Kids of Kabul

by Deborah Ellis

  My mother is still alive. She is very poor. She has no job and her life is very bad. She cannot afford to have her children with her. My sister and I are in this orphanage. My brother is in another place. I get to see my mother once a month. She is staying in the home of my uncle. There is no room for us there.

  There are thirty girls in this orphanage. Some have lost both parents, some have lost one parent. The youngest is a little baby who has no parents. Then there are some little girls in kindergarten, some older, and some even older. I’m not the oldest, but I’m close to being the oldest.

  People in Canada send us presents, like books and toys and stuffed animals. We live in a big house. There are bedrooms upstairs with several bunk beds in each room. We each have a metal box where we can keep our things. There is a room with big tables where we eat and do our homework, and a room we call the winter room because it is the only room that’s warm in the winter. It has a rug on the floor, toshaks along the walls and a woodstove. That’s where we spend most of our time. The little ones roll around on the floor, the older ones like me read and talk and play games and try different ways to do our hair.

  The winter room has a television set but our housemother doesn’t let us watch it very much. She says our time is better spent studying. When we get to watch, I like Bollywood movies. We also have a shelf full of books, both for little kids and for older girls. Most of the books are in English. We are all learning English. I’m reading an English book now by Judy Blume. I have to go slow because my English is still not good.

  We used to play a game where we would sit in front of the window of one of the bedrooms that looks out over the street. We would sit there and wave at people who walked past and see if they waved back. It was a game to see if we could make them wave. But some men came to the gate and told our housemother that we had to stop that game or he would have the police come. So we can’t play that game anymore.

  But we have other things we can do. We have been to the zoo, we can jump rope in the backyard. We can work on our memory books. We all have a notebook we use to keep our memories in. Some use them for writing, some use them for drawing. I like to keep pictures of my favorite movie stars in mine, so I don’t forget them.

  The backyard of Miriam’s orphanage.

  When girls come into this orphanage they usually just stay. It’s very hard for Afghan girls to manage in the world unless they are married. I am taking extra classes at school because I’d like to go to university. That would give me a good future.

  There was a girl who lived here but she left to get married. Her uncle showed up and said he had a husband for her. She didn’t want to get married. She wanted to finish school. We didn’t want her to go, but our housemother couldn’t stop him from taking her away. So she had to leave and marry someone she didn’t know in another province. I wonder if she is okay.

  I think I would like to be a doctor. That would be a good job. Or I might be a teacher. Or I could be a singer.

  Maybe I’ll be all three.

  Anonymous girl, 14

  The United Nations reports that between 60 and 80 percent of all marriages in Afghanistan are forced. The marriage is imposed upon the girl whether she wants to be married or not. Marriage of daughters is used to repay debts, solve a dispute or pay family expenses. The father of the bride is given money by the groom’s family in exchange for the marriage.

  Although there are laws on the books against forced marriage — and against child marriage — the laws are seldom enforced. In rural Afghanistan, girls are mostly married off between the ages of seven and eleven and, according to Tahera Nassrat of the Foreign Policy Association, rarely does a girl reach her sixteenth birthday without being married.

  Forced child marriage usually leads to a miserable life for these girls — a life involving rape, childbirth before their bodies and minds are ready for it, health problems, abuse, isolation, depression, lack of educational opportunities and endless hard labor.

  The girls’ prison in Kabul is full of young teens who are paying the price for trying to take ownership over their own lives.

  Both of my parents are alive. My father is a police officer with the ministry of the interior. My mother stays at home. I have five brothers and three sisters.

  I’ve been in the prison for six months.

  My father arranged a marriage for me with a cousin of his, a very old man.

  I did not want to marry this old man. I am young, so of course I want to marry someone who is also young. I told my father this. I told my father and my mother and neighbors and anyone who might listen. But my father was determined that this was who I should marry.

  What I really wanted to do was to continue my studies. I wanted to study law, because being a lawyer would be a good job for a woman in Afghanistan.

  My future now? Probably nothing. No future.

  So I did not want to marry this old man. There are supposed to be laws that protect girls from forced marriages. I learned about these laws in school. A woman in our district worked for the ministry of women’s affairs. I went to her and asked for help. She said she could not help me.

  I had to find my own help.

  There was a boy who worked at the local radio station. He was on the radio and he played songs and took phone calls from people who wanted to hear a particular song. I used to call in to the radio station to ask for my favorite songs. He liked the sound of my voice, I guess, and he got my phone number from when I called in and he called me back. We started talking that way, and when I told him about the marriage I was being forced into, he said he could help me.

  We met up and he took me away into another province. I thought everything was going to be fine. I would miss my family but I thought that in time they would forgive me and I could see them again. I thought I could just go to another place and start school there and live my life and everything would be okay.

  We were getting something to eat in a restaurant. The manager of this restaurant started asking us questions about who we were and where we came from and where we were going. We thought he was just having a conversation, but he ended up calling the police. They came to the restaurant and arrested us there.

  The police separated us. We went to a district police station and eventually I was brought here.

  I had to go on trial. I was charged with running away. It was very scary. All these men were in the courtroom, looking at me and talking about me. I was not allowed to speak. There was a defense attorney who spoke for me. He was very good and kind to me, but I wish I could have said something. After all, it’s my life.

  In primary court I was given the sentence of seven and a half years. The boy got five years. In secondary court my sentence was upheld, and the boy got his reduced to three years.

  He got less time because my father came to court and testified that this was all my fault so the court should punish me more.

  After the trial there was a jerga, a meeting of men in the community to decide what should happen because the old man had been promised a bride. He felt he was owed a bride and the jerga agreed. They said he should get my ten-year-old sister since he couldn’t have me.

  I was very afraid for my sister but then something good happened. The old man committed suicide. So my little sister did not have to marry him.

  My father blames me for his cousin’s suicide, but I don’t care. I’m not responsible for what some old man does.

  I don’t see my father anymore. He never comes to see me. My mother comes once a week. She did not want me to be married off. She wanted me to continue in school. But she has no voice in the family.

  Here it is not so bad. It is a prison, but they have a teacher who comes in so we can go to school for a little bit each day. And no one is making me get married when I don’t want to.

  We have a routine here that is easy to follow. We have school in
the morning until eleven. Did you hear us singing when you came in? Between eleven and one we have lunch and prayers. Then in the afternoon we sometimes have courses. People come in from the outside and teach us beauty parlor or tailoring. I’d like to learn English and computers — and law, of course — but whatever I get in here is more than I would be getting if I hadn’t run away.

  On Thursdays and Fridays we have days off from school. We can take care of personal things like laundry or mending. Some girls do handicrafts like ribbon work. I’d like it if we could do art classes because I like to draw.

  We get outside for one hour a day, but inside we are not confined. We can go upstairs, go into each other’s rooms. All the rooms have bunk beds, like this one, with lots of girls sharing. They are not crowded, and there are big windows so the rooms are bright. I’m friends with some of the girls. Most of them are also in here for running away. I don’t know of anyone who is in here for thieving or hurting anyone.

  When I turn twenty I will be sent to the adult women’s prison. I don’t like to think about that. It’s still a far time away. After that, I don’t know. My father won’t want me back. I don’t know where I’ll go.

  Sigrullah, 14

  Libraries save lives.

  They saved my life as a teenager growing up in Paris, Ontario, giving me a glimpse of something big and glorious to reach for.

  They save the lives of people around the world by giving us examples of how great we humans can be. They fill our heads with new ideas and information, and they reassure us that, whatever mud we are wading through in our present lives, there is the possibility of something better.

  Chilsitoon is an impoverished neighborhood in Kabul. The Afghan Women’s Resource Centre has built a community center there, with a small gym where women can exercise in safety, classrooms for handicrafts, literacy, human-rights education and small-business training.

  And a library.

  Sigrullah is on the Chilsitoon children’s committee.

  My father is a carpenter. He works in a furniture shop, making frames for beds, tables, things like that, when he is well. Right now he is sick so he is not working. I work as a tailor’s helper. It brings in some money and so our family eats. I am learning to be a proper tailor so that I can earn even more money. But that is not really the kind of work I want to do.

  I really want to be an electrical engineer because there are not a lot of people in Afghanistan who can do that kind of work. It would be easy to find a good job. I would like to bring electricity to all of Afghanistan because when people have electric lights, it is good for their eyes to study at night. Most people work all day and the only time they can sit with a book is at night. So they need electric lights.

  I might also be a doctor because Afghanistan needs doctors. A lot of kids here want to be teachers because to be a teacher is holy work.

  I am a member of the Chilsitoon children’s committee. The people who run this center told everyone they were looking for children to do this job. I thought it would be a good thing to do, so I applied and I was chosen. It’s a volunteer job. We don’t get paid.

  This is a very poor area of Kabul so people have a lot of problems. People come here from all parts of Afghanistan because Kabul is the capital city. They think it will be very nice, very safe, with good jobs. I am from Parwan province. Another committee member is from Paktia. We come from all over.

  In this committee we learn about children’s rights and human rights. We learn about what the law says people should and should not do. We talk about what rights parents have and what people should do for their country.

  Children in this area have a lot of problems. It is our job to find out what the problems are and to see if we can fix them. We talk to the children who come here for courses and ask them, “How is your life? Are you happy? Are you being well treated?” We also ask children these questions when we meet them in the neighborhood outside the center.

  They have a lot of problems because they are poor. Their parents get upset and hit them, or there is no food in the house, or they want to come to courses in the center and their parents won’t allow it. We will hear about a girl who is being forced to marry someone she doesn’t want to. These are big problems, bigger than we can solve.

  But we can talk to children about their rights and the law and sometimes we can explain things to their parents. We discuss things with the adults who run the center and they can sometimes talk to the parents and help them out with food or find out what’s making them angry.

  It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does. They go to the local mullahs and say, “Too many parents are hitting their children in this neighborhood. Can you preach about that in the mosque?” And the mullahs will talk about how Islam is a religion of peace and that children should be protected.

  We try to keep the neighborhood clean. We go door to door and tell people not to throw their garbage into the streets because that brings rats and flies and those things are not good for children.

  I would like all the streets in Kabul to be cleaner. Many of us have to walk a long way to come to this center every day. The streets are very dusty and lots of children become sick from the dust. I would like to know how we can fix this problem.

  There are a lot of people who come to this center, all ages. Ladies come here who are widows, and they learn how to read and make pickles to sell. There is a room upstairs that they use for exercise and games. It’s easy for boys to play games and run around — we can do that anywhere. It’s harder for ladies.

  I like that we can work together to solve our problems. Talking helps a lot. We had a public meeting here about the space between parents and children. Children don’t tell their parents about their problems and parents don’t talk to their children. It makes problems worse when we don’t talk.

  My favorite part of this center is this library. We have ten shelves of books! Wonderful books, all different books. We need to have different books because we all have different minds. I like books about Afghan history. Some people like books about cooking or poetry or law.

  I am happiest when I am in this library. All of our problems can be solved with these books.

  Afghanistan will have a good future if the government will help all the people learn to read and if every community could have a good library so they could find solutions and solve their own problems.

  About Afghanistan

  Afghanistan is a small country that lies between Europe and Asia. It contains mountain ranges, fast-flowing rivers and golden deserts. Its fertile valleys once produced an abundance of fruit, wheat and vegetables.

  Throughout history, explorers and traders have passed through Afghanistan and tried to control it for their own interests. The country has been more or less continuously at war since 1978, when American-backed fighters opposed the Soviet-supported government. In 1980, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the war escalated, with the United States backing Afghan freedom fighters, many of whom were warlords. The fighting was fierce, cruel and prolonged.

  After the Soviets were defeated in 1989, a civil war erupted, as various groups fought for control of the country. Millions of Afghans became refugees, and many still live in huge camps in Pakistan, Iran and Russia. Many people have spent their whole lives in these camps, and millions of Afghans have been killed, maimed or blinded.

  Children looking through rubbish for something they can use.

  The Taliban militia, one of the groups that the US and Pakistan once funded, trained and armed, took control of the capital city of Kabul in September 1996. They imposed extremely restrictive laws on girls and women. Schools for girls were closed down, women were no longer allowed to hold jobs, and strict dress codes were enforced. Books were burned, televisions smashed, and music in any form was forbidden.

  In the fall of 2001, al-Qaeda, a terrorist group based in Afghanis
tan and protected by the Taliban, launched attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City. In response, the United States led a coalition of nations into bombing Afghanistan and drove the Taliban from power. Elections were held and a new government and constitution were set up. A number of schools for boys and girls were opened, and about half of Afghan children now have access to some form of schooling. In some parts of the country, women were allowed back into the work force.

  Women and children in a Kabul marketplace.

  However, Afghanistan is far from being a nation of peace, for many reasons. The Taliban has returned to fight a very effective guerrilla war against the government and foreign forces. Afghanistan has become a major producer of opium, from which heroin is made. There is a great deal of corruption at all levels of government. Finally, Afghans, like people around the world, are uncomfortable with foreign forces fighting in their country. Struggles for women’s rights continue as well, with girls’ schools being burned and women activists being assassinated.

  There are no easy answers for the people of Afghanistan as they face such a difficult situation. Learning more about this beautiful, tragic country and its wonderful people is one small way to try to avoid the many mistakes outsiders have made that have brought Afghans to this difficult time in their history.

  For Further Information

  Organizations

  Afghan Book House

  An organization founded by two librarians to promote librarianship, reading and the local publishing of Afghan books.

  Afghanistan Youth Center

  www.ayc.8m.net

  An Afghan youth organization in Kabul.