No place to call home

Forced out of their homes but unwanted elsewhere, Pakistan’s IDPs were shunted away to makeshift camps where they have languished for years. One estimate put the number of people displaced by the conflict at 1.8 million. Operation Zarb-e-Azb, while successful in taking the fight to militant groups, also caused damage to the homes of residents. But in recent times, with Fata becoming relatively safe, many IDPs   have returned – and are returning – home. Unfortunately, they come back to finding that their houses are either entirely destroyed or need to be fixed. The government has been more keen to return the IDPs to Fata than to ensure they have houses to live in. It took till February of this year for the government to complete its survey of houses in Fata by which point it estimated that 80 percent of IDPs  had already returned. The compensation money that had been announced for the rebuilding of houses – Rs 400,000 for those which had been destroyed and Rs 100,000 for those which were damaged – still hasn’t been fully paid out yet. So far only 5,445 families have been paid compensation and now the verification of another 4,700 has been completed and they will be eligible to receive the aid. The pace of verification is too slow for people who have already suffered enough. If it was going to take so long to pay them the money they are owed, the government should not them have been trying to return them to Fata so quickly. There is little point in going home when there is no home to go to.

The government has said it wants all IDPs to return to Fata by the end of the year. This should only be done if they have the opportunity to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and begin anew. That means giving them the money they so desperately need before making them leave Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of the country. The help the state should be giving to  IDPs  extends beyond compensation for destroyed houses. Militant groups have not been completely eliminated and there is every chance these people could be targeted so security is essential. The civil service has a four percent quota for people from the tribal areas and northern areas and even that is never filled. Affirmative action in favour of IDPs can be instituted so that they at least have a job when they return to their war-torn homes. The government has proposed merging Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but that move will only work if people from Fata are not treated as second-class citizens and given the opportunities they need, first to survive and then to thrive.