The grey-haired Afghan widow is pessimistic about her future.
And owing to the circumstances, she does not see any light
at the end of the tunnel. For the fact remains that Gul
Ghuncha's eight children survive on beggary and are growing
up in ignorance.
Her husband was killed
two years back, near Peshawar. Who will bring the killers
to justice? "Allah knows better," she answers,
taking a deep breath.
"My children are surviving
on stale bread. Begging is the only choice to feed my
children," says the widow. Tears welled in her eyes
as Gul Ghuncha narrated her ordeal. Out of eight kids,
her three children are going to a relief centre at the
Tajabad makeshift camp near Peshawar, where they get free
education and food. The kids will soon lose this facility
as the centre is likely to be closed down due to financial
shortcomings. About 30 street children get free education
and food at the centre, run by an Afghan NGO.
Gul Ghuncha is by no means
alone not alone. The Tajabad makeshift camp in Peshawar,
made-up of tiny mud-houses, is a major sanctuary for hundreds
of destitute Afghan widows living in similar circumstances;
no relief assistance, no education and without health
care. Most of the widows got the status of Female Family
Head, because their husbands either fell prey to the Afghan
war or family feuds, or died natural death.
Surroundings of the Tajabad
tell terrible stories. Widows, living in shanties, narrate
harsh tales about food deficiency, sexual abuses at the
hand of the custodians of law, land owners and even their
own countrymen. Even the aid workers are not alien to
these accusations. The practice of forced marriages is
reportedly more common in camps. Their sons and daughters
have the status of street children. Every early morning
they have to appear on the streets and roads of Peshawar
to escape possible starvation.
Traditionally, the Afghan
society has been more conservative and is characterized
by gallantry and bravery. The women enjoy great respect
at home and in the public. But the ongoing war and multiplying
poverty vanished these centuries old traditions. The thirty-year-long
proxy war has gifted jingoism, given raise to poverty,
illiteracy, orphanage and widowhood to the war-stricken
nation. Hard circumstances force refugee women to bargain
on their honour and dignity to nourish their dependents.
"There are about 160
brothel houses in Hayatabad alone, a posh locality of
Peshawar, where the refugees are provided with food, something
that they would have died for had they been in their native
country," disclosed an Afghan female social worker.
She attributes this vice to the growing poverty. "How
will they earn bread? How will they pay house rent, power
charges and other expenditures?" she questioned.
She said that these hapless widows and children cannot
protect themselves against highhandedness of the police,
landlords and influential Afghans.
Tough time is ahead for
hundreds of thousands of Afghan widows and children in
Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Gone are the days when a
corps of UN agencies, western and Muslims relief organizations
looked desperate to prepare rehabilitation plans for the
war-shattered Afghans. End of the Cold War and the beginning
of a new era of global politics have turned the tables
on the common Afghans, who are once again being projected
as role models in the world.
Big and small relief agencies
have almost wound up their activities in the refugee camps.
Only a few relief agencies are still running orphanage
centres in different parts of the NWFP and tribal areas.
Despite the fact that Pakistan
is still sheltering about two million registered and unregistered
refugees, officials of the Social Welfare Cell of the
Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees, an implementing partner
of the UNHCR, said that the body could hardly sustain
activities in camps due to financial restraints.
Data compiled by the Agency
Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) estimated
that between 1994 to 1999 about 160 agencies, including
UN relief bodies and NGOs had spent over $700 million
on the rehabilitation of the refugees in Pakistan and
community infrastructure development schemes in Afghanistan.
Officials at ACBAR say
that now thirty-three relief agencies are in the field
in Pakistan. Donors have diverted funds towards Afghanistan.
Only in Kabul, the number of registered NGOs is about
2,500. Most of them are owned and managed by warlords,
ministers and family members of the former Jehadi leaders.
Some charity organizations
that were distributing bread at subsidized rate or for
free and other food items, have abandoned their thousands
of Afghan beneficiaries, mostly widows.
Amina Safi, a relief organizer
says that roughly 3,000 displaced families were living
in the Tajabad makeshift camp, half of whom are widows,
women who have adopted beggary as a profession or chosen
other odd jobs to make both ends meet. She believes that
the refugee women and children are passing through the
worst phase of exploitation.
"There are shocking
stories of child and women abuse, harassment and violence",
she maintains.
A widow, Nafeesa, a native
of Parvan province in Afghanistan, is looking after nine
children, including five girls. Stitching clothes for
others at home is her only source of income to feed her
children. "I had never imagined such harsh times,"
Nafeesa says, who is concerned about the future of her
kids. "My children have no sanctuary at their hometown,
from where they had escaped some twelve years back."
Director of the Afghan
Women's Resource Centre (AWRC) Partawmina Hashemee observes
that the situation inside Afghanistan is deteriorating
by the day.
"No one knows about
the fate of more than 50,000 widows who were receiving
food assistance from relief agencies in Kabul. We are
more concerned about our women and children, because three
generations have been brought up without education, proper
food and health care," she said.
An official of the Afghan
Women Education Centre (AWEC), while quoting fresh data
compiled by a UK-based organization, said that the number
of widows in Afghanistan was more than 400,000. Moreover,
the official said, the number of the street children in
Kabul, is 40,000. Amina Maududi, director of the AWEC,
said that her organization would move inside Afghanistan
in May because of non-availability of funds. The AWEC
is conducting income generation courses for refugee women
and looking after 150 street children in Peshawar. Similarly,
AWRC is also closing its street children programme in
the Tajabad camp.
