Taliban bringing nothing but poverty, suffering to Afghans

Doaa Emam

Afghans may agree on the fact that the Taliban’s takeover in their country has brought with it enormous human rights abuses.

These abuses have cast uncertainty over women’s rights to education and work in the country.

It also cast doubts over the prospects of political opponents, amid expectations that the Afghan ruling movement will not allow a shred of opposition to it.

Growing poverty is pushing Afghans to the edge. Some families are offering their children for adoption for money and because they cannot feed them.

The Taliban described cases in this regard as individual and limited ones.

However, the same cases highlight the impoverishment the Taliban is bringing with it to Afghanistan as it takes over the rule of the country.

Afghan media documents growing poverty rates among Afghans, describing the situation in Afghanistan as ‘intolerable’.

Some Afghans who have newborn twins offer one of the twin babes for sale.

This coincides with the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan and also the freezing of foreign aid to the country.

The Taliban government has also failed in paying the overdue salaries of civil servants as food prices keep getting higher, causing suffering to millions of Afghans.

This has caused some Afghans to sell their properties to buy food.

However, those who have nothing to sell have nothing but their children.

According to Afghan journalist, Maya Oppenheim, some Afghan mothers offer their children for sale for free.

The mothers do this, she said, in hopes that the children will have a better life with their adopting families.

The price of selling children can also secure food for a family for half a year, Oppenheim said.

She noted that mothers suffer because they sometimes have to separate one of their twin children from the other.

She added that this decision to sell was very difficult, more than can be imagined, as it is very difficult to abandon a child because of poverty.