Two months after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, desperation is ravaging the people America left behind.
In White House remarks after the last Americans left Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said it was time to look forward “to a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure.”
But to Afghan families spiraling deeper into poverty with every passing day, the future is bleak and desperate.
A report in The Wall Street Journal quoted a woman it named Saleha, who said she sold a 3-year-old daughter to satisfy a $550 debt.
This is heartbreaking.
As Afghanistan Sinks Into Destitution, Some Sell Children to Survive
U.N. warns that 95% of Afghans aren’t getting enough to eat as winter approaches. https://t.co/5Ox3Gl79Dd— Murtaza Solangi (@murtazasolangi) October 16, 2021
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That child may be the lucky one, said Saleha, 40, who says she earns 70 cents a day and whose husband does not work.
“If life continues to be this awful, I will kill my children and myself,” Saleha said. “I don’t even know what we will eat tonight.”
The Journal report said that it tracked down Khalid Ahmad, who took the girl as payment.
“I also don’t have money. They haven’t paid me back,” he said. “So there is no option but taking the daughter.”
The Journal report is not an isolated incident.
The economic situation of the Afghan people is getting worse every day because there is no work, money, no salary&income, the cold, hard winter is coming, but it does not make any difference to the Taliban, yesterday they destroyed it with suicide, explosion. Today with Poverty. pic.twitter.com/XHZ1NCQ49l
— Mariam Alimi (@alimi_alimi1) October 16, 2021
Last month, former police officer Mir Nazir said he was expecting to sell his 4-year-old daughter for $580, according to a report in the New York Post that was originally in the Times of London.
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“I would prefer to die than be reduced to selling my daughter,” Nazir, 38, said.
“But my own death wouldn’t save anyone in my family. Who would feed my other children? This isn’t about choice. It’s about desperation,” he said.
“I received an offer from a shop owner, a man I knew who had no children,” said Nazir, who has five children.
“She may have a better future working in a shop than staying with me, and the price may save my family,” he said.
Last month, a United Nations Development Programme report predicted the country was heading for “universal poverty,” according to Axios.
The report predicted that poverty, which is estimated now at 72 percent of the population, will hit 97 percent.
Only God knows what pain she has going through let the poverty and hunger alone. https://t.co/uBnN0OW0y1
— Afghan Politicking (@Informer786) October 14, 2021
“Afghanistan pretty much faces universal poverty by the middle of next year,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Director.
“That’s where we’re heading – it’s 97-98 percent no matter how you work these projections.”