improbable. It also embodies a 20th-century policy discourse of
rehabilitation. Perceptions of the circumstances of street-working children, and how they can
best be helped, reflect this discourse. This results in a “rehabilitation paradox” within which
the goal is perceived as returning “minority” children, who are arguably the majority, to a
“mainstream,” which is either mythical or an elite minority that may be transient and is
probably not even desirable. In addition, there is no exit strategy—no plan about how to reha-
bilitate people from their rehabilitation when the rehabilitators leave. Whether Afghanistan
moves toward a Western or Indigenous style of governance, or something completely different,
education should not be trying to “return” young people to a mythical society—past, present,
or future.
Rehabilitation sounds positive, uncontentious, and relatively straightforward, but the reality
is that reconstructing damaged buildings and infrastructure is usually more difficult than con-
structing new buildings and cities; and the rehabilitation of educational provision, and the
re-education of children who have experienced the trauma of conflict and perhaps extremist
education (Davies, 2008), is much harder than creating new educational services for children
who have simply never been to school.
The political significance of rehabilitation can be related to the recent discussion by
philosopher John Gray (2007) in his book, Black Mass. He argued that the present Western-
inspired interventions arise from a mistaken belief that it is possible to create utopias.
The fight against “evil” is deeply rooted in Western thinking and happens under ideological
banners such as “democracy,” “freedom,” “fundamentalism,” and more recently as “creative
destruction.” As an interesting contrast, Gray pointed out that the Persian prophet, Mani,
based his teaching on the belief that evil could never be removed totally from human society.
Roberto Unger (2007, p. 23) reflected the same argument in his concept of “democratic
perfectionism.”
This article proposes a logical extension of Gray’s (2007) thesis: that, after they have over-
come apparent evil through violent intervention, Western ideologues appear to believe that
they can rehabilitate with the same delusional, or deceitful, utopian goal in mind. The notion
has been reinforced by the broadly successful wartime rehabilitation movements of the 20th
century. Is the link between Western utopianism and rehabilitation a coincidence when we
recall that the rehabilitation sciences first became firmly established in America? Here they
were paralleled by the ongoing significance of resurrection, revivalism (being “born again”),
and restoring people and societies—“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom
to Israel” (Acts 1:6). These sciences had their earlier roots in Europe, where the concept of
restoration had rehabilitated English elites from an era of regime change, and renaissance
(rebirth) had permitted Europeans to reinvent the trajectory of their linear progress back to the
Greeks and other former civilisations, which created the ethical rationale for their era of world
colonisation.
Whatever its roots, rehabilitation can sometimes have significant political meaning, particu-
larly before military intervention. It might even become an aspect of the preemptive deceit
(C. Williams, 2007), which legitimises political violence through inferring a promise that what-
ever damage is done can easily be repaired. The notion of rehabilitation embodied in UNRRA,
and later in the Balkans, was catagorically different because it was clearly post hoc, and those
promising the rehabilitation were not responsible for the initial harm. Education can become
complicit in this form of political argument, not least because the redemptionist narrative of the
school teacher is deeply ingrained (e.g., as within films such as Dangerous Minds [Smith, 1995],
Goodbye Mr. Chips [Wood, 1939], and Dead Poets Society [Weir, 1989]).
The Washington-based Centre for Public Integrity reports that before the invasion of Iraq, in
November 2002, a senior figure from the private U.S. international development agency,
Creative Associates (CA), who had previously been a United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) education director for the Middle East, took part in a discussion with
USAID officials about Iraq’s education system. At the point of the invasion, CA was selected to
run a project in Iraq and stated that by October 1,595 schools were “completely rehabilitated and
reconstructed” (B. Williams, 2007). The rehabilitation (perhaps even resurrection) ethos was
embodied in the project name: Revitalization of Iraqi schools and Stabilization of Education
(RISE). The project directly involved the military, alluding to “community grants for school
rehabilitation” and of
the urgent education-sector rehabilitation achieved under the . . . RISE project. . . . [T]he project,
Education II rehabilitated schools and teacher training centers throughout Iraq. . . . Seventy-six
Model Schools were rehabilitated. . . . Creative directly managed the rehabilitation of 76 of those
schools. . . . [F]our schools in Tameen Province (Kirkuk) were also in a non-permissive security
environment and were rehabilitated by the U.S. Army. (CA, 2007a.)
CA have also worked in Afghanistan since 2003 “to help Afghans rebuild their education system
after years of war and hardship” (CA, 2007b.) The “re”discourse is frequent in U.S. documents.
For example, in 2005, Present Bush asked Congress to support (inter alia) a “Commanders
Emergency Response Program . . . to continue a very successful program that permits U.S.
military commanders to assist in small-scale local reconstruction, rehabilitation, and recovery
initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan” (InfoUS, 2005).
The broader arguments arising from this discussion are, therefore, that at policy levels, reha-
bilitation and related concepts are often used inaccurately and, at times, politically. Education
providers, especially NGOs, need to consider this to avoid becoming complicit in questionable
political arguments about recovering from “creative destruction” and then creating Western
utopias. The concept of habilitation seems less problematic because it simply implies improving
abilities, not repairing strategic harm, and a return to a previous, perhaps mythical, condition.
This does, of course, then beg the questions of which abilities and why?
Without the concept of rehabilitation, intervention could be construed as an act of wanton
destruction, and in some cases even a war crime. We need to very carefully consider the
degree to which rehabilitation is deployed as an adjunct to political violence and the role of
education provision in this. In his early consideration of humanitarian intervention, UN
Secretary General, Kofi Annan (1999), drew parallels with medical intervention. The points
that have been missed about Annan’s discussion are that the doctor will seek consent (or
equivalent) before intervention, and medical ethics has provided copious consideration of the
possible dilemmas before they arise. The ethics of humanitarian intervention do not, there-
fore, exist in a moral vacuum; and, as Annan suggested, there is much that could be learned
from medicine. If an ethical basis is not established for the humanitarian persona of interven-
tion, and the rehabilitationist myth is not questioned, our political leaders might become like
omnipotent surgeons who will risk any operation on the basis that the rehabilitation therapists
can clear up any resultant harm.
REFERENCES
Adam, B. (1998). Time. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. Afghan NGOs’ Coordination Bureau. (2007). Retrieved
October 5, 2007, from http://www.ancb.org/introduction.htm
Afghana. (2007). Afghanistan rehabilitation/reconstruction organisations. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from http://
afghana.com/Reconstruction/AfghanistanRehabilitation.htm
Agnelli, S. (1986). Street children: A growing urban tragedy. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Amnesty International. (2007). Afghanistan: All who are not friends, are enemies: Taliban abuses against civilians.
London: Author.
Annan, K. (1999). The question of intervention. Statements by the Secretary General of the United Nations. New York:
United Nations Publications.
Arab-International Forum on Rehabilitation and Development. (2004). Arab-International Forum on Rehabilitation and
Development in the occupied Palestinian territory. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from http://www.escwa.org.lb/main/
pal/index.html
Aries, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood. New York: Vintage.
Berlin Declaration. (2004). Retrieved December 2, 2007, from http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/

SNAO634SXS?OpenDocument
Bhutta, Z. A. (2002). Children of war: The real casualties of the Afghan conflict. British Medical Journal, 324, 349–352.
Creative Associates. (2007a.) Iraq education II. Retrieved December 3, 2007, from http://www.caii.com/CAIIStaff/
Dashboard_GIROAdminCAIIStaff/Dashboard_CAIIAdminDatabase/CAIIAdminProjectDetails.aspx?Page-
Name=Iraq/Education_II&PDDSurveyID=1127
Creative Associates. (2007b.) Afghanistan: A word with the former minister of higher education. Retrieved December
17, 2008, from http://www.caii.com/CAIIStaff/Dashboard_GIROAdminCAIIStaff/Dashboard_CAIIAdminDatabase/
CAIIAdminSupplemental.aspx?SurveyID=681&SectionID=530?
Consortium for Street Children. (2005). Voices from the streets. London: Consortium for Street Children.
CIA. (2007). The world fact book. Retrieved December 2, 2007, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-
world-factbook/
Coleridge, P. (1993). Disability, liberation and development. Oxford, England: Oxfam.
Coleridge, P. (1999). Disability in Afghanistan. Islamabad: UNDP/UNOPS.
Cordell, G. (2004). Children in a street situation: Kabul, Afghanistan, Mid-project review. Kabul, Afghanistan: Terre
des Hommes.
Dacaar. (2002). Afghanistan’s reconstruction undermined by UN salary increases. Retrieved October 3, 2007, from
http://www.dacaar.org/dacaar.asp?news=64
Davies, L. (2008) Educating against extremism. London: Trentham.
De Berry, J. (2003). The children of Kabul. Kabul, Afghanistan: SCF/United Nations International Children’s
Emergency Fund.
Devereaux, S. (1999). The making of the Penitentury Act, 1775-1779, The Historical Journal, 42, 2, 405–433.
Edwards, M., & Hulme, D. (1992). Making a difference: NGOs and development in a changing world. London: Earthscan.
Enfants du Monde Droits de l’Homme. (2003). “When there were djinns, I was friends with djinns . . .” : A generation
bears witness. Kabul: Author.
Ennew, J. (1994). Street and working children: A guide to planning (SCF Development Manual No. 4). London:
SCF-United Kingdom.
European Commission. (2002). EC country strategy paper 2003–6. Kabul, Afghanistan: Author.
European Commission. (2004). Street-working children in Kabul: An assessment and formulation proposal. Unpublished
report for the European Commission delegation in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison [Discipline and punish]. Paris: Gallimard.
Government of Afghanistan. (2002). National development programme. Kabul, Afghanistan: Author.
Government of Afghanistan. (2004). Livelihoods and social protection public investment programme (Submission SY
1383–1385, National Development Budget). Kabul, Afghanistan: Author.
Gray, J. (2007). Black mass: Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia. London: Allen Lane.
Gupta, L. (1997). Psychosocial assessment of children exposed to war related violence in Kabul. New York: United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.
Harber, C. (2004). Schooling as violence: How schools harm pupils and societies. London: Routledge.
Hart, H. L. A., & Honore, A. M. (1985). Causation in the law. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
InfoUS. (2005, February, 15) Bush asks Congress for $82 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan. Retrieved December 5, 2007, from
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=February&x=20050215141142dmslahr
ellek0.4378168
Kielhofner, G. (2004). Conceptual foundations of occupational therapy. New York: Davis.
Kielhofner, G. (2007). Model of human occcupation: Theory and application. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Koghlan, T. (2006, July 17). Fury as Karzai plans return of Taliban’s religious police. The Independent, p .15.
Lind, L. (2003). “The pieces fall into place”: The views of three Swedish habilitation teams on conductive education and
support of disabled children. International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, 26, 11–20.
Maley, W. (Ed.). (1998). Fundamentalism reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban. New South Wales: University of New
South Wales Press.
Meo, N. (2004, September 30). Addiction behind the burka: How Afghan women use drugs to cope with legacy of war.
The Independent, p. 36.
Meo, N. (2005, January 20). The Taliban are gone, but Afghan women still have to be taught in secret. The Independent, p. 36.
Nayyar, A.H. (1998). Madrassah education—Frozen in time. In P. Hoodbhoy, (Ed.), Education and the state: Fifty years
of Pakistan (pp. 36–49). Karachi: Oxford University Press.

O’Malley, (2007). Education under attack. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization,
Education Sector.
ORA. (2004). Facing change and changing faces (Annual report 2002–4, Central Asia). Retrieved February 8, 2005,
from http://www.oracentralasia.org
Oxford: Oxford University Press English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
President to seek food relief set-up. (1943. June 10). New York Times, p. 9.
Rashid, A. (2001). Taliban: Militant Islam, oil and fundamentalism in Central Asia. Nota Bene: Yale University Press.
Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. (2005). Retrieved February 8, 2005, from http://www.rawa.org
Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund. (2007). Abilitation centres. Retrieved October 9, 2007, from http://www.roofnet.
qwaal.net/pages/page.php?ref=projects%7Cabilitation%20Centre.
Schwartz, K. B. (2003). The history of occupational therapy. In Blesedell, E. & Cohn, E.S. (Eds.), Willard &
Spackmans’ Occupational Therapy (pp. 5–13). Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Seierstad, A. (2004). The bookseller of Kabul. London: Virago.
Sensory Processing Disorder. (2007). The history of occupational therapy. Where did we come from? How did we get here?
Retrieved October 3, 2007, from http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/history-of-occupational-therapy.html
Smith, John M. (Dir) (1995). Dangerous minds.
Terre des Hommes. (2002). Needs assessment of children working in the streets of Kabul. Kabul, Afghanistan: Author.
Terre des Hommes. (2004). The Aschiana centre for street working children, Kabul. Retrieved September 20, 2004,
from http//:www.tdhafghanistan.or/projects6.htm
Thomson, G. (1986). Museum environment (2nd ed.). London: Butterworth–Heinemann.
Unger, R. M. (2007). The self awakened: Pragmatism unbound. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
UN (2001) Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Gov-
ernment Institutions, New York: United Nations, Annex 1 Section 4.
United Nations. (2005). Afghanistan: UN officials hail justice and reconciliation plan to bury past enmity. Retrieved
October 3, 2007, from http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=16919&Cr=afghan&Cr1
United Nations. (2007). Conference on the rule of law. Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://www.rolafghanistan.esteri.it/
ConferenceRol/Menu/I_rapporti_bilaterali/Cooperazione+culturale/CanaleBilaterale.htm
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (1951). Vagrant children (problems in education).
Paris: Author.
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (2004). 2,000 former Afghan child soldiers to be demobilized
and rehabilitated. Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://www.unicef.org/media/media_19165.html
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. (2007). Agreement for UNRRA. Retrieved October 5, 2007,
from http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1943/431109a.html
U.S. Congress. (2000). H. CON. RES. 411 relating to the reestablishment of representative government in Afghanistan.
Retrieved October 8, 2007, from http://www.omaid.com/english_section/in_the_press/campbellBill_US&LJ.htm
Weir, Peter (Dir.) (1989). Dead Poets Society.
Williams, B. (2007) The windfalls of war. Centre for Public Integrity. Retrieved October 8, 2007, from http://
www.omaid.com/english_section/in_the_press/campbellBill_US&LJ.htm
Williams, C. (1990). Street children and education: A comparative study of European and third world approaches.
Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Birmingham, England.
Williams, C. (1992). Curriculum relevance for street children. The Curriculum Journal, 3, 279–289.
Williams, C. (1993a). The nonexcluding school: A special concept for implementing “education for all.” Journal of
Research and Development in Education, 26, 205–212.
Williams, C. (1993b). Who are “street children?” A hierarchy of street use and appropriate responses. Child Abuse &
Neglect, 17, 831–841.
Williams, C. (2004). Street-working children in Kabul: An assessment and formulation proposal—Towards an “urban
vulnerability initiative.” Unpublished report for the European Commission delegation, Kabul, Afghanistan.
Williams, C. (in press). Learning to redress the pre-emptive lie: The Iraq dossier. Birmingham: Center for International
Education and Research, University of Birmingham.
World Bank. (2007a). Afghanistan data profile. Retrieved December 3, 2007, from http://devdata.worldbank.org/external/
CPProfile.asp?PTYPE=CP&CCODE=AFG
World Bank. (2007b). Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. Retrieved October 3, 2007, from http://web.worldbank.org/
WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/AFGHANISTANEXTN/0,,contentMDK:20152008∼pagePK:
141137∼piPK:217854∼theSitePK:305985,00.html
Wood, Sam (Dir.) (1939). Goodbye Mr Chips.
Yazdani, F., Jibril, M., & Kielhofner G. (2007). Use of the “model of human occupation” in studying “subjective well
being” among university students. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 22, 125–138.
Zelizer, V. (1994). Pricing the priceless child: The changing social value of children. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Christopher Williams is based at the Centre for International Education and Research
(CIER), University of Birmingham. He has also held posts at the universities of Cambridge,
Cairo, London, and the United Nations. His focal interest is educating for global justice.
Farzaneh Yazdani is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Health and Social Care, Oxford
Brookes University. She is a psychological and educational counsellor, and her specialisa-
tion is psycho-social Occupational Therapy. Her current interests are the broader rele-
vance of rehabilitation theories, and Occupational therapy ‘without borders’. Her initial
education was at the University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

Rehabilitation Paradox

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Rehabilitation Paradox

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

This article was downloaded by: [Williams, Christopher]

On: 15 January 2009

Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education

The Rehabilitation Paradox: Street-Working Children in Afghanistan

Online Publication Date: 01 January 2009

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

1559-5706Indigenous, and Minority Education

The Rehabilitation Paradox: Street-Working Children

International humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan reflects a policy discourse of “rehabilitation,”

2002: International/United Nations occupation, President Karzai

FIGURE 1 Afghan regimes.

THE POLICY CONTEXT

STREET-WORKING CHILDREN IN KABUL

A UNICEF survey in 1997 provided a comprehensive picture of the circumstances of children in

NGO SECTOR PROJECTS

actually the aim.

CONCLUSION: THE POLITICAL PARADOXES

By international standards, the national policy context in Afghanistan appears supportive of

However, policy assumes an immanently achievable future circumstance reflecting a Western-

Berlin Declaration. (2004). Retrieved December 2, 2007, from http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/

of Pakistan (pp. 36–49). Karachi: Oxford University Press.

S-ar putea să vă placă și