Afghan families have to sell their children to survive because of a lack of food
Afghan families are experiencing hunger because they must sell their children to afford food and medicine, as their poverty continues to worsen.
As hunger and poverty get worse across the country, fathers in Afghanistan’s remote Ghor province are being forced to make sad choices to feed their families.
In Chaghcharan, hundreds of men gather every morning in a dusty square, trying to find work that will allow them to eat or go hungry. Most of them go home without anything.
Juma Khan, a 45-year-old worker, said, “I live in fear that my children will die of hunger.” He had only found three days of paid work in six weeks.
The UN says that three out of four Afghans can’t meet their basic needs anymore, and millions are on the verge of famine because of harsh cuts to aid, rising unemployment, and a long drought.
Some families in nearby villages said the situation had gotten so bad that they were considering selling their girls to make money.
The father of twin girls aged seven said he was ready to sell them because he couldn’t afford to feed them. Abdul Rashid Azimi lives in Ghor.
Kayhan, his wife, said, “All we have to eat is bread and hot water.”
Another dad, Saeed Ahmad, said he decided to give his sick five-year-old daughter to a family member in exchange for the money she needed for surgery that could have saved her life.
“This choice would never have been made if I had money,” he said.
Many Afghan families used to get food from other countries, but since the Taliban took back power in 2021, the amount of help has dropped sharply.
The United States used to give Afghanistan the most money, but last year it cut most of its help. Other countries also cut their contributions. According to the UN, funding for relief work has dropped by a huge amount this year compared to previous years.
The Taliban government attributed the country’s economic collapse to the conclusion of the 20-year war and the withdrawal of foreign troops. However, critics said that restrictions on women and girls had made the country less visible to the rest of the world, which led to less support from donors.
As the number of malnourished children grows, hospitals in Ghor are also having a challenging time getting medicine and equipment.
Doctors said that many families were taking babies who were very sick out of the hospital because they could no longer afford care.
At the province’s main hospital, the neonatal rooms were overcrowded with babies who were too thin and having trouble breathing because their mothers weren’t getting enough food or taking care of themselves.
As the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan got worse, doctors said that more and more children were dying of hunger and illnesses that could have been avoided.
