By Ferdaws Andishmand*
Around a decade ago, Leqa*, a middle-aged Jogi woman, and her family moved from a tent into a simple mud home built by the previous government. Leqa says that to her once impoverished and homeless family, the shelter was more valuable than anything else: “We spent our entire lives being homeless and displaced, but, in these recent years when a shelter was built for us here, we thought we were the happiest people.” They lived near several other Jogi families in Bagrami district of Kabul.
When the Taliban came to power, they destroyed her home in Kabul, forcing her to once again live in a tent with her husband and their eight children. Like other women of her tribe, Leqa complains about social isolation, lack of housing and shelter, financial problems, and the Taliban’s discriminatory behaviour.
The semi-nomadic Jogi community is estimated to number around 120,000 and generally lives in challenging social, economic, and health conditions. A 2011 report by Samuel Hall Consulting for UNICEF described the Jogi and other segments of the Jat population as “the most marginalized communities in Afghanistan.” At that point, they were estimated to number around 30,000 though the turmoil in Afghanistan and their social isolation made it hard to obtain precise data. Though their origins are varied, and include Tajik and Iranian backgrounds, many in Afghanistan consider them outsiders from India and associate them with “occupations considered undesirable or unclean.” A combination of economic and social marginalization affects all parts of Jogi society: In 2011, 84 percent of Jogi children in Mazar-e-Sharif were out-of-school, compared to a rate of 47 percent for non-Jogi urban poor in the same areas, the report revealed.
For Leqa, the Taliban’s actions mean that she and her family now live beside the Bagrami Shina bridge, along with other Jogi families who were also thrown out of their homes. Leqa worries about the upcoming winter and how she will protect her children from Kabul’s harsh cold. For as long as she can remember, she has begged on the streets of Kabul to meet her family’s basic needs for food and clothing, she tells Zan Times.
“My husband can’t find a job because he doesn’t have an ID card, and no one is willing to hire Jogi men, so we both have to beg,” explains Leqa. That lack of official status means many Jogi men struggle to provide for their families, forcing their women and children to also work. Besides the lack of adequate food and housing, Leqa also laments the inaccessibility to doctors and medical services when sick. She says seven of her children were born at home or in a tent, with one son born under the scorching sun because she couldn’t go to a private hospital, and public hospitals refuse to provide services to Jogis.
Discrimination against Jogi is so widespread that Leqa says they prefer not to go to the hospital when sick: “They insult us, curse at us, and tell us to leave, saying you are dirty, filthy, and you stink.” She recounts how most city bus drivers and taxis do not allow them to board their vehicles, and even some shopkeepers and bakers refuse to sell bread and food to them.
None of Leqa’s six sons and two daughters have been allowed to attend school, and Leqa knows that their deprivation from education and other fundamental rights is due to their ethnicity. Her two oldest sons, ages 17 and 15, sell popcorn in the Kart-e Naw area of Kabul while three other sons and a daughter collect garbage and scavenge for a living while her two youngest children beg with her.
Leqa and her family are part of the Hanafi sect of Sunni Islam, as are other Jogi she knows. Still, she finds that many people in Afghanistan have misconceptions about their religious beliefs. “Several times, when I tell women from other ethnicities that I do not beg during the afternoon because we pray and do other household chores, they are all surprised and ask, ‘Do Jogis also pray?’” she tells Zan Times.
One of the biggest issues for Leqa and other Jogi women is their lack of ID cards. Although in 2018, former president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani had ordered the issuance of citizenship certificates to Jogis, this process was halted under the Taliban, leaving thousands, especially children, without official documentation of their citizenship.
Leqa says that the Taliban administration assessed the home and living conditions of some beggars in Kabul in May 2023. Some were given monthly stipends but the Jogi living with them were treated differently. Several were arrested and then, without assessment, were classified as undeserving beggars and released. “When they [Jogis] spoke, Taliban officials realized from their speech that they were Jogis, so they said, ‘Let them go, begging is their job,’” explains Leqa.
Golchehra* is Jogi woman who lives in Leqa’s neighbourhood. Kabul Municipality demolished her house in the Baghrami district of Kabul on June 25, 2023. She doesn’t know her exact age, but she appears to be around 30 or 35. Golchehra has never married and lives in her brother’s house. She says her mother is a fortune teller who travels all over Kabul and even to other provinces to read fortunes for people and who has made enough money to acquire some sheep and goats. Golchehra is responsible for them: “Grazing sheep in a crowded city like Kabul is very difficult, but I’m grateful that I’m not begging; I despise asking someone for something.”
Yet though she doesn’t beg, Golchehra says that some people still occasionally bother her: “In the afternoons, when we come from Bini-Hisar and Shah Shaheed towards Bagrami, mostly young girls mock my clothes and shoes and say a lot of sarcastic things to me.” Their life is precarious. Golchehra’s mother fears that her fortune-telling will lead to her arrest and torture on charges of witchcraft and talisman-writing, like others who have been detained recently. Recently, she stopped fortune telling and began begging. “On one hand, the Taliban destroyed our home; on the other hand, if they see us begging, they imprison us. No one is there to help us,” says Golchehra’s mother.
Beside the Kote Sangri bridge, five Jogi women sell goods. Bibi Ghoncha* says that even though they wear chadors while working, the Taliban’ moral police still torment them: “Several times, the local Taliban have come and confiscated our merchandise. They say you shouldn’t sell here, but we have no other option. What can we do?” She says she’s a mother with four children and her husband, like so many Jogi men, can’t find work.
Unlike Leqa and Golchehra, their home is still standing, likely because they rent it from a non-Jogi family. “Even though we’re poor, we have to pay higher rent than others; otherwise, no one would rent a house to us,” explains Bibi Ghoncha to Zan Times. Their daily food mainly consists of dry bread and tea. Occasionally, her children collect nutritious food like rice, meat, potatoes as leftovers or charity from restaurants. While her children provide needed food, she wants them to be in school: “My children don’t go to school. The school asks for an ID, and when we go to get one, they say, ‘You’re a Jat and Jogi. Why do you need an ID?’”
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewee and writer. Ferdaws Andishmand is the pseudonym of a Zan Times journalist in Afghanistan.
