Herat is a big, ancient, and beautiful city with nice people and many historical places. People speak Pashto and Dari. And street children are a familiar sight here. Every day in the city and the villages I see many street children working hard. Some of them not only work the streets, but spend half of the day studying. They look very young and helpless, both boys and girls, all under eighteen years old, and many of them are susceptible to crises and social problems such as drugs and violence.
Street children in Afghanistan work to provide the family’s income. They beg, shine shoes, clean vehicles, and sell newspapers, glasses, chewing gum, plastic bags, phone cards, and flowers. Sometimes they are abused physically and emotionally, and they get involved in robbery and drug trafficking.
Most of these street children are refugees from the many insecure places in my country, or their parents were killed in the war. They are always hungry and have limited access to medical care, food, education, protection, and shelter because they have to work from dawn to dusk to support their families. Thousands of children work the streets to help their families through the harsh winter.
I recently graduated from Herat University and while at the university, my research was about street children. Despite the progress in school enrollment over the last two years, half of school-age children are out of school. Some of these street children’s families are addicted to narcotics and their parents force them to work in the streets. Other street children simply live in poverty or insecurity.
One twelve-year-old boy told me, “My father is dead and I have my mother and three sisters. I work to support them and pay the monthly rent for our house.”
Afsana, a street girl who sells plastics, told me she sells on the street in the afternoon but in the morning she goes to school because she wants to become a teacher and teach street children. “I want people to help me so I can achieve my dreams.” I did my research with a group of my classmates at the university. I found that despite the problems that street children have, they are very eager to study and help their families escape from poverty.
When I finished this project, I concluded that the government must recognize and help these street children, and provide them with temporary shelter and access to education. Most of these families have too many children and they need to be taught about birth control. These children need a healthy environment so they can learn. Another priority is to open age-appropriate workshops and offer skills training to these children. I believe that children also should have the right to play and experience joy. I hope that one day all these children achieve their goals and get access to education and have a bright future.
By Khadija N.
UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
These children sound amazing! I can’t imagine being so young, working to provide for a family and still determined to get an education. Their strength is admirable but I can see that they could easily fall prey to predatory people who will lead them down the wrong path — and abuse them as well. I hope that the government will pay attention to your research and find a way to take care of these special children who so desperately need help. These street children have the potential to grow up to be a powerful part of Afghanistan’s future. Thank you for sharing their stories.
Your essay leaves me better informed. It is too easy for people like me, who are far from the situation you describe, to hold a simple stereotype of “street children.” But of course, every situation is different. Thank you for representing these children, with compassion, for your readers.
Salam, I have already read your essay, Weldon. when i read your essay i interested to talk with you more on your research about street children and i like to contact with you, because my field of working is also on street children.if it is possible contact with me by this this phone number. +93 795 057563
Some of theses street childrens are soo talented,i see alots of knowledge on them,but due to financial problem they can not afford it to goto school.
Its really hurts when i see them at all.in balkh (mazar e sharif) its like common thing that childrens works and strugle at small ages.its really hurt.weldone in you r hand writhing and best of luck for ur mission.im with u.
This passage reminded me with the plot in “a thousand splendid suns ” when Rasheed asked Aziza to become a street begger. I feel like Aziza’s life is similar to the poor child in the passage, because they are both forced to go begging on the street in order to support the family. This passage made me have a better understanding of that book, and leads me feel extremely sympathy with those little children who have no choice but to go begging on the street because of their family’s poor condition.
The experience of those children breaks my heart. They were born in this living case that having no chance to get education and even hard to feed themselves. It’s so cruel for those little children because they are too small and have no ability to fight for their right. Hope your essay can let more and more people to know there are so many poor kids in the world so they can help them. May those children can grow up healthily and happily without any worries about living. Thank you for writing this essay and it will hope those poor kids a lot. May the world has no war in the future.
I feel sorry to them, for being so young to take the pressure of living under such poor condition. They do not have the freedom that children from the U.S. have, and I cannot imagine how much physical and mental stress they have.
I think at the same time of reading the stories, it is more important to spread them out in our lives, and let more people to know these stories. I hope things would get better with the helps of humanitarian organizations and one thing will be proved that love could overcome all the hardness in the world. And thank you for letting this story to be known by us and inspire us.
The essay is very encouraging. To work and support your own mother and three sisters is a very hard job to do. If offered better opportunities, I think they will be very talented. Their dreams are really inspiring and I know they will fulfill it. I really support the children with determination and I believe they are the future of the nation. I can relate the story to my dad, he also went through the same experience as he studied and supported himself and his family of seven people. He did not get any support whatsoever and was very determined. I am really impressed with the essay and it encourages me.
Hi Khadija, thank you so much for writing this article! As a tenth grader who’s about to study Khaled Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, it is an honor to read an article about many of Afghanistan’s children working to support their families. It is very inspiring to read about how many children make the best of their situations. The circumstances they are in are not great and I do hope they receive more help soon, if not already. I agree with your opinion that the government should provide children with education and temporary shelter. In response to what you wrote about families needing to be educated on birth control, I know from prior knowledge that many families have many children because there is not a guarantee that every child will survive due to poverty. This article also reminded me to not take education, food, shelter, and other blessings of life for granted. I also feel sadness in my heart that children all around the world, not just in Afghanistan, need to work so hard to support their family. But it also warms my heart that many of these children really want to support their families and work whole-heartedly. In addition, I completely support the children having bigger dreams for their lives in the future, and I do hope that many of them will be fulfilled. Thank you again for writing this informative article.