Mansions amid Poverty

In Kabul , several years after dozens of poor families were evicted from the suburb of Shirpur the new mansions which have taken their place exposing the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots. Many Afghans mockingly call it “Shirchoor” (lion-grabbing), as it contains many of the city’s most outlandish buildings - generally owned by current and former ministers, warlords and other powerful individuals.
Miloon Kothari, who investigated the Shirpur case in 2003, said in a report: "I expressed the view that the way in which the forced evictions took place, including excessive use of force, amounted to serious human rights violations.”
70 percent of new high-rise buildings in the capital are illegal and built without regard to local laws or regulations by powerful individuals known as the “land mafia”. The Ministry of Agriculture says up to a million hectares of state land has been seized by militia commanders and powerful warlords across the country in the past few years.

Kabir Ranjbar, a representative of Kabul in the lower house of parliament, told IRIN. “The rich are powerful and have manipulated everything to their benefit, while the poor are weak and have been marginalized and deprived of their basic rights,”

Abdul Rahman Ghafoory, director of the Central Statistics Office: “Gaps between rich and poor are widening.”
A National Risks and Vulnerability Assessment report says nine million Afghans (36 percent of the population) live in absolute poverty, and five million “non-poor” live on less than US$2 a day.

“The rich have become richer and more powerful while the majority of poor have been marginalized,” said Sayed Masoud, an economics lecturer at Kabul University,“Social unrest, violence and rebellion against the state are the most likely outcomes in a society where a majority of people live in extreme poverty but small elite groups thrive in affluence,” adding that the aid-inspired GDP growth had been “hijacked by oligarchs”.

“Economic growth...can also exacerbate inequality, with only a few benefiting from newfound wealth. To some extent, this is what we are seeing in Afghanistan. While entrepreneurs and new businesses, particularly those based around the aid industry, have flourished, many - especially the poor and those in rural areas - have seen few positive benefits,” said Ashley Jackson, head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam in Afghanistan.