‘This all started long before Bin Laden’: Why Pakistan is kicking out foreign charities

Pakistan’s government has kicked out a group of international charities who, in 2017 alone, helped an estimated 11m of its poorest citizens. It has done so without providing any explanation, and left many of those remaining fearing they could be next.

Diplomats and charity bosses spoken to by The Independent described the ejection of the 18 international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) not as a knee-jerk decision, but as the culmination of years of hostility from the state towards such bodies.

The charities were told at the end of September that they had exhausted all options to appeal their wrapping-up orders, and given 60 days to cease all operations and withdraw from Pakistan.

All the INGOs, including the UK charities ActionAid, International Alert and Plan International, have been told they can “re-apply” for registration in Pakistan in six months’ time.

But their prospects do not look good, given they have not been told the reasons for their expulsion – and therefore what they must rectify. They, like the Western governments that have been lobbying on their behalf for years without success, are left second-guessing the true reason they have been kicked out.

Many reports have linked Pakistan’s hostility towards foreign charities with the 2011 US military operation that ended in the death of Osama bin Laden. Then, a fake vaccination programme run by the CIA was used to pinpoint the hideout of the 9/11 mastermind.

Few would dispute that this set back genuine vaccination programmes years if not decades – Pakistan remains one of only two countries in the world where polio is endemic – and contributed to a sense of distrust towards INGOs.

But “this all long started before [Bin Laden]”, said a senior official at the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, an umbrella organisation of which most of the 18 organisations were members, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the subject.

“The strand had already developed where NGOs are seen as foreign agents,” the official said. “It was led by [state-friendly] media, and anyone who questioned it was targeted with very broad criticism.”

Few people will actually be leaving Pakistan as a result of the crackdown on international charities. That’s because even before it began the new NGO registration process, the state had been denying visas to foreign workers. Both ActionAid and Plan International confirmed their teams in the country already consisted of Pakistani nationals.

Nonetheless, the public image of INGOs as malevolent agents of foreign powers has persisted: the media narrative seems to have worked.

On the streets of Islamabad, people generally seemed to support a move away from reliance on INGOs. Naeem Awan, a shopkeeper, said foreign charities were “involved in destabilising Pakistan, they are destroying Pakistan’s culture and society”.

Raja Moshin, a government employee, said he believed Pakistan “doesn’t need INGOs’ services”.

“These INGOs are involved in implementing a Western agenda in Pakistan, [as well as] in the spread of nudity and vulgarity.”

It is a perception that many believe has been fuelled by Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, which backed the former cricketer Imran Khan in his successful bid to become prime minister and maintains an effective apparatus for quelling dissenting voices in civil society.

Independent journalists might criticise a government decision once, but they won’t push it too far, and domestic NGOs are tightly controlled.

Foreign charities operating in Pakistan were the last piece in the puzzle – frequently speaking out about what they were seeing on the ground.

“The decision by the government of Pakistan to close down these charities is a huge disappointment,” one western diplomat told The Independent. “Sadly it comes as no surprise and is the latest step in several years of disruption of charities, journalists and social activists.

“We expect more to come. Each time it is the poor people in Pakistan that suffer the most.”

Of around 140 INGOs that applied for registration, 80 were granted permission to continue their operations. The fate of the 40 or so who still haven’t heard is not looking good, with sources close to the process suggesting that another raft of 20 could be told to pack up in the coming weeks.

The government of Pakistan has defended its moves to regulate the charity sector – up until 2015, there were no stringent mechanisms to ensure that NGOs, whether foreign or domestic, were well governed.

Pakistan would hardly be the first country to seek to move from an aid-based model of crisis intervention to direct action as its economy develops. India has been through a similar process, repeatedly cracking down on foreign funding for NGOs and just this year refusing offers of millions of pounds for victims of flooding in Kerala.

Shireen Mazari, Pakistan’s minister for human rights, said the 18 were “denied for non-compliance viz what they had defined as their work”. “They must leave. They need to work within their stated intent, which these 18 didn’t do.”

In other words, the charities were not being charged explicitly with spying, or furthering the agenda of a foreign power. None, in fact, was accused of anything specific at all.

The Pakistani branch of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations was one of two among the 18 which has fought the decision in court, and is awaiting a decision.

Its Pakistan head Dr Saba Khattak told The Independent the charity will argue in court that the government cannot prove any misconduct on their part.

“We received notice to stop working, but in that notice we were never told what charge is being brought against us. We are not involved in any illegal work,” she said.

Collectively, according to the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, the 18 charities employed more than 1,100 people in country.

“They employed local resources, working with local partners to forge a link with communities which the government cannot,” a spokesperson for the forum told The Independent.

“From health to water sanitation to the construction of shelters, they were working on the welfare and development of hard-to-reach communities. Eleven million were benefiting every year from these organisations, and at the moment it seems there’s nothing in place to replace them.”

Not everyone The Independent spoke to took a dim view of INGOs. Naseba Bibi, a widow and mother of three, said she had first-hand experience of the work charities do in the country.

“My husband passed away seven years ago, and afterwards me and my children were facing serious financial issues. My parents and in-laws were not in a position to support us,” she said.

Naseba was introduced through a friend to an NGO offering women training in sewing and embroidery. She said it was something she never would have considered before the death of her husband, a taxi driver and the only bread-winner in the family.

“I never used to go outside, but I worked hard in training and the NGO knew what had happened [with my husband] so they offered me a job as a trainer. The job pays me enough to feed my children. Now they have all started going to school.”

Naseba said she did not know what to do now the NGO was winding up. She urged the government to reconsider its decision.

Plan International said it alone had supported 26m people during two decades of projects in Pakistan. In a statement, the charity said it was “deeply saddened” to announce it was being forced to close in the country on government orders. “No reason was provided” for the decision, it added.

“We are extremely concerned about the impact this will have on communities, particularly hundreds of thousands of children, that Plan International supported through its development work,” the statement read.

ActionAid’s general secretary Adriano Campolina said the charity would be “honoured to return” if the government changed its mind. “Our dedicated team of Pakistani nationals supported more than 1.4 million people over the past decade,” he said.

“The end of their vital work with marginalised groups is a worrying development for civil society in a country where a fifth of the population is still living in poverty.”

International Alert said it had ceased operations after being denied registration and was “waiting to hear from the government on the reapplication process”.

“In the meantime, we are trying to minimise negative impact on our partners and beneficiaries in this process,” a spokesperson said.