Afganistan

AFGANISTAN| 

40 YEARS OF WAR

Photo credit: Human Rights Watch

There are just over 31 million people living in Afghanistan and 40% of these are under the age of 14. For every 1, 000 births, 117 will die- that's 1 in 9. Life expectancy for a woman is 50- I would have lived half my life span already. Afghan women earn 25 cents or less for every dollar men earn and only 16 per cent of peace agreements in the last two decades have contained a reference to women and gender. “You can't be an active woman in Afghanistan and not feel threatened. It is part of my daily life. I never know what is going to happen next. In the last five years, many high profile Afghan women have been killed for trying to raise the profile of women or defend their human rights. I take one day at a time but try to work on issues that will have a lasting effect”. Shinkai Karokhail, 36 | Occupation: Member of the Afghan Parliament

Currently, in Afghanistan international interest has dissipated and most foreign troops are long gone, however the war there is only getting worse- even if we don’t see that on the television. The first six months of 2015 saw the highest number of casualties among women and children since the U.N. started keeping track in 2009. Those who are fleeing the country are doing so because of civil violence, insecurity, or threats from the Taliban or government militia forces. On the Human Rights Watch they spoke with an Afghan military officer, “The Syrians have gone through four years of brutal war, but for the Afghans it has been nearly 40 now,” he says, who fled Kabul after receiving death threats from the Taliban. “Why are we hearing ‘Syrians only, Syrians only,’ as people board the buses here at the border, while we are kept waiting in the hot sun?” Those fleeing conflict and violence are just as entitled to refugee status. Like many Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers, many of the Afghans do have legitimate reasons to flee the conflict that has engulfed much of their country. They too deserve to be treated humanely, and offered safe and legal paths to have to their asylum claims fairly heard.

The journey for many Afghans is tough. They flee Afghanistan with just bus fare to the AfghanIran border, and walk most of the way to Europe, unable to pay for smugglers or bus rides. Ismail, a 15- year-old boy from Logar province, told the Human Rights Watch that he and his parents had walked for four weeks to cross Iran, and then had to cross the 15-foot-tall razor wire fence on the Bulgaria-Turkey border using ladders and blankets because they could not afford to pay the boat smugglers for the dangerous but short trip from Izmir to the Greek islands.

Recently, as the Human Rights Watch made it to talk to men and women who had fled by boat they spoke to this woman. “My life was very hard. I lost my husband by the Taliban. I have six children so I took the decision to leave Afghanistan. Now, I also lost my baby.” This is about all that she managed to say earlier this month on the Greek island of Lesbos. Three days earlier, a wave had swept her 11-month-old son out of her arms as she and her children crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. 

Are you feeling grateful? You should. Are you feeling guilty? You shouldn't. We cannot change where we are born. But we can change what happens when we are. You should continue to read, learn and educate yourself. Commit to it, because it is people who change the world.

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