Dateline ACT

Afghanistan09/02

Changes are apparent, but Afghanistan still faces a host of problems

Kabul, Afghanistan, October 25, 2002
By Chris Herlinger (Church World Service/ACT International)

While much has changed in Afghanistan during the last year - a US-led war, the fall of the Taliban and the installation of a new government, to name just three milestones - the country continues to face a host of serious humanitarian and social problems.

In fact, what is striking to a visitor making a second trip to Afghanistan in just 15 months is how many of the problems evident during a July 2001 visit - drought, severe economic hardship, day-to-day insecurity and continued inequity between men and women - are still apparent.

These aren't merely subjective observations.

"The social situation is worsening," said Marvin Parvez, director of the ACT/Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan Program. "The emergency is not over."

Even so, it would be a mistake to paint a wholly pessimistic picture. The fall of the Taliban has opened up social space for Afghans, making the capital of Kabul a livelier and busier place. Shops are opening and homes are being reconstructed.

In a glorious reversal of two of the more curious and bizarre Taliban strictures, children are once again flying kites and music is being played in public. A bit of buoyancy is in the air. Other social norms under the Taliban are also being relaxed: it is no longer necessary for a non-Afghan journalist to interview an Afghan woman under cover of night, for example.

"Under the Taliban, no one could even talk of human rights," said Sarwar Hussaini, director of the Cooperation Center for Afghanistan (CCA), an Afghan human rights organization and an ACT/CWS partner.

"People have hope, and this didn't exist before."

Nonetheless, Parvez and others point to a series of problems: The drought that has plagued Afghanistan for five years shows no immediate sign of abating, causing continuing problems throughout the country, particularly in rural areas. Promised international assistance has not arrived in Afghanistan and the economic situation remains grim. "There may be more in the bazaar, but people still can't buy food," Parvez said. While girls have finally returned to school after the Taliban prohibition against their education, gross disparities between the sexes continue.

The status of women drew international attention during the Taliban era, and changes for Afghan women have been widely watched -- and anticipated -- since the Taliban's fall in late 2001.

While some women are no longer wearing the "burqa," most women in Kabul are still afraid to be seen in public without it -- and that is the most visible symbol of a host of continued problems for women and girls, including inequities in education. "There cannot be development unless there is recognition of the rights of women," said Sima Samar, who heads the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and is head of Shuhada Organization, one of two ACT/CWS partners administering a quilt-making program to help widows and other women.

Luckily, there are signs of hope -- one of them being the striking sense of idealism displayed by young women and men committed to rebuilding their country. "I want to help my people, my country," said Sona Hlimi, 19, who last week assisted with the distribution in Kabul of quilt-making materials to women participating in the ACT/CWS program through the Norwegian Project Office (NPO), another local partner.

The program is providing temporary work for some 1,600 women in Kabul, most of them widows. The quilts are being distributed to hospitals and clinics throughout Afghanistan. By next spring, the women are expected to have completed more than 67,000 quilts.

Another sign of hope? The reconstruction under way in badly damaged parts of Afghanistan. In the village of Rabat-Qarabaghi - an area just yards from the frontlines of war last year between Taliban and Northern Alliance forces - ACT/CWS and NPO are assisting some 40 families reconstruct their homes. This is just a small part of an overall project to provide housing to some 1,500 families in the Shomali Valley, north of Kabul.

A crucial part of the project is that families moving into the house provide labor and bricks to supplement the CWS Housing Kits, which, among other materials, include the homes' wooden beams, doors and windows.

"We are very thankful," said Rahmuddin Huzruddin, 22, as he took a break last week from placing wooden beams atop the house he and his family hope to occupy within two weeks. "This has come at a very crucial time for us."

For Parvez, such determination and hard work are a marvel. "The two things I most admire about the Afghan people," he said, "are their resilience and their capacity to bounce back."


Text and photos by Chris Herlinger

(Chris Herlinger, communications officer for the Church World Service Emergency Response Program in New York, just returned from a week-long, Oct. 13-19, assignment to Afghanistan. This is the first of a series of five stories he has produced on the situation there and the response by CWS and its local partners. The first story is an overview of the situation in the country; remaining stories will cover specific ACT/CWS program areas. Chris first visited Afghanistan in July 2001 Afghanistan as a member of an Action by Churches Together (ACT) International network communications team.)
See: ACT appeals for help: September 28, 2001
Vulnerable targets: September 18, 2001
Caught between war & drought: September 18, 2001