On the first anniversary of the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan, I can’t help but look back. Until last April when I had the opportunity to spend a few days in the countryside and witness the harsh reality children experience and how Unicef works to provide them with the essential services they so desperately need . This year, the situation of Afghan children has only gotten worse.
Just weeks before my arrival, UNICEF had undertaken the longest road mission of any UN security entity in 20 years, setting out with health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education teams to reach the far corners of Afghanistan .
A team of 14 people have traveled more than 2,000 kilometers from Kandahar, passing through Urozgan, Helmand and Nimroz near the border with Iran. Two thousand kilometers of villages, they told me, now accessible to humanitarian workers who have never left the country and continue to provide essential services to the children of Afghanistan.
I had the opportunity to travel by road south of Kabul through the Tera Pass surrounded by endless mountains stretching skyward in all directions. This country has been a transit point for travelers from all over the world for thousands of years. Today, however, it tells a very different story.
On the outskirts of Kabul we meet many children on the street. A very young girl is begging for money for her family in the middle of the street. Another boy is busy carrying fruit and vegetables to one of the market stalls that line the street. We are in the second week of the holy month of Ramadan and the shops are overflowing with fruit and vegetables. But there are no customers to be seen in any market.
The economic crisis in Afghanistan is having a devastating impact on the daily lives of its residents. When most foreign aid was frozen in 2021, key basic services collapsed and family income disappeared. 24 million people, more than half of them children, live below the poverty line and need immediate humanitarian assistance to survive. In Kabul and elsewhere, markets are filled with goods that few Afghans can afford.
24 million people, more than half of them children, live below the poverty line and need immediate humanitarian assistance to survive
We quickly found that the empty cabins contrasted with where we were headed next after a three-hour drive: the Paktya Regional Hospital in Gardez, where dozens of families packed a waiting room to overflowing.
This hospital is one of more than 2,300 healthcare facilities across the country that UNICEF supports along with the World Health Organization (WHO). It serves more than 75,000 patients across Paktya province. As fighting has stopped in recent months, more Afghans are able to see a doctor, which is a great relief for the children and their parents. But with such a recent surge in demand, so has the pressure on a highly vulnerable healthcare sector. To keep the system from collapsing, UNICEF and WHO are providing stocks of medical supplies and medicines, paying staff salaries and training them to keep the services running.
As soon as we got to the hospital, I was taken to a treatment room for children with severe acute malnutrition. The first girl I met was called Rana, six months old, who has already been examined.
Six-month-old Rana is being held by her mother Sayera, 20, in the ambulance at Paktya Regional Hospital in the city of Gardez Omid Fazel (© UNICEF/UN0627073/Fazel)
Rana’s mother, Sayera, told us that her daughter refused to drink her breast milk. The baby had no appetite and had lost too much weight in the past few weeks. A nurse measured Rana’s arm circumference and confirmed what Sayera had already feared: her daughter was severely malnourished and needed immediate treatment.
Sayera told me that her family eats bread and tea for breakfast and rice and potatoes for lunch and dinner, the only staples they can afford. He is among the 90 percent of households in Afghanistan that do not have enough to eat. This year alone, around 3.2 million children nationwide will be severely malnourished.
This year alone, around 3.2 million children nationwide will be severely malnourished.
As we walked to another part of the room, Niamatullah Zaheer, the director of the health center, told me that his staff was overwhelmed. The hospital’s only pediatrician examines more than 100 children every day. The neonatal ward is also overwhelmed. Too often the hospital is forced to accommodate more than one baby per bed.
We arrive at an area of the hospital reserved for children with severe acute malnutrition, who will be closely monitored until they have recovered sufficiently to return home.
It was there that Basmina caught my attention: a little girl (I was told she was four years old) sitting on her bed in the corner of the room. I walked over to greet her and she smiled back.
It wasn’t the first time Basmina was in this room. Her sister Jamillah, 13, is the one who accompanies her when she has to go back to the hospital and stays there. The girls lost their mother and their father his job. After a few weeks of hospital treatment, Basmina recovered enough to return home. But her family has little access to nutritious food and clean water, so Basmina’s health keeps deteriorating and Jamillah has to take her back to the hospital.
As I listened to the story of these sisters, a reality nurses witness every day, the director asked me to convey a message upon my return home: What the hospital staff is doing for these children would not have been possible without the support of the international community.
But the needs only grow.
On my second morning in Afghanistan, I was able to make a long-awaited visit. I attended the Halima Khazan school, also in Gardez, where around 2,000 girls and 460 boys attend classes. The building was imposing and was named after the province’s first high school graduate, Halima Khazan, who later assumed responsibility for women’s affairs in Paktya and used her position to promote girls’ education.
Six-year-old Omar sits with his classmates in his first grade classroom at Halima Khazan school in the town of Gardez Omid Fazel (© UNICEF/UN0627661/Fazel)
That ‘torch’ that she lit at school is now held by 40 teachers, almost all of them women, and an extraordinary principal named Nisreen, who told us, ‘Many of the teachers are mothers. We need a kindergarten for your children or we are afraid of losing them. The school also needs a well so the students can drink clean water.”
Our education specialists have made notes on needs that we know we can help address. UNICEF has spent decades bringing safe water and sanitation to schoolchildren around the world, and our education program extends to supporting teachers, especially women.
Nisreen led us to the classrooms for seniors who were having an art class. I asked them what they liked to paint the most: “Horses!” they said. And your favorite subject?: “Writing!”.
Two students stood in front of everyone to show us what they had learned in class that day. Her joy at being able to go to school and learn was so palpable that it took my breath away. At that time we didn’t know if these wonderful and hardworking girls could go to the seventh grade. To this day we still don’t know.
Two first graders sit in the class at Halima Khazan School Omid Fazel (© UNICEF/UN0627657/Fazel)
After I was with them, I went to another area of the school. The first graders learned the alphabet and numbers. I sat in the girls’ class and asked her, “What do you dream of when you grow up?” One of them surprised us all by ambitiously shouting, “I want to be a police officer!” Everyone present laughed with joy and applauded their enthusiasm. That excitement and that hope is still with me.
We cannot abandon any of these children. Schools are much more than just places of learning: in these difficult times in Afghanistan, they are also a safe place to have access to one healthy meal a day and clean water. They are a haven from the street, from violence.
Schools are much more than just places of learning: in these difficult times in Afghanistan, they are also a safe place to have access to one healthy meal a day and clean water. They are a haven from the street, from violence
Unicef has been in Afghanistan for more than 70 years, always present, never leaving the country and never stopped helping. Now more than ever. We continue to support community schools and teacher salaries. We continue to provide children with millions of textbooks and school supplies. We provide nutrition programs and ensure access to clean and safe water for health workers and school children.
But everything Unicef does comes with the continued support of the international community. And that support is in jeopardy.
Afghanistan’s children must not be held hostage by politicians.
The de facto authorities and the donor communities need to find ways to work together.
For this reason, I call on the international community to provide Unicef and the organizations working in Afghanistan with the funds we need to continue providing vital assistance so that we can continue to treat malnutrition, educate girls and can support access to clean drinking water.
We call on the de facto authorities to fulfill their promises to protect the rights of children and women and to guarantee the right to education for all children in Afghanistan.
The actions we implement today will determine the future of millions of children in Afghanistan, determining their survival and access to a decent life, growing up healthy, educated and safe.
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