Afghanistan in the News

Afghanistan's poor face difficult decisions amid winter cold

Seasonal hardship is nothing new for Afghans, but a combination of factors is making this winter harder to bear as the number of displaced soars in Kabul.

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times January 9, 2012 Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan

In the gray light of each cold dawn, the parents of 10-month-old Shoaib hold their own breath as they listen for the rasp of his, waiting to see whether their coughing, feverish little boy has survived another night.

Winter's chill has settled over the Afghan capital, and with it, privation is sharpening, especially among the city's poor. Nighttime temperatures regularly fall into the teens, or even lower. The season's first snow is on the ground, the open sewage ditches are crusted over with ice, and in shantytowns such as the one where Shoaib's family lives, survival turns on a series of cruelly simple calculations.

"If I buy food, I can't afford to buy firewood. And if I buy firewood, I can't buy food," said Shoaib's father, Faida Mohammed, a 40-year-old laborer who lives with his family of 12 in a two-room lean-to alongside one of Kabul's busier traffic circles. "If we eat lunch, we won't have dinner. If we eat dinner, there's nothing for breakfast in the morning. All the time, you have to choose."

Seasonal hardship is nothing new for Afghans, but a combination of factors is making this winter harder than usual to bear. The number of refugees from other parts of the country, known as internally displaced people, has ballooned to an estimated half a million. Many end up in the capital after fleeing fighting elsewhere, and make their homes in slum encampments that authorities euphemistically call "settlements."

Parwan Du, where Sh! oaib's family lives, began as a few tents on an open lot, some using crumbling mud-brick walls as supports for flimsy shelters made of plastic sheeting and plywood. Now it is home to about 230 people, some of whom have been there for years.

With the city's population thought to have tripled to about 4 million during this decade of war, the few services on offer are stretched thin. Electricity falters; potholed streets grow more impassable as newly fallen snow turns to icy slush and then to clinging mud before the cycle begins again. Prices of staples such as cooking oil have lately jumped, driven up in part by a Pakistani border blockade, imposed after U.S. airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

As people forage for fuel, the city's few trees are stealthily denuded of low-hanging boughs. On a recent day, few looked twice at a ragged man dragging a scavenged branch three times his height along a heavily trafficked thoroughfare, its dead leaves swirling under the wheels of passing cars. Smoke from wood and coal fires used by most households for heating veils the capital in an acrid brown haze.

In a city where much of public life takes place outdoors, the cold gives many passersby a hunched, pinched look, especially as the early dusk falls. Customers linger in corner bakeries, seeking the ovens' warmth. Outdoor vendors and beggars gather around smoky trash fires in metal barrels. Feral dogs forage for scraps, thrusting their snouts through a dusting of snow.

Afghanistan's Meteorological Authority says this winter has not produced historical lows, but is forecast to be colder than the preceding few. During Taliban times, the agency's records for most of the last century were destroyed, because the fundamentalist Islamic group regarded meteorology as a form of sorcery.

With the falling temperatures, winter aid has become more crucial. Late last month, the United Nations refugee agency handed out blankets, plastic sheeting, warm clothes and fuel to abo! ut 300 families in Deh Sabz, an impoverished district of Kabul. But the demand far outstrips the supply, aid workers say.

"The ones we are helping are the most desperate we can find," said Mohammad Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "There are many, many others who are also suffering."

Despite billions of dollars in international assistance over the last decade, urban poverty is becoming more entrenched across Afghanistan, aid workers say. The U.N. World Food Program, which normally expends most of its efforts in the countryside, recently launched a food voucher system in Kabul, giving nearly 19,000 poor families about $25 a month for basic supplies.

Rural families, with close extended clan ties and the ability to engage in subsistence farming, sometimes fare better than their cousins in the city.

"At home, in our village, we would all help each other if we were hungry or cold," said Faida Mohammed, the father in Parwan Du. "But here, if I go to my relatives or close friends to ask for a little firewood, they are very quiet, and then they say, 'Brother, I have nothing to give you.'"

The unending quest to keep warm sometimes yields deadly results. Officials from Kabul's overstretched fire department say 95% of the emergency calls involve house fires, often the result of faulty wiring or blankets hung as insulation too close to an open flame.

In many poor homes, the only source of heat is a brazier-type stove called a sandali, often used with a quilt strung on a wooden frame that traps its meager warmth, but also potentially deadly charcoal fumes. Even in more affluent households, the concrete-slab construction that is a legacy of the Soviet era carries a deep, persistent chill, and central heating is a rarity.

Col. Yar Mohammed, the deputy Kabul fire chief, said leaky canisters of natural gas, used for heating and cooking, pose a particular hazard. In one home! , he recalled, a recent gas explosion that killed several family members was so powerful that panicky neighbors called police to report that the house next door had been hit by a rocket.

"With all the people who die in the war, it is terrible to see more die in preventable accidents like this," he said.

But most wintertime deaths involve a quieter slipping away. In Parwan Du, where sickness stalks nearly every flimsy shelter, Shoaib's parents were filled with dread when a neighbor's baby died in the night a week earlier. The children run about barefoot, sometimes napping in the weak winter sunlight if the previous night's cold made it too hard to sleep. The only food in the house was a plastic bag filled with stale bread, begged from a nearby restaurant.

"We hope that the government will help us someday," said the family's matriarch, Faida Mohammed's 60-year-old widowed mother, Zeliha. "But these days, we think our only help will come from God."

laura.king@latimes.com

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Afghans Complain About Uruzgan Projects

No meeting of minds as traders grumble about market facilities put in place for them by foreign aid agency.

IWPR By Ahmad Shah Jawad 2 Jan 2012

Afghanistan - Residents of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province say poor coordination between foreign NGOs and local government is reducing the effectiveness of aid projects.

One project that has caused particular disquiet is a new market for dried fruit and nuts in the Chora district, constructed this year by the German aid agency GIZ, formerly GTZ.

Traders say the covered market, known as the Karvan Sarai (Caravanserai), is made of low-quality raw materials, largely clay and wood, with plastic sheeting used for roofing. They say a building like this will not stand up to the harsh climate.

“The Karwan Sarai is on the verge of collapse even before construction is complete,” almond trader Mohammad Daud said. “All the poles used in the building have become warped and the roofs are falling down. We don’t want to put our businesses at risk by using this building.”

Abdol Qayum, a tribal elder in Chora district, claimed the original agreement was that the Karwan Sarai market would be made of concrete, but it ended up being constructed with clay bricks.

The head of GIZ in Uruzgan, Marcus Lange, rejected claims that the materials used were inferior or unsuitable.

“The market is built with materials like clay, based on engineering principles that mean it will last 20 years,” he said. “It’s very well built.”

Lange said GIZ consulted local people before the work began building began, but they could not agree on the best way to proceed.

“The building I use as my office is made of clay and I like it a lot,” he continued. “I built the Karwan Sarai out of clay for this reason. It isn’t just my personal preference – most of the houses in Chora district are made out of clay. We also considered the effect of the seasons. If we’d built it out of concrete, it would have been cold in winter and warm in summer.”

More generally, the arguments about the pros and cons of the market appear to reflect an uneasy relationship between local government and international NGOs operating in Uruzgan.

The head of the provincial department for economic affairs, Khodai Rahim, said GIZ had never submitted reports about its activities or budget.

“Every NGO should report to us on its activities every six months, but they [GIZ] have not done so,” he said.

Lange declined to discuss GIZ’s financial affairs.

“I can’t give information about the budget,” he said. “But I can say that our activities in Chora district are for the benefit of residents. Karwan Sarai was completed within a year, and 100 labourers worked on it on a daily basis. It was a good employment opportunity for residents of the district.”

The local government chief in Chora district, Mohammad Azim, expressed open hostility towards GIZ, saying its construction projects there, which have included roadbuilding as well as the Karvan Sarai market, were “merely symbolic, and not of benefit to people in the district”.

Locals went to Uruzgan governor Mohammad Omar Sherzad with their complaints about the market, and he promised to investigate. He claimed that foreign aid organisations often left him in the dark about projects they were implementing.

“When the people came to me, I set up a committee which I ordered to obtain the plans for Karwan Sarai and check them to see whether the contract says the building should be made of concrete or clay,” he said. “I will make every effort to ascertain whether the work was done according to plan. We will definitely take legal action if it wasn’t.”

A resident of Chora district, Fazel Karim, said that when Sherzad came to inaugurate the completed market, they told him he should not give it his blessing¸but he ignored them.

“We are confident that the project budget was over two or three million dollars,” Karim said. “If all that money had been spent on the market and all the buildings had been made of concrete, everything would be fine now.”

Mohammadollah, an economic expert in Uruzgan, said the Afghan government needed to be fully aware of what foreign aid organisations were doing.

“It is surprising that money is brought into Afghanistan in the name of reconstruction, yet the government isn’t aware who had that money, where it went and what happened to it,” he said.

Ahmad Shah Jawad is an IWPR trainee journalist in Uruzgan province.

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WFP launches food voucher projects in Kabul to support poor families

KABUL, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) inked an agreement with the Afghan Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD) here on Tuesday to support the vulnerable people in the war-torn Afghan capital, a statement of the WFP released here said.

In line with the agreement, the WFP would provide 3 million U.S. dollars over a six-month period, which will enable food assistance through monthly cash vouchers to extremely vulnerable households in Kabul, the statement added.

The project, the statement said, is designed to help the urban poor cope with high food prices and the voucher distribution will start in mid January 2012.

"We are very happy to be working in partnership with the MoLSAMD to help contain the impact of high food prices on the Afghan urban poor," WFP deputy country director Bradley Guerrant said in the statement.

Some 18,900 households (about 113,000 individuals) consisting mainly of poor women and households headed by disabled persons will benefit from the project, the statement said, adding each monthly voucher is worth 1,250 Afghanis or about 25 U.S. dollars and can be exchanged for food items in selected local shops.

The United Nations World Food Program is currently implementing voucher projects in three more Afghan cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad to assist vulnerable families.

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2.6 million! Afghans at risk of hunger from drought

By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press December 2nd, 2011

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Zara, an Afghan mother of seven, doesn't know what to tell her children when they ask about dinner.

"I simply tell them that we must wait until their father gets home to see if he's going to bring anything," she said, speaking from under a dusty blue burqa covering her from head to toe.

Zara, who uses just one name, is one of an estimated 2.6 million Afghans facing food shortages after one of the worst droughts to strike northern Afghanistan in a decade, according to Afghan officials and aid agencies. Already living in poverty in a country at war, many have been left destitute by the drought, which has affected 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces- all in the north.

Wells have dried up. Hundreds of children have been treated for malnutrition. Families are selling their animals at below-market prices. People are moving to cities to try to find food, water, work and, in some cases, a refuge from the fighting.

The Afghan government and aid agencies are racing to help them before snow blocks access to remote areas.

Rahmatullah Zahid, disaster coordinator in Balkh province, which has been hard-hit by the drought, said he is not worried yet about people starving to death, but he wonders how people will survive the winter, especially in remote areas.

"If the weather gets very, very cold in the remote areas and if the aid doesn't come, those families will be in danger of starvation," he said.

Beyond the relief effort, aid officials are trying to figure out how to end a vicious cycle of drought, drought relief and drought again in an area of the country that has suffered water and food shortages in eight of the past 11 years. Instead of trying to cultivate chronically dry land, perhaps farmers could grow almonds or grapes, which require less water than wheat, or industry could be lured to the area to extract! its prevalent gas and oil.

Zara and her family moved to Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, so her husband, whose crops dried up, might find work as a day laborer.

She and hundreds of others who fled the rugged Alburz Mountains in the province gathered last week in a dirt lot in Mazar-e-Sharif to receive large canvas bags of kitchen supplies, blankets, lamps and other items, including a phone card. The aid was distributed by the Norwegian Refugee Council.

"We have very little food," Zara said, squatting next to her aid bag. "If my husband finds work, he can buy some breads and vegetables on his way home, but otherwise there is nothing."

As she spoke, a light mist began to fall. The rain came too late. The crops were ruined months ago.

"There was no rain so everything was burned up," said Mir Ahmad, a 58-year-old wheat farmer who also moved to Mazar-e-Sharif from the mountains.

"There is not much work here in the city right now," he said, fingering a strand of yellow prayer beads as the large blue bags were unloaded from a truck. "Some days there is nothing and I have to borrow food or money to feed my family."

The U.N. issued an appeal for $142 million on Oct. 1 to help those hit by the drought in 14 northern provinces, where up to 80 percent of non-irrigated fields yielded little to no crops. So far, about $49 million has been pledged by aid groups, the U.S. and European nations.
The Afghan government also is distributing about 40,000 tons of wheat, 5,000 tons of rice, 10,000 tons of wheat seed and 20,000 tons of animal feed.

Sayed Anwar Rahmati, the governor of neighboring Sar-e-Pul province, said more aid is needed.

"Every day people are coming and complaining," he said. "The crops were lost and the cattle were seriously affected."

Zainab Noori, a member of the local council in nearby Bamiyan province, said people in six districts were waiting fo! r aid.

"If the aid is not delivered in the next month, the road will be blocked by snow," she said. "At least 50 families have left already to go to Kabul and Iran to find work."

Aidan O'Leary, head of the U.N. office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said repeated droughts in northern Afghanistan suggest that economic development is needed in addition to drought relief.

"What you're dealing with here is basically trying to maintain a rural, agrarian lifestyle in a climate that might not be conducive," O'Leary said. "What's the solution? Are you looking at better seeds? ... Are you looking at alternative crops? Are you looking at alternative livelihoods?"

With the international focus on pulling troops from Afghanistan, it's difficult to get nations sending development aid to discuss long-term solutions that would end the need for drought relief in the north every couple of years, he said. Compounding the problem is that while international aid has been flowing into Afghanistan for years, only a fraction has been targeted to reducing poverty, he said.

O'Leary noted a World Bank report this month that said the expected decline in international aid will have only a modest impact on the poor. The report said the majority of aid was spent to improve security and governance mostly in more urban areas where there is less poverty.

Ironically, it rained both days last week that O'Leary traveled to the north to check on drought aid with Michael Keating, deputy special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Afghanistan with responsibility for relief, recovery and reconstruction. The first day it sprinkled. The second day it poured. Muddy water filled deep ruts in unpaved roads in Dawlat Abad district.

Keating and O'Leary tried to visit a nearby village, but one of the heavily armored U.N. vehicles in their convoy got stuck. They left the vehicle, turned around and drove on better roads to their next stop: a! medical center where children are being treated for acute malnutrition.

The number of cases of malnutrition treated at the clinic increased threefold after the drought, said Dr. Said Mahmood Shah, nutrition coordinator for Save the Children. In the summer months, up to 90 malnourished children showed up at the center where a tiny office was crowded with cardboard boxes of eeZee Paste Nut, a peanut butter-like food with high energy, proteins and nutrients.

Now, rain, snow and poor roads have prevented some children from getting help, Shah said. "There are lots of cases, but they can't get here," he said.

The last stop was a meeting with villagers, including women who had received seeds and tools as part of a backyard garden project run by ActionAid, a British aid group.

One of the women, Jan Bibi, said that because of the drought, she and 10 other members of her family eat only once a day. Bibi, who is in her 70s with no land or home of her own, said she had not eaten meat for six to eight weeks.

"We are sticking to one meal a day," Bibi said, holding up a forefinger. "This year, it's really, really bad."

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Afghan children ready to walk down Sesame Street

Reuters By Daniel Magnowski Wed Nov 30, 2011

KABUL - Children in Afghanistan soon will be able to start their education the same way as millions of preschoolers elsewhere in the world: by watching the TV series "Sesame Street."

Makers of the show worked with two Afghan television channels and the ministry of education to produce the Afghan series, which begins on Thursday and features footage of Afghan life and the Muppets from the original U.S. version.

The series aims to encourage a love of learning in Afghanistan's youth. Around 45 percent of the population is under 15 and many will struggle to get an education, said Masood Sanjar, channel manager at TOLO TV, which will broadcast the show in Afghanistan's Dari language.

"Less than two-thirds of children are enrolled in primary school," he told reporters and children who had been invited to meet characters Grover and Ernie at a briefing in Kabul.

"'Sesame Street' is undoubtedly the most influential children's television program in the world. It was the first show to effectively use television as education," he said.

The series, funded by the U.S. embassy in Kabul and known in Afghanistan as 'Baghch-e-Simsim', will also be broadcast in the Pashto language on another channel, LEMAR TV.

"'Sesame Street' is not just for children," said Ryan Crocker, the United States' ambassador to Afghanistan.

"Teachers will discover that the characters in 'Sesame Street' can help children start school well prepared ... Afghan children who watch 'Sesame Street' will be ready to start school knowing the alphabet and knowing their numbers."

The Afghan education system, like many of its government functions, suffers from shortages of cash, and infrastructure shattered by years of war.

Earlier this year, a senior NATO commander said that only one in 10 Afghans who sign up for jobs in the army and police can read and write.

On Wednesday, Crocker said that when he first came to Afghanistan in 2001, only 900,000 children were in school, but that number has risen to more than 8 million.

A sample film displayed at the briefing on Wednesday showed a 6-year-old Afghan girl making friends on her first day at school, and red furry character Elmo searching in vain for someone who looked sad.

"Children will learn about the great diversity in this country," said Charlotte Cole, vice president for international education at Sesame Workshop, a not-for-profit organization that originally devised the series, first broadcast in America in 1969 and now screened in more than 100 countries.

"It's an opportunity to see a positive image of children like themselves on the screen."

(Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Paul Tait)

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EU Pledges $2 Million for Afghan Drought Victims

VOA News November 22, 2011

The European Union is pledging an additional $2 million in food assistance to drought victims in northern Afghanistan.

The European Commission said Monday that the aid will help those in affected communities that are already weakened due to conflict, security issues and under-development.

The commission says close to 3 million people are already suffering due to the drought in northern Afghanistan and the crisis may worsen before the 2012 harvest.

So far, the EU has given more than $6 million to help some 72,000 Afghans affected by the drought.

Separately in eastern Afghanistan, police say a roadside bomb has killed at least three civilians in the Alingar district of Laghman province. Two others were wounded in Tuesday’s attack.

And NATO says two of its service members were killed on Monday in the south. One coalition soldier died in an insurgent attack, the other in a roadside bombing.

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Afghan Private Schools Under Scrutiny

Education ministry closes ten schools and warns many others to raise standards.

IWPR By Maiwand Safi, Mina Habib 31 Oct 11

Afghanistan - The Afghan government is tightening up on private-sector education in the capital Kabul, accusing some schools of falling far below the required standards of teaching.

Since President Hamed Karzai ordered a probe of private education in April, the education ministry has closed down ten schools and ordered six others not to reopen for the autumn term until they submit the requisite documentation.

According to ministry spokesman Amanullah Iman, five others were fined up to 1,000 US dollars each, 16 received written warnings and 14 were sent letters advising them what improvements they needed to make.

The process is to be extended to other Afghan provinces in the near future, Iman said.

Outlining the major problems the ministry uncovered, Iman said staff at some private schools were untrained, teaching methods were variable, some of them taught via English instead of the official languages Dari and Pashto, and the fees they charged were often exorbitant.

Afghanistan currently has around 450 fee-paying private schools and universities, compared with over 14,000 state schools where there are no fees.

The closures and other measures have angered the Association of Private Schools, and also the national Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which called them an attack on the private sector.

“The government must reconsider its decision,” the chamber’s deputy head Khan Jan Alokozay said, adding, “Of course we are ready to close privately-owned schools immediately if they’re acting against national, traditional and religious values or against the law.”

Iman said it was the ministry’s job to regulate private education and to decide what practices schools needed to adhere to.

“What’s important thing to us is the future of children in this country, not public opinion,” he said. “We won’t allow anyone to play with the future of this country’s children.”

Sultan Mohammad, who owns the Sarwar-e Kayenat school, which was among those shut down, alleged that the authorities had acted unfairly and as a result, cast hundreds of pupils adrift.

“Our documents were in order, and our teaching methodology was in line with standards,” he said. “We were operating in compliance with the guidelines set by the education ministry, yet it arbitrarily closed our school.”

Iman denied accusations of high-handed behaviour, insisting that the ministry did not discriminate between institutions and was seeking only to ensure all children got a good education.

“Our investigatory team performed its duty in a completely upright manner,” he added.

He pointed out that some private schools had come out well from the investigation.

Osman, who has two sons at the Ahmad Shah Abdali, said he was satisfied with the teaching there.

“I’m happy with the education in this school,” he said. “My sons do their homework every day and prepare for the next day’s lessons. If they don’t turn up at school, the school administration will call us. We monitor their work and if we spot a problem, we contact the school administration.”

At some other schools, however, there are concerns that a focus on profits overshadows everything else.

Kabul resident Ataullah expressed disappointment with the private school where he enrolled his son. Despite being in a low-paid job as a driver, he found the fees for what he hoped would be a superior education.

“After a while, I realised my son’s learning was deteriorating day by day,” he said. “I went to the school and saw that in many of the classes, there were no teachers and the boys were just playing. So I took my son out.”

His son Salem, 14, who now goes to a state school, added, “Private schools have nice buildings and look very beautiful from the outside, but there’s nothing inside.”

He described a pattern of young teachers arriving to teach and then leaving, sometimes after just a few days, and classes being left to their own devices without any supervision.

“Everything was sold at a price there – we even had to pay for drinking water,” he said.

The school’s headmaster said it conformed with all the regulations, and the only time classes were left without teachers was when new staff were being interviewed and tested.

“That takes time, but otherwise, none of our classes has been left without a teacher,” he said, acknowledging that “everybody falls ill or has family commitments, so every teacher sometimes needs to be absent”.

A teacher at one private school in Kabul, who asked to remain anonymous, said complaints from pupils and parents were quite justified. Far from being properly qualified, many of his colleagues were high-school graduates who had failed their university entrance exams.

“I can honestly tell you that we have teachers who can’t even read a text properly, and their writing and punctuation is appalling,” he said. “The school administration always pressures teachers to give the pupils pass marks, because that’s how they make money.”

The use of English as a teaching medium has proved popular with parents who believe it give their children an edge in their future careers, but it has not been approved by the education ministry.

A pupil at one of the Kabul schools fined by the education ministry said classes in English often left him and his classmates confused.

“Apart from two subjects, all classes in our school are taught in English and there are many things we don’t understand properly,” he said.

State-sector educators, meanwhile, insist their schools are better standards than private ones.

“From my perspective, the standard of education in these privately-owned schools is very low, because the teachers are high-school graduates or even pupils from the same school who have recently completed the 12th grade,” Hasina Yusufi, head of the Bibi Mahro school for girls, said.

“Professional teachers with degrees don’t work in the private schools because they don’t have a future there. For instance, teachers in government schools have pensions, opportunities for promotion, protected salaries and so on, which means they have a guaranteed future. They don’t get those things in the private schools.”

Yusufi concluded, “Anyway, these schools aren’t to be trusted. They’re here today, but if they make a loss tomorrow, they will close and the teachers will face an uncertain future.”

Maiwand Safi and Mina Habib are IWPR-trained reporters in Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan: Child Street Workers Vulnerable to Abuse Hundreds of children in northern town miss out on school

IWPR By Baqer Adeli 15 Oct 11

Afghanistan - In the relentless heat of a summer’s day in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, most people are trying to find some shade, but 11-year-old Mohammad Rafiq is walking the streets carrying a box full of shoe-shining equipment.

Dripping with sweat, the boy asks passers-by, “Uncle, may I polish your shoes?”

Although often rebuffed, he carries on walking undeterred, calling out, “Polish your shoes and slippers.”

Mohammad Rafiq used to spend his days at school, but five months ago, his family moved to Mazar-e Sharif because of drought and unemployment in Faryab province, where they lived. He would love to carry on in school, but doubts he will able to do so.

“My father is old and ill,” he said. “My brother and I polish people's shoes every day. We only earn enough to pay for bread.”

The worse thing about his new life working on the streets, he said, was when strangers tried to lure him into sex work.!

“Nothing annoys us more than the demands of these horrible people, who ask us to do bad things,” he said.

Mohammad Rafiq described how a friend of his was abused by a stranger who enticed him by giving him something to eat, and then abducted him.

“They took him to some place and did shameful things to him,” he said. “They dumped him in a corner of the city after a few days. He didn’t feel well, and had to be taken to hospital.”

Hundreds of children work on the streets of Mazar-e Sharif, collecting rubbish, carrying goods, selling produce or simply begging.

Experts say they are often at risk of sexual exploitation. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has repeatedly expressed concern over an increase in sexual abuse cases.

“Children are the most vulnerable section of society,” said Salamat Azimi, head of the commission’s section for children’s rights in northern Afghanistan. “There is no guarantee these children will not be abused.”

Sexual abuse is a taboo subject in Afghanistan, and the families of victims often keep quiet about it out of shame or fear of reprisals.

Nevertheless, local media in the north have recently reported on ten cases of abuse, and got family members to speak out on behalf of the victims.

Maria Sayi, head of child protection at Balkh provincial welfare department, said the lawless environment, poverty and unemployment forced many minors to work.

“Children can often be observed working from sunrise until evening. The International Labour Organisation has banned such conditions for children,” she said, adding that Afghan labour legislation was unclear on the hours and kind of jobs minors were allowed to work at.

A survey carried out by her organisation in 2008 covered some 780 children, and found that many of them had been forced to drop out of school and go to work for economic reasons.

Sayi s! aid that when cases of child abuse were uncovered, her agency worked with the police to pursue the culprits. But sometimes they involved individuals to powerful to be held to account.

“Influential figures are often involved, and we fail to go after them,” she said. “When we realise that we have leads that take us out of our depth, we are forced to stop investigating the case. Even the national security forces sometimes warn us to stop.”

Sayi said her department had received threats from powerful individuals when it investigated such cases.

Mohammad Nazer Alemi, a child protection campaigner who heads the Youth Information Centre in Balkh province, confirmed that powerful individuals and officials were sometimes implicated in the abuse.

He said he was in possession of a documentary film which no media outlet would agree to air, because it showed the involvement of powerful individuals.

He referred to the tradition of “bacha bazi” or dancing boys, kept by powerful older men and made to perform at private parties.

“They not only force them to dance but also sexually abuse them,” he said.

Sher Jan Doranai, spokesman for police headquarters in Balkh, said sexual abuse and child trafficking did not exist in Balkh province at all.

“Perhaps such cases exist in other northern provinces, but not in Balkh,” he said, insisting that the police carried out their duties of child protection to the full.

While a child protection law is on the statute books, observers say it is not implemented properly. Alemi said that on several occasions, he had seen police harassing or beating street children instead of protecting them.

Mohammad Rafiq will continue living on his wits, and on the advice his mother gives him.

“Every day, she tells me to come home before it gets dark in the evening, not to polish anyone’s shoes in secluded places, not to take extra money if anyone offers i! t to me, and not to eat anything offered by strangers,” he said,

Baqer Adeli is an IWPR-trained journalist in Balkh province, northern Afghanistan.

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Violence 'Affecting Afghan Children's Mental Health'

September 19, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

KABUL -- Human rights officials in Afghanistan have endorsed earlier findings suggesting that endemic violence is inflicting considerable psychological trauma and distress on children in that country, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission in Kabul told RFE/RL that many Afghan children have witnessed acts of violence, seeing people being killed in bomb attacks or seeing dead bodies on the streets.

A 2009 study by England's Durham University, the first large-scale survey of Afghan children's mental health, reported that one in five children suffers from psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

An RFE/RL correspondent in Kabul's Abdul Haq neighborhood -- the scene of a recent Taliban attack in which six militants launched assaults against Afghan and international forces -- interviewed some children who had witnessed t! he violence.

"We were in the classroom when we heard gunfire behind our school," said one student. "We all escaped and ran home. A lot of my classmates were crying saying that we were going to die."

"When we were running from the school, I saw a car pull up by the road," Najib, a sixth-grader, told RFE/RL. "A man dressed in women's clothing came out and shot a policeman and then ran into a building."

Hasib, 15, said the attacks caused panic among his classmates, with some still traumatized days later. "Psychologically it hit everybody hard," he said. "Many of us don't eat properly, we have trouble sleeping, and find it hard to concentrate on our studies."

Children have been some of the worst victims of Afghanistan's nearly three decades of war.

According to UNICEF, more than 30 percent of children of elementary-school age are working on the streets in Afghanistan and are often their family's sole breadwinners. That means that millions of children are not going to school.

Child labor in Afghanistan is also rampant, with many impoverished families selling their kids into forced labor, sexual exploitation, and early marriage.

Some of the children -- who can be as young as 3 years old -- are overworked and are suffer from malnutrition and disease.

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The Afghanistan Minister of Education, Dr. Farooq Wardak, has been very busy since taking office three years ago.

More than 8,000 school buildings have been constructed in the country since the end of the Taliban regime in 2001. And,contracts were signed this week, for constructing 13 more schools in eight different provinces over the next six months.

The new classrooms will help nearly 8,500 students, many of whom study in the open air or under tents. Funding for the $1.6 million will come from the education ministry, the World Bank and Denmark.

Despite challenges such as lack of teacher aptitude, the Ministry of Education has increased school enrollment to seven million children, including more than 2.5 million girls enrolled in the last ten years.

Wardak said the achievements being made in Afghanistan were to be shared with American taxpayers especially, given that they are the ones who contributed the most to the effort in rebuilding Afghanistan. Japan also has been generous with grants for rebuilding the war-torn country.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education has set a 2020 deadline to provide all children in the nation equal access to a quality education.

[According to a Feb. 2011 (PDF) Congressional Research Service report, 8,000 schools were built since 2001; the Pajhwok Afghan News says 10,700 school buildings have been constructed across the county since then.]

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Afghans brace for economic fallout of U.S. exit

The World Bank estima! tes that 97% of Afghanistan's economy is tied to international military and donor spending, and many Afghans are nervous about how the troops' departure will affect the nation.

Los Angeles Times By Mark Magnier August 19, 2011

Kabul, Afghanistan - Sorosh Tokhi's wallet is a lot fatter since foreign troops moved into Afghanistan in 2001. As an interpreter for the U.S. military earning $700 a month, he has bought a flat-screen TV and a sport utility vehicle, helped his parents out and paid for relatives' tuition.

So President Obama's recent announcement that U.S. troops will step up the pace toward a 2014 departure makes him nervous.

"Life's been good, hell yeah," said Tokhi, 24, shopping with friends on upscale Shar-e-Naw Street in Kabul, the capital. "But there's lots of change coming. When the U.S. troops leave, this place is going back to civil war."

The West's measured dash for the exit has Afghans bracing for an economic meltdown with reduced security, political instability, more violence and more economic destruction.

The World Bank estimates that 97% of Afghanistan's economy is tied to international military and donor spending, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warning of "severe economic depression" after 2014. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development spend about $320 million a month in Afghanistan.

Though U.S. officials pledge to help Afghanistan beyond 2014, some here are skeptical. They point out that the United States in the 1980s provided weapons and training to Afghan fighters opposed to Soviet occupation of the country, but lost interest as the Soviets pulled out and Afghanistan faced civil war.

Many Afghans fear the U.S. will soon shift more foreign aid to places such as Egypt, Tunisia and eastern Libya, which have seen public uprisings calling for democracy.

Afghanistan has little manufacturing or mining, despite its rich mineral wealth, and a chronically weak govern! ment. And though the Finance Ministry has pledged to fund its own budget by 2014, it's unable to collect much tax revenue outside the capital, given security concerns and citizen resistance.

Under pressure from foreign envoys, the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries hopes to craft an economic transition plan that relies on private investment as foreign aid declines. Its efforts are hampered, however, by burdensome laws and regulations, corruption, deteriorating infrastructure and security problems, officials say.

Like Tokhi, several businessmen in Kabul said they have prospered since the Taliban left the city in 2001 despite the many years of war, and they now worry that their financial successes will come to an end.

The construction sector has boomed, with customers such as the U.S. military, United Nations agencies, wealthy Afghans and local warlords. Even some of those who have not done as well in the war economy, emphasizing that aid and prosperity often are not distributed evenly, wondered what amount of good might come when Afghanistan is on its own.

Many merchants and residents said they feared a resurgence of Taliban influence and violence.

"After every blast, my business goes to sleep for six months," said Ismail Abdul Salam, who said he often sells toilets to warlords with a penchant for large, gaudy homes with faux Corinthian columns. "Unfortunately my costs don't."

Mushtaba Nijati said he opened his shop selling water heaters a few years ago and has maintained a steady clientele, but now expects business to go over a cliff.

"Of course we're worried," Nijati said. "Why did America come if it's going to turn around and leave? This economy will collapse."

Others, like tailor Aamoz Majidzada, whose shop consists of little more than wooden boards, dangling wires and a foot-powered sewing machine, are unimpressed by the meager progress of most Afghans.

"Corrupt politicians, drug kings,! warlords, they've made millions," Majidzada said. "I'm so angry seeing them in their mansions, eating fancy food, when I can't make enough to feed my three children.

"Since America invaded, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," he said. "I don't care if they stay or leave."

Adding to the country's bleak outlook, shopkeepers and analysts said, is just how little politicians are doing to prepare for the nation's economic future.

Take Kabul Bank, where well-connected shareholders "borrowed" nearly $1 billion for private projects, said Habibullah Takhari, 63, a former government official. "The economy's in crisis and there's no plan," he said. "When foreign troops go, everything will be worse, for us and the world."

Though poor security and sometimes badly executed Western aid remain huge impediments, analysts said, Afghanistan ultimately has lost a historic chance to rebuild, train its citizens and gain economic traction.

"It was a golden opportunity," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research group. "But who's to blame? Sure there's huge corruption. But how the economy works, the political system, were imposed by the West."

The one homegrown industry poised to fill the economic vacuum quickly is opium, with devastating implications for the West. Afghanistan already produces 93% of the world's crop, accounting by some estimates for one-third of its $18-billion economy.

"They've also become the world's biggest hashish producer again recently, so they're diversifying," Ruttig said, speaking of a cannabis preparation.

Many Afghans are upset by reports of the rich and powerful grabbing all they can through such varied means as kickbacks, payoffs, insider deals and preferential property agreements, stashing millions abroad and acquiring dual citizenship, presumably in preparation for leaving the country.

"I can hear the sucking sound in the air, people taking Afghanistan for what it's worth," said Amanullah Mojadidi, 40, a Kabul-based installation artist and social critic. "It'll be a bubble bursting like people have never seen, a massive shock to the economy, society, politics."

Ommolbanin Shamsia Hassani, 20, also an artist in Kabul, said she still holds out hope.

"I love my country," she said. "I don't want to go anywhere else. If people don't stay, who will help Afghanistan?"

mark.magnier@latimes.com

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EURASIANET.org By Aunohita Mojumdar

Afghanistan’s rapidly growing population is starting to worry officials in Kabul. The demographic issue has the potential to become a significant source of instability in the coming decades.

Traditional respect for large families, especially sons, is deeply embedded among Afghans. Urbanization has reduced somewhat the economic need for large families, yet the practice remains widespread. At 6.6 children being born on average to every Afghan woman, Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia. Among many Muslim believers, having a large number of children is even perceived as a religious duty. “People feel the bigger the family, the more influential you are and the greater the number of children to work and earn an income,” said Dr. Nasrat Rasa, a reproductive health consultant with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Kabul. More than three decades of strife, starting with the decade-long Soviet occupation in 1979, have helped encourage Afghans to have lots of children. “People were scared their children would be killed in the conflict and wanted to ensure some would survive,” Rasa explained. The same goes with infant mortality. A high percentage of infants are underweight because they and their mothers lack essential nutrients. That fact, combined with inadequate access to healthcare, has produced a high death rate among children. The country’s under-five mortality rate decreased from 257 per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 161 per 1,000 in 2007-2008, but is still one of the highest in the world, according to UN statistics. “People had large families because they wanted to have insurance for the future,” Deputy Health Minister Nadera Hayat Burhani, who heads the ministry’s reproductive health program, told EurasiaNet.org. “Here, there is no health insurance, no life insurance. Each family has lost one or more person during the war and they wanted to ensure there would be someone to look after the parents in their old age.” If the current pace holds, the population – by most counts now around 30 million – is estimated to reach 47 million by 2025, and 76 million by 2050. At that rate, there seems little chance that Afghanistan’s economic stabilization efforts can keep pace with the expanding population. With the Afghan government already struggling to provide for the existing population, maintaining the population growth rate would be a “disaster,” according to Burhani. “Given our low economic conditions, how could we prepare for providing education, health, food and shelter?” the deputy minister added. Public health professionals and government policymakers are working to change attitudes and introduce systematic family planning. To bolster their efforts, officials are citing Islamic principles in making a case for smaller families. “People give religious reasons for wanting to have more children,” said the UN’s Rasa, “even though the Koran has verses in support of birth spacing.” For example, Afghan officials are encouraging an interpretation of the Koran that enjoins mothers to breastfeed a child for two years. Because breastfeeding acts as a natural contraceptive (women ovulate far less during lactation), health officials hope that raising awareness about such an interpretation could eventually lead to a drop in the birth rate. “We are approaching this very carefully,” said Mohammad Younus Payab, UNFPA’s deputy country director. “We are attaching the issue of birth spacing to religious beliefs and the injunctions in the Koran. We don’t want to create any backlash.” Clerics and community leaders are part of the family-planning efforts. “We are training maulvis [religious leaders] to spread the message through Friday prayers in the mosques,” said Deputy Minister Burhani. To give the efforts added muscle, her ministry has also translated and adapted a book on Islam and family planning produced by Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, an eminent center of Islamic learning. Despite such efforts, officials and public health workers recognize it will take time to bring about the desired change. The experience of Nabila Ibrahimi, a community health worker for Care, an international non-governmental organization, highlights the difficulties. In the village of Fazel Beg on the outskirts of Kabul, Ibrahimi convinced 37-year-old Sadia to take birth-control pills after her 11th delivery left her in poor health. However, Sadia’s husband believed the pills were un-Islamic and threw them out. “Besides,” says Sadia, “though I have 10 [surviving children], seven of them are girls. My husband wants more sons, so I am waiting to get pregnant again.

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Nearly nine million face food shortages

KABUL, 9 August 2011 (IRIN) - Ongoing drought in northern, northeastern and western Afghanistan is likely to push 1.5-2 million more people into food insecurity this autumn, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

This is in addition to the seven million country-wide already facing food shortages.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) is reporting a failure of the rain-fed wheat crop, which accounts for about 55 percent of the total domestic wheat yield.

Irrigated wheat, which tends to yield more per hectare, has also been affected by the drought. The average wheat yield (without fertilizers) on irrigated land is about 2.7 tons per hectare (3.5 tons with fertilizer), versus only 1.1 tons on rain-fed land, according to MAIL.

In a normal year Afghanistan produces 4.5 million tons of wheat and around one million tons are imported. The shortfall of 1.9 million tons of wheat this year means more will either have to be imported or secured from other sources.

“Satellite derived rainfall estimates indicate that most of Afghanistan had an untimely and inadequate rain and snow season this year. As a result, there will be heavy losses in rain-fed wheat crops, underperforming irrigated wheat crops, poor pasture conditions, and low income earning opportunities in northern Afghanistan and the central highlands this year,” said the US Agency for International Development’s FEWSNET.

Increased need due to the drought comes as WFP is already facing a severe funding shortage for its existing programmes in Afghanistan.

“WFP had originally planned to feed more than seven million Afghans this year, but currently has the resources to reach less than four million,” WFP spokesman Assadullah Azhari told IRIN in Kabul.

He said additional funds would be required to cover the new drough! t-related needs.

President Hamid Karzai also expressed concern about the drought at a cabinet meeting on 30 July: “The current drought in certain provinces is hugely damaging to the life of people and their livestock.”

Sultan (he goes by only one name), 35, a farmer in Paghman District not far from Kabul, has been trying to truck in water for his wheat crop from a water source more than 10km from his village.

“All the water sources including the underground water have dried up in my village and now I need to pay a tanker to bring me water,” he told IRIN in Kabul. “I feel so sad… After two months my wheat is still only 20cm tall.”

He said that if he had had sufficient water for irrigation, his wheat crop would have been almost ready for harvest now. Even with expensive trucked-in water he would only get 20 percent of his normal crop, he added.

Assessments under way

According to MAIL officials, assessments are under way in drought-affected areas of the north, northeast, the west and the central highlands to determine exactly how many people will require food assistance and for how long.

Much of the looming wheat shortfall will be covered by government reserves and commercial imports. But additional humanitarian assistance may be required to support an estimated 1.5 to 2 million drought victims, according to WFP.

Karzai called on the ministries of commerce, finance and MAIL to take extra measures, and import wheat from India to try to meet needs.

WFP said the USA had cut its funding of WFP activities in Afghanistan by more than two-thirds since 2009. “But we continue to appeal to donors for the support that will allow us to ensure all those in need of help in the coming months are assisted,” said Azhari.

“The areas affected by drought are hard or impossible to reach by road during the winter. So it is critical to get food assistance in place early, before those people are cut o! ff by snowfall,” he warned.

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WFP: Three Million in Afghanistan Will Need Food Aid

Voice of America, July 13, 2011-The World Food Program estimates 2-3 million drought victims in Afghanistan will need food assistance this year. WFP, which is suffering from a serious shortfall in funding for its regular programs, warns many people will go hungry unless International donors come up with the cash needed to assist them.

Poor rainfall this year has hurt Afghanistan's wheat crop. The Afghan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock estimates the overall harvest will be 28 percent lower than last year's.

The expected shortfall of nearly two million metric tons of wheat will affect some 12 million people. The World Food Program says the government will cover most of their needs. But, it notes between two and three million people will require food assistance.

WFP Deputy Country Director in Afghanistan, Bradley Guerrant says his agency would like to help these people, but it lacks the resources to do so.

He notes WFP's three-year operation to feed more than seven million vulnerable Afghans is in trouble. The program is budgeted at $400 million a year. But, WFP has received only half that amount.

As a consequence, he tells VOA that WFP has been forced to cut the number of beneficiaries by nearly half. He says emergency relief programs are continuing, but rehabilitation or developmental activities are not.

"School feeding is not a life-saving activity. It is an activity, designed to both provide an incentive for children to attend school," said Guerrant. "There has been a lack of attention for children to go to school in the past and particularly for girls...10...So, those types of activities will have to be cut out for the time being. They are not life saving as defined by relief and recovery."

The United States is WFP's biggest donor. Guerrant says contributions have fallen significantly because of the budget impasse in Washington. He says USAID has given WFP $110 million for its Afghan operations this year, compared to $365 million it received in 2009. He notes Afghanistan is one of the most poverty-stricken, food insecure countries in the world. And, any cuts in food assistance will simply add to the already existing problems of high child mortality and malnutrition.

He tells VOA malnutrition rates vary throughout the country. But, what he finds particularly worrying, he says, is the level of stunting, which has risen to more than 50 percent over the last few years. He says he expects the situation to become worse because of the drought. "The quick onset, with the drought and you have lack of food, then that is where acute numbers go up. Chronic will probably maintain at these levels," said Guerrant. "How and when we see changes to the acute is yet to be known. But, you would anticipate that as less food is available, that acute numbers will go up as well."

The World Food Program says pastoralists, who have lost livestock and subsistence farmers whose crops have failed in the north, northeast and Central Highlands are most affected by the drought.

It says these people will not have enough food to carry them through the winter and the next harvest is not expected until one year from now. WFP says it urgently needs $200 million to provide food to these people who no longer can fend for themselves.

First wave of US drawdown from Afghanistan starts with National Guard troops leaving this week Associated Press, July 13, 2011-The first troops to leave Afghanistan as part of the U.S. drawdown handed over their slice of battlefield Wednesday to a unit less than half their size and started packing for home.

When the 650 members of the Iowa National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in November 2010, bases didn't have enough housing, translators were in short supply and chow halls were packed. Commanders were using a buildup of 33,000 extra troops for a major push that they said would turn the tide of the war against the Taliban insurgency.

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38,000 internally displaced persons in Pakistan return homes: UN

ISLAMABAD, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday that 38,000 people, who had been displaced as the result of fighting in Pakistan's tribal regions, have returned homes.

Most of them have returned homes over the past two months in Bajaur Agency, while a smaller number have gone to neighboring Mohmand Agency. Both agencies are in the northern part of Pakistan 's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, bordering Afghanistan.

They were assisted in leaving the Jalozai camp -- the largest of the area's four camps for internally displaced near the northwestern city of Peshawar, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statement.

The government of Pakistan, which organized the voluntary return operation, has declared all of Bajaur, with the exception of Loi Sam, to be safe. It is currently working to identify an alternative site inside Bajaur Agency for the approximately 3,000 families who were living in Loi Sam and whose homes have been damaged by fighting. Areas declared safe in Mohmand include Lower Mohmand and parts of Upper Mohmand.

Displacement from Pakistan's tribal areas began in 2008 in the wake of a government crackdown on insurgents.

UNHCR assisted the government by funding the transportation of returnees. "We also established warehouses in Khar in Bajaur Agency and in Ghalanai in Mohmand. Returning families were provided with basic household supplies. Tents were also given to those whose homes were damaged in the conflict for use as temporary shelters while repairs are carried out. Other UN agencies are also providing help," the statement said.

The World Food Program has enrolled returnees in cash for work programs, UNICEF is providing hygiene kits, and WHO is offering health care through a partner organization.

At the peak of the displacement crisis in 2009, more than 21, 000 families (around 147,000 people) were registered in Jalozai, however the vast majority of the displaced -- around 90 percent -- lived outside camps, with friends, relatives and in rented accommodation.

An estimated 5,000 families (26,000 individuals) remain in Jalozai, most of them residents of areas still considered unsafe for returns. Jalozai has long been one of Pakistan's largest camps, and prior to 2008 was home to tens of thousands of Afghan refugees.

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Kandahar women risk paying the ultimate price in pursuit of higher learning 

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Canadian-funded textbooks and computers aren't overly expensive — certainly not compared to the price Afghan women risk having to pay for using them.

The sort of mundane learning most westerners have long taken for granted carries a persistent and very real threat for female students in southern Afghanistan: injury or death at the hands of the Taliban.

For the determined, however, it's no deterrent.

"For sure, I am afraid," says Heena Tariq, a teenager who's taking an online accounting course at a school in Kandahar city.

"It's not fair we are afraid and stay home. We have to be brave. We have to study for the future and brighten our lives."

Tariq is one of about 700 women who have defied custom and the threat of insurgent thuggery to attend the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre.

The centre, a professional-development school, teaches business management, computer technology and English, as well as leadership and job-oriented skills.

It exists because the women's thirst for learning and self-sufficiency outweighs their fears; because of Canadian largesse; and because of the energetic idealism of its founder, Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Born in neighbouring Zabul province but raised in the Kandahar city region, Ehsan is convinced women should be educated.

"It's simply not easy: these women suffer so much," he says. "Every time, we expect something unwanted may happen.

"Despite all these challenges and difficulties, all of these women come out; they get the skills they need and then they take jobs."

It was in 2006 that Ehsan's struggles to run a small school for females attracted the attention of two donors in Ottawa. At the end of that year, he opened the centre with 12 female students.

More students began enrolling. Soon, he opened the first Internet cafe for women in Kandahar. And the school blossomed into one of the most popular in the region, eventually attracting financial support from the Canadian government.

Ottawa recently agreed to give $250,000 to the school for the coming year, but the hope is for a commitment until 2014 to allow it to develop a solid business model.

Adam Sweet, a spokesman for the Canadian International Development Agency in Kandahar, says education was a "key element" of Canada's "unwavering" support of Afghan females.

As a result, Canada will continue to support education programming in Afghanistan even after the Canadian combat mission comes to an end in July.

An annual budget equivalent to the paycheque of one high school principal in Canada allows the centre to keep 59 teachers — nine of them women — and 10 support staff on the payroll. Male students bring the student population to about 1,500.

There is generator power around the clock, 90 computers and an Internet connection. And the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology provides 50 scholarships to the women to take its online courses.

Asked if he, too, is worried for his safety, Ehsan replies with an emphatic question: "Well, why not?"

"One has to be worried," he says. "We are doing a job that so many people are upset about."

Proof of his point is easy to come by.

Two motorcyclists recently drew a pistol on a female student in front of the school gate. The school's bus driver has been warned not to pick up females. On Tuesday, insurgents shot dead the principal of a girls' school in Logar province.

And the stories of teachers and students being beheaded or having acid thrown in their faces have made headlines around the world.

"It is still a society where work and education is an honour problem for women," Ehsan says.

"(But) there are so many people who support us here, who work hard to protect us, who work to spread a good word for us. That's driving these bad forces away."

Still, many of the women, who range from their teens to approaching middle age, pull on burkas before travelling to or from the tranquil confines of the school, which is located on a quiet side street.

Ehsan's efforts clearly inspire them.

"He's doing these things for us so we can have a bright life and future, so we can serve our country," says Tariq, her voice taut with emotion. Ehsan, she says, deserves their full efforts.

"We should come out of the home and we should struggle. We also have to give him a result."

At the community centre, woman are admitted free. Male students pay a few dollars a month for a course — enough to make their programs self-sustaining.

Lida Hiday, 21, who is taking an online course in business administration through SAIT, said education is critical for the women themselves, their families, and Afghanistan.

"We don't want to show that it is a weakness we are women. We can do anything we want if we really want it," she says.

"Sometimes, when the situation is intense, we are really having problems. But still we are trying hard to come."

Hundreds of the centre's graduates are now transforming workplaces that were once male-only domains. They have well-paid office jobs, mostly with international and government organizations.

The school has stripped away an unwanted veil that has always separated the women from the outside, Ehsan says.

"Today, they are talking to the world. They have opened up to the world."

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Program boosts Afghan children's health 

Micronutrient Initiatives fieldworker visits Ottawa headquarters

Ottawa Citizen By Jennifer Campbell February 23, 2011

In the poorest countries of the world, just a little vitamin A or folic acid can make a big difference in people's lives, particularly those of women and children. And Canada, thanks to a commitment to child and maternal health made at the G8 Summit held in Muskoka last year, is being recognized for such efforts.

Last week, Ibrahim Shinwari was in town to meet the people who fund his program in Afghanistan. A medical doctor, he is the director of the Micronutrient Initiative's program in the war-torn country. The Micronutrient Initiative is an Ottawa-based non-profit agency that works to provide basics such as vitamins to as many of the poorest members of society as possible. It works in 70 countries, of which Afghanistan is one. The Afghan program was established in 1999 and MI set up a permanent office there four years ago. But Shinwari had never been to Canada, so he figured it was time to pay a visit.

"I would like to thank the Canadian people for giving to this program and helping the poor and innocent in Afghanistan," Shinwari said. "This is the first time I come to Ottawa."

Shinwari said through its various programs, MI Afghanistan has helped millions of children, and hundreds of thousands of women. It has, for example, supplied six million children with vitamin A capsules for a twice-yearly supplementation campaign through national immunization days.

The vitamins protect the youngsters from a number of diseases, including measles and xerophalmia, from which they might otherwise die. Through another program, the initiative adds iodine to salt, which plays an important role in fetal brain development.

And finally, in a project in which it has partnered with the World Food Program and UNICEF, it fortifies foods such as wheat flour with iron and folic acids. Iron is essential for development and also lowers the risk of maternal mortality due to hemorrhage during childbirth, and folic acids promote healthy early development of the spinal cord, skull and brain.

About 150,000 pregnant and lactating women received iron and folic acid tablets and up to 500,000 people had access to wheat flour fortified with iron and folic acid during that project's lifetime.

Shinwari sees the impact firsthand.

"I've interviewed many of them," the soft-spoken doctor says. He remembers one woman whose child was thin, lethargic and generally unhealthy. When he made a return visit, she referred to his micronutrient offerings as "the powder of strength" because her child was much healthier and much more active. She told him it seemed "very promising because it gives us energy."

While in Ottawa, Shinwari managed to get a meeting with International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. especially impressive in a week when the embattled minister was facing serious questions about her involvement in altering a document to reverse funding to a Christian aid organization and accusations that she misled the House of Commons and a parliamentary committee. In spite of her personal trials, she was encouraging about the program, which is almost entirely sponsored by CIDA.

"She generally supported the Micronutrient Initiative," Shinwari said. "She told me it was special and that she was encouraged to provide special support to Afghanistan."

In addition to Oda, the director met with four MPs, some of whom told him they intend to visit Afghanistan to see how the program operates on the ground, as well as officials with the Canadian International Development Agency. He said officials were kind and "very supportive" of his work. He also met with staff at the Aga Khan Foundation, to discuss the possibility of future partnerships between the two organizations.

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Street children in Kabul call for peace, seek education 
by Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua 

KABUL, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- As the Taliban-led insurgency is continuing unabated in the war-torn Afghanistan, the suffering Afghan children, like their parents, are lamenting the protracted war and seeking peace and schooling. 

"We want peace. We want better life. We have been fed up with the continued war. Enough is enough. My prime desire is to go to school in a peaceful environment," Hamid, 8, told Xinhua's scribe here in Afghan capital city Kabul. 

Hamid went on to say, "My dream is to become a doctor and serve my people." 

The protracted war and civil strife have caused Hamid's father to lose his leg, leaving the naive Hamid alone to serve as the only bread earner of four-member family. 

Nevertheless, the disability of his father and poverty has forced the ambitious Hamid to forget childhood's joy, but to shoulder family burden to survive. 

"To materialize my dream, I am working hard and I go to school half day besides working on the street to earn money and support family," Hamid continued. 

Portraying his hardship, the forced labor child who cleans cars in the chilly weather of Kabul said, "I earn 30 to 80 Afghanis from afternoon to dusk." The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to Afghan national currency Afghani is about 1:45. 

The meager income is too little to buy daily needs of a four-member family in Kabul where the skyrocketing prices have squeezed ordinary people. 

"I have been forced to join thousands of street children in Kabul and continue to work as the only bread earner for my family, " Hamid said, if without donation from the well-off and social organizations, the family could not survived. 

Economic problems, continued war and displacement of people have forced many children to work on the streets and support their families. 

The ongoing conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency are destructive for civilians especially to children, another child, Hamayoon, 12, whispered. 

"Taliban insurgents keep infiltrating into the city to launch terror attacks. This war is more dangerous for children in big cities," Hamid added. 

The recent Taliban attack in Kabul was a suicide bombing on Jan. 12, which left three dead including the bomber and injured 32 others with overwhelming of them civilians. 

An Afghan non-governmental organization (NGO) -- Aschiana has been collecting street children and provides shelter, education and vocational courses to them. 

"There are between 60,000 to 70,000 street children only in capital city Kabul," Director of Aschiana, Mohammad Yousef, told Xinhua recently. 

Aschiana, a non-governmental organization based in Kabul, which in Dari means "nest" has branches in several Afghan cities to help street children. 

However, there is no official statistics about the number of street children in the militancy-hit Afghanistan. 

"We pick up children from streets and after providing education or working skills integrate them to society," Yousef said. 

In addition to Aschiana, there are some orphanages run by Afghan government, Afghan Red Crescent Society and some foreign NGOs in Kabul and other Afghan cities provide shelters and education to street children. 

Around 12 million school-aged children, according to officials with Afghan Education Ministry, are in Afghanistan and out of these: over seven million go to school. 

President Hamid Karzai in his speech after beating the bill of educational year in March 6, 2010 confirmed that 5 million or 42 percent of school aged children do not have access to school in Afghanistan. 

Afghan Minister for Education Farooq Wardak admitted early March 2010 that over 200,000 children had been deprived of schooling due to the closure of 442 schools in the country mostly in the southern region where Taliban militants are active. 

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Feature: War displaced people in Kabul slum cry for help 
by Yan Liang 

KABUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- No education, lack of food and winter clothes. In Afghanistan's capital Kabul, hundreds of war displaced children and their families are crying for relief assistance from the government. 

Currently, there are 804 families living in the slum, in west of the city, with the largest family of 15 children. 

"We do not have enough food and clothes. We need help," Wakiltawos Khan, head of the slum, told Xinhua reporters. 

"Nine months ago, my five sons were killed by U.S. air strikes in my hometown, and my daughter lost an arm. Kabul is safe, so we moved here. But we can not afford a house and have to stay here," Wakiltawos said. 

To escape the ongoing conflict, most of the families are forced to leave their hometowns in south Afghanistan's Helmand province to find a safer place to continue their life. 

Over the past nine years since the beginning of the Afghan war in October 2001, the Afghan Taliban regime has collapsed, but its leader Mullah Omar and his guest Osama Ben Laden are still in escape, leaving the Afghan civilians suffering almost every day. 

According to statistics released by Refugees International, over 100,000 people have been displaced in 2010 alone. There are now over 319,000 internally displaced people in Afghanistan, and the number has been rising over the past two years. 

The "houses" here are made of mud, covered with plastic sheets as roofs. They were provided by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and some Afghan donators, said Wakiltawos. 

"Our government did not pay much attention to our life here. Our children are in high need of food and clothes now," another resident told us. "Last year, a Chinese businessman provided us with some plastic sheets." 
! 
Several thin dogs wandered around. Children, in rags, played outside. One of them was seen running on bare foot. They were so curious of the presence of outsiders as no one has visited the slum for a long time. 

Not far from the entrance to the slum, there is a well -- the only source of drinking water in the slum. Some men and children were taking turns to pump water from the well, with no sanitary facility.

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The Plight Of Afghanistan's Child Water Carriers

January 13, 2011 By Zarif Nazar, Charles Recknagel Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 
KABUL -- Early each morning, the schoolchildren of the Aqibi Silo neighborhood emerge from their homes on a hillside near the center of Kabul. 

But they don't go to class. Instead, they go off to fetch water -- over and over again -- until long after the school day is done. 

They begin by tumbling down the narrow footpaths carrying brightly colored plastic canisters as light as balloons. The banging of the empty cans lends the scene a playful air, until they reach a tap at the base of the hill, where water flows two hours every other day. 

The kids fill the canisters with water until they are as heavy as grain sacks. Then, loading the canisters on a donkey, or carrying lighter loads on their heads, they climb back up the hill in the first of many trips. 

By the time school has let out elsewhere in Kabul, the children will have ferried enough water uphill to compensate for the municipal pipes that don't deliver water to their hillside homes. To find water tomorrow, they will have to go still farther afield, because the tap at the base of their hill will be off. 

The water carriers of Aqibi Silo are hardly the only child laborers in Kabul. But the fact that they are missing school to deliver water that should be delivered by public utilities outrages the people of their neighborhood. 

But calling on the government for action is easier in Kabul than getting results. As individuals with complaints quickly learn, there are myriad agencies responsible for public services in Kabul. Worse, there is little coordination between them and little public information about which does what. 

'We Face Difficulties' 

"Liberty Listeners," a gadfly program produced by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, is aimed at getting officials to address citizens' complaints. The show experienced the maze of bureaucracy firsthand when it sought to relay listeners' concerns about the water carriers to city officials. A phone call to the mayor's office revealed the scope of the problem. 

Mayor Yunus Nawandish said a new office had recently been created to manage the distribution of water in Kabul. But he said the office was not under the mayor's jurisdiction. 

"Unfortunately, some responsibilities such as water distribution and canalization, which should be actually under the jurisdiction of the mayor of Kabul, are not under the jurisdiction of the mayor of Kabul," he said. "Therefore, we face difficulties. But we are hopeful that this issue will be solved in the future." 

Even the mayor was uncertain of the new office's name and location. He did promise, however, to try to independently solve the hillside neighborhood's water shortage. 

Children Become Lifeline 

A lack of coordination is endemic among Afghan government offices, where officials compete to set up new bureaus to enlarge their patronage systems. But the results are particularly noticeable in Kabul because the population and need for services has swollen with hundreds of thousands of returning refugees since 2001. 

The hardscrabble slopes around Kabul pose a particular problem. They are attractive to poor people looking for space to build a home but providing water to them requires pipes with sufficient pressure to flow uphill. During the past 10 to 15 years, the pipes that once did that have fallen into disrepair and now work only occasionally or not at all. 

For families with children, the children become the lifeline. And as they do, the children of the poorest families also become the water suppliers to those with no children of their own. 

One resident, Zauddin, says he is in too frail health to carry water up to his home himself. So, he buys water from children who deliver the heavy canisters to his door. But he says the water is not clean or healthy and has to be boiled before use. 

The children of impoverished families who make a business of selling water earn just a pittance for their labors. 

One, Mirwais, tells Radio Free Afghanistan that he earns just 10 Afghanis a bucket, about the price of a piece of bread. But he says the money is needed by his family, so he continues working. 

"We have nobody at home who earns money. Everything is very expensive -- rice, wood for heating," he says. "Because of that, I left school and I'm working with my donkey." 

The cost for Mirwais himself is high. He has already missed so much time at school that he has given up any ideas of returning. And he has already suffered his first serious injury as he begins what is likely to be a lifetime of hard manual labor. 

The accident happened as he and his companions ventured far from their neighborhood to bring water from a cistern near Kabul University. As they moved along a crowded road, a passing car sideswiped their heavily burdened donkey, knocking it off its feet and onto Mirwais. 

The boy broke his arm and temporarily had to stop working. But he is back leading his donkey up the steep paths to his neighborhood, as unable to take time off to rest as he is to take time off for school. 

Radio Free Afghanistan's Sayaed Jan Sabawoon contributed to this report

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Bleak outlook for food security in 2011

KABUL, 29 December 2010 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) plans to assist 7.3 million people in Afghanistan in 2011 but only has enough funding to feed the most vulnerable for a few months, and needs US$400 million to continue its humanitarian activities next year. 

WFP appealed to donors for urgent funding through a Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) launched on 5 December with the aim of making up a food shortfall of 103,600 tons (costing about $157 million) until June. 

The UN Secretary-General warned in a December report that the funding shortfall could affect all WFP projects, including school feeding and food-for-work. 

“If additional support cannot be obtained, WFP will have to cut planned food distribution activities throughout Afghanistan,” said the report. 

Thus far no WFP project has been suspended and the organization said it was utilizing resources so as to avoid cutting food assistance to the most vulnerable. 

“We have prioritized our activities to maintain lifesaving food assistance, including support for mothers and children, and for people affected by conflict or natural disaster,” Challiss McDonough, a WFP spokeswoman in Kabul, told IRIN. 

Recent funding from the USA and Canada eased wheat shortages faced by WFP following the catastrophic floods in Pakistan in July. But the US-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET) has predicted that over half of the coun! try would be highly or moderately food-insecure in January-February. It said wheat prices had increased by over 31 percent since July 2010 and further increases were likely in the coming months. 

Afghanistan remains among the most food-insecure countries in the world where armed conflict and natural disasters have denied access to adequate food to over eight million people, aid agencies say. They also think the humanitarian situation is likely to deteriorate in 2011. 

Fighting, displacement and food 

Afghan and foreign forces have been using military helicopters to deliver aid supplies to at least three provinces, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said. 

Hundreds of families have reportedly been displaced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand where US-led forces have been locked in battle with the Taliban. 

Aid officials in both provinces said they urgently needed food for distribution to conflict-affected internally displaced persons and other vulnerable groups. 

“We have requested food aid for 2,500 families but have not heard from WFP and other aid organizations yet,” Ghulam Farouq Noorzai, director of the refugees and returnees department in Helmand, told IRIN, adding that 900 of the families had been displaced from Marjah and Nad Ali districts in Helmand Province. 

Meanwhile, winter is also having an impact: In the northeastern province of Badakhshan, officials said roads to 10 districts had been blocked by snow and there were concerns about food shortages. 

“Food prices have hiked significantly and we are extremely concerned about the situation of inaccessible vulnerable families,” said Sayed Nasir Hemat, head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Badakhshan, adding that his organization did not have adequate resources to respond.

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