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Access to Labour: The Role of Opium in the Livelihood Strategies of Itinerant Harvesters Working in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

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STRATEGIC STUDY #4

Final Report June 1999

ANNEX A: TERMS OF REFERENCE

Study 4: Access to Labour: The Role of Opium in the Livelihood Strategies of Itinerant Harvesters Working in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Objective: To further UNDCP's understanding of the source and mobility of the labour force required to harvest opium poppy in Helmand Province, and identify possible strategies to ensure that regional development initiatives aimed at achieving a sustainable reduction in opium cultivation, address the role opium plays in the livelihood strategies of both landowners and labourers.

Summary: This Study will consist of a series of a semi-structured interviews with itinerant labourers harvesting opium poppy in the districts of Marja, Nad-e-Ali, Nahr-e-Saraj, Musa Qala and Nawzad. It will seek to identify the source of the labour for opium poppy in these districts and explore the role of opium poppy cultivation in the livelihood strategies of itinerant harvesters.

The final report will draw together past and current work that has been conducted by C27 on the dynamics of the labour market, including the Baseline Survey and current fieldwork assessing the amount of labour required for poppy cultivation and the role of women and children in opium poppy cultivation. This work will provide a diagnostic for ?Strategic Study 5: The Role of Women in Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan and the Consequences Arising from its Replacement for Women's Economic and Social Standing'.

Methodology: Due to the sensitive nature of the subject emphasis should be on informal interviews. A questionnaire should not be used. Instead the interviewer should focus on a number of key issues discussed in a conversational manner. Notes should not be taken during the interview but should be written up once the interview has finished and the interviewer has departed. Any issues that are not addressed in the TORs but are raised in the interview by the respondent should also be documented.

Emphasis should be given to conducting in-depth interviews over a wide geographical area to assist in identifying generic issues that could be explored in other districts during subsequent stages of the study.

A minimum of fifteen interviews should be undertaken in each district. It is essential that these interviews are conducted over a wide geographical area. Notes for each interview should be written up and forwarded to the Drug Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist combined with a two-page overview for each district. Debriefing will take place after each period of fieldwork.

Time of fieldwork: The Community Mobiliser will need to identify the timing of the harvest and undertake the fieldwork accordingly. However, given the different times of the harvest in the districts the fieldwork should be split into two missions. The first mission will cover the fieldwork for Marja and Nad-e-Ali, the second mission Musa Qala, Kajaki and Nawzad.

KEY ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED

Origin
1. What is their tribe?
2. What is their sub tribe?
3. From what village and district are they from?
4. Do they have land in their village? How much?
5. What winter crops do they grow?

Motivation
6. Why do they travel to this area to work?
7. What types of work do they do in the area?
8. Are they working in this area for the whole year or just for a short period of time?
9. Are they a sharecropper or day labourer?

Duration
10. In which year did they first harvest opium poppy?
11. Have they harvested opium poppy every year since then?
12. If not, why not?
13. What age were they when they first harvested opium poppy?


Mobility
14. What districts have they harvested opium in over their life time?
15. Do they harvest in the same villages each year?
16. Which districts did they harvest opium poppy 1998?
17. How do they select which villages they will work in each year? Tribal affiliation? Family links?
18. How do they know when the harvest will start in the village that they are working?
19. After completing the harvest in this village what will they do next?
20. If harvest opium, which village or district?
21. When will you return to your village of origin?

Payment
22. How much are they paid for harvesting?
23. Are they paid cash or in-kind?
24. If they are paid in-kind where do they sell the opium?
25. What do they purchase with the money they earn from the opium harvest?

MAP

Illustrative Diagram of the Seasonal Migration of Itinerant Harvesters Working in Helmand Province, Afghanistan (Click on picture to enlarge)