By Sana Atef and Freshta Ghani
Every day from dawn to dark, two sisters – Shamsia* who is 8 and Angiza* who is 10 – visit restaurants to collect food leftovers or collect garbage to heat up their house.
Shamsia stands by a garbage pile, looking at Angiza who is placing food, plastic bottles, and broken toys of other children in a white bag that she has in her hand. Only once the white bag is full will the two girls take it home.
“We take this food home and eat what can be eaten. Our mother burns the plastics and other burnable garbage in our tandoor to bake bread for us,” says Shamsia.
“I hate to collect food from garbage, but we have to. I wish to go to school and see that my mother has cooked delicious foods when I come back from school, but this wish may never come true,” Shamsia says sorrowfully.
The sisters live with their parents, and two brothers who are under five years old in Kandahar city. Abdul Rahim, their father, is a street vendor who sells grilled corn. “I earn around 50 to 60 afghani from this job. This doesn’t even suffice buying bread. I have to pay the monthly house rental, 3,000 Pakistani rupees, with this trivial earning,” says Abdul Rahim.
Abdul Rahim nods sorrowfully and adds, “There have been nights that we didn’t have anything to eat and my children fell asleep empty stomach. It really upsets me to send my children to collect leftovers from restaurants, but if I don’t, we would starve to death. Some restaurant owners are good – they collect the leftovers in a bag and give it to my daughters. When my daughters bring it home, we eat it for two days.”
Abdul Rahim says that his family has not been able to afford eating meat even once during the past year.
Shamsia and Angiza’s mother works at home. She weaves bathing loofah and sells each for 10 afghani at the market. “I work along with my husband and children as much as I can, but I don’t earn more than 10 afghani a day. No one buys my products. Sometimes, it doesn’t even earn enough to buy more yarn,” she says. “I have two young sons, one is two years old, and the other is five. It is hard to leave them on their own and go to work; therefore, I stay home and wait for my daughters to bring food for the night,” she adds.
On a friend’s suggestion, Abdul Rahim goes to the World Food Programme office in Kandahar to receive aid, but he was told that his name wasn’t on the list. “They told me that my name wasn’t on the list and that I had to go to the governor’s office to be introduced to WFP. Desperately, I went to the office and told them that I was poor and needed assistance, but I was told that the food donations were for the Taliban members only and not for civilians,” says Abdul Rahim.
According to WFP statistics, nine out of ten cannot eat enough food in Afghanistan. This means that parents cannot provide sufficient and healthy food for their children. WFP statistics show that nearly 23 million citizens of Afghanistan are suffering acute hunger and 95 percent of the people do not have sufficient food to eat. Moreover, according to the UN, 10 million children in Afghanistan need emergency assistance.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
