In Afghanistan, desperation leads parents to sell their children

In an economy destroyed by drought, conflict and pandemic, Afghan families find themselves forced to sell their children to survive

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In Afghanistan several people and families have been left homeless due to drought and conflict and live in mud huts with nothing left.

The country's economy, already in crisis after forty years of war and long periods of severe drought, plummeted during the pandemic and especially after the return of the Taliban, an event that led the international community to freeze Afghanistan's assets abroad and stop funding the country.

Many public workers have been out of wages for months and the most vulnerable sections of the population live in a state of absolute poverty. The situation is so dramatic and desperate that several parents come to sell their children to feed the rest of the family.

I don't want to sell my son, but I have to. No mother can do this to her child, but when you have no other choice, you have to make a decision against your will - the heartbreaking words of Salahuddin, a 35-year-old mother forced to sell her eight-year-old.

However, it is above all to be sold the girls, which are promised in marriage to eighteen-twenty-year-old boys when they are very young. Although the Taliban government recently announced a ban on the use of girls as a bargaining chip, the practice is widespread.

Sometimes husbands sell their children secretly from their wives, who discover the deal when things are done, as happened in Qandi Gul. Her husband sold their baby girl but Gul only found out about it two months later.

My husband said he wanted to sell one to save the rest of the family, otherwise we'd all be dead. I replied that it would be better to die - Gul said explaining that when he learned of the agreement his heart stopped beating.

At the time of the promise, the families receive a down payment; then when the girls reach the age of 15-16 they are sold for marriage and the groom's family pays agreed price. In many cases, because families fail to feed their children, the girls are given away earlier than expected to receive the money.

In other cases, families regret selling their daughters, but can't keep them when the time comes to give them up, because they've spent the down payment to pay for medical bills, medications, or to secure food for younger children.

Gul, for example, no longer has money; the family of the future spouse, a man of about 21 or 22, has already claimed the girl several times and she does not know how long he will be able to reject her.

I'm desperate. I cannot return the money to pay these people and I cannot keep my daughter by my side, I would kill myself. But then I think about the other children. What will become of them? Who will feed them? - said the woman, mother of other children, one of whom was only two months old.

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Sources of reference: Associated Press

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