KABUL (SW) – The Afghan capital Kabul has sad signs of absolute poverty and disparity everywhere with citizens like Hamed only earning a meagre amount of income for a long day of crippling labor.
“Last night, my wife said at meal time that she ran out of flour and oil, I wondered what to do. I have both nervousness and epilepsy. Doctors say don’t do heavy work, but if I don’t do heavy work, how will the six people I support survive,” said Hamed.
He is a worker who goes out of the house daily with his old wheelbarrows to carry loads so that he can provide money or a piece of bread, but the income he earns from this work does not meet the needs of his family of six.
Hamed says: “There are six of us in the house and I leave the house at 1:00 in the morning to go to work. I have three daughters and a two-year-old son who cannot walk and is under treatment at home. I earn 200 to 250 Afghanis a day, I pay 1,500 Afghanis a month in rent and I am also in debt.”
Hamed adds that in the last three years, he has been able to benefit from the humanitarian aid of foreign organizations only once, and for a few days, the burden of household support is lifted from his shoulders.
Kabul, which is a city full of capital as well as poverty at the same time, is the main shelter for a large number of poor people. Many citizens here try to put bread on the table by carrying the burden of others on wheelbarrows.
Abdul Razaq, another resident of Kabul, who carries goods in the city with a wheelbarrow, says that the money he earns from this work is not even enough to pay for his house rent.
He adds: “I come to work at 7:30 in the morning, but there is no work. Only around 150 Afghanis are earned daily, which sometimes cannot be earned either. There are 12 family members. My two children are in Iran, but the currency value there is very low, even the rent of our house is not met. I have 10 children (five girls and five boys) who also go to school.”
Similarly, Farid, who is the breadwinner of a family of eight, leaves the house after sunrise with his wheelbarrows and tries to carry people’s stuff to earn more money by the end of the day. But he says that most days he cannot even earn 100 Afghanis.
Farid adds: “I leave home at 5:00 and earn 70-80 Afghanis. There is no choice. We either have water or bread and tea every night.”
In recent years, poverty has spread among the citizens and more than half of the Afghan population needs humanitarian aid, and according to the recently released statistics of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), a quarter of the Afghan citizens go to bed hungry at night.
