By: Mohammad Rahimi and Tahir Ahmadi
Rukhshana Media journalists spoke with two teenage girls, whose fathers disappeared, in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces after the fall of the former Afghan government last August. With their fathers missing, they are forced to work in the streets to feed their families.
Parwana never thought her father would one day disappear when he joined the former Afghan government’s national army three years ago. She never imagined she would be forced to work in the streets of Kandahar after her father’s disappearance.
But all these happened.
Her father, Wahidullah, has gone missing since early last August when the Taliban swept through Kandahar where he served as a soldier of the former government.
“I wonder if my father is alive or dead. He has disappeared and I don’t know where he has gone,” ۱۴-year-old Parwana said. “We have gone to all government offices, but we couldn’t find my father.”
Parwana has been working to feed the family of four since her father’s disappearance over six months ago. Her mother, and younger sister sew shower loofah at home, and Parwana’s job is to sell them in the streets of Kandahar city.
“I have to work for my family. We don’t have anything at home,” she said. “We make loofahs and I take them to the market to sell.”
On lucky days, she makes between 100-150 Afs, an amount a little over one dollar. Most days, she makes less than that.
The family pays 3000 Afs monthly rent, meaning even if Parwana makes 150 a day, they don’t have enough food on the table to eat.
“We’re hungry. We don’t have enough food to eat. We don’t even have enough warm clothes to wear,” Parwana’s mother said, asking Rukhshana’s reporter for a donation “so we don’t go to bed hungry.”
The Taliban have banned girls from secondary education, so Parwana, who is an eighth grader, isn’t allowed to return to school.
“The school is closed,” Parwana said. “I could at least go to school and rest a little if it were open.”
Wahidullah’s disappearance isn’t an isolated case. A thousand members of the former government’s security forces have gone missing between July 1, 2021 and August 15 of that year, General Yasin Zia, a former army chief of staff, told the Washington Post last December. He said about 4000 were also killed during the same period.
A report published by the Human Rights Watch last November also stated that the Taliban summarily executed or forcibly disappeared more than 100 former security forces between August 15, 2021 and October 30 of the same year – only in four provinces – including Kandahar where Wahidullah has disappeared.
The fathers are usually the breadwinners in Afghan families. Their children are often forced to work or beg in the streets when they are dead or disappeared.
An estimated one million children are engaged in child labor across Afghanistan currently as most families have lost income in the past six months, according to a research by the Save the Children, which was published earlier this week.
An increased number of children have also been forced to beg in the streets after the fall of the former government.
Fatima, 9, started begging in southeastern Ghazni province about six months ago when her father, a daily laborer, went missing after the fall of the province to the Taliban.
“I don’t know exactly, but I think my father was martyred…..they have killed my father,” she said, asking our reporter not to publish her father’s name in the report.
In a freezing cold day, Fatima held a plastic bag, begging on the sidewalk of Mullah Mushak Alim, a busy street in Ghazni city. Asked what was in the bag, she replied, “bread.”
Fatima’s mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed her daughter’s account about the missing father in the family.
“We don’t know what to do,” she said.
Fatima was a third grader, and a top student in her class, before her father’s disappearance.
“If my father is found and comes back home, then I will be free and I can study and become a pilot,” said Fatima, refusing to give up her dream, or perhaps too young to understand she will never be able to become a pilot under the Taliban regime, who haven’t allowed most working women to return to their offices after they seized power.
Afghanistan’s economy is on the verge of a total collapse. Millions of Afghans do not have enough to eat. A million children could starve to death this winter, according to the United Nations.
The United Nations has requested five billion of dollars to avert the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country.
Extreme poverty is forcing families to make a difficult decision on whether to cure their sick children or buy food for the ones still healthy.
Fatima’s mother, too, has made such a difficult choice. She said one of her six children suffers from pneumonia and that doctors have recommended he should be hospitalized.
“I told them if you admit this one in the hospital,” she said. “The rest will die from hunger at home.”
