Kids of Kabul

by Deborah Ellis

  She took my little brother — because women could not be outside without a man, and even a little boy qualified as a man — and she went to the Taliban’s compound. She went right up to them and said, “I want my husband out of jail! Why are you doing this to us? We are poor people. If we had any money, we would have run away!”

  By a miracle, they released my father. As soon as he was out, we started walking. We left everything behind in Bamiyan and just walked, for days and days.

  We ended up in Kabul. The Taliban were in Kabul, of course, so I don’t know why my parents thought it would be safer. Maybe they thought we could hide better in a big city. We went into a little room and stayed there for a long, long time. I forgot all about my school. The world became very small.

  But then the Taliban fell and I was able to go back to school. I really wanted my education!

  They put me into the fifth grade even though I could barely write my name. I studied really hard and after a year I could read and write properly.

  I kept on working hard, and in grade seven I started to learn English. I had some books and I taught myself for a while until my school got a teacher who could help me.

  Then, in grade eleven, I got accepted into a program that would pay to let me go to high school in the United States for a year.

  I was very excited. I had seen pictures of the United States, of busy cities with lots of shops and different things to do. But when I got off the plane, I was in Iowa, and all I could see was farmland! That was a bit of a shock.

  I stayed with a host family in Iowa. In the beginning I was scared of everyone. My English was not good, and I had heard terrible things about Americans. I had been told that they hated Muslims and liked to shoot each other and did not behave like human beings. But after a couple of weeks I learned that what I’d been told was not the reality.

  It took me about three months to get used to the Iowa accent and the people, and then I was fine and comfortable. I even attended church — not because I was forced to but because I wanted to. After all, Jesus is very respected by Muslims. On Saturday nights this church had a youth Bible study, and I went and met some friends there.

  The Bible and the Qur’an are very similar. I was glad to learn more about the Bible and I was able to answer the American kids’ questions about Islam. So we learned from each other.

  For the rest of my time in the US, I was just a normal student. I was happy.

  The most special thing about the US is the security. Here in Kabul when I go to the stores I don’t feel comfortable, but in the US I could go to the mall all by myself and no one paid any attention to me. No one said, “You should not be out on your own.”

  The best thing about the United States is that no one cares what you do, so you can do what you want.

  After my year in the United States I came back to Afghanistan and enrolled at the American University in Kabul. Now I have been accepted to a program that will pay for me to attend four years of university in the United States. I have applied to Brown in Rhode Island and to a university in Virginia.

  When I got accepted to study in the US for a year of high school, my mother was very happy. She never got to go to school, and she loves me to have every opportunity. My father and uncles were not happy. My one uncle said to me, “If you go to the US, you will no longer be my niece. What will people say about me if I allow my niece to go to the US? If you were a boy, maybe. But you are a girl, and I do not allow it.”

  I remained calm and respectful, but I went to the US without saying goodbye to him. He doesn’t talk to me anymore, and we used to be close, so that makes me sad.

  My father is happy for me now. At first he was worried about my safety, because of all we had heard about the Americans, but now he is happy. He is not friendly with me the way my mother is, but I know he has a good feeling for me and is proud of me.

  I’d like to study international relations and economics, then come back to Afghanistan to serve my country. One day I would like to become an ambassador. And I want to find ways to help other Afghan women.

  Women in my country are the ones who suffer a lot. Women like me, who have been given good chances, should help other women and girls.

  I am very excited to see what’s going to happen next.

  Nilab, 15

  Until recently, women prisoners were housed in deplorable conditions in Pul-e-Charkhi prison, a beast of a place with a long history of torture and atrocities. Their children were put into the cells with them.

  A couple of years ago, the Italian government built a new prison for women — one with better living conditions and that offered a few activities such as handicrafts and literacy. It’s better, but it’s still a prison — not a good place for the children who live there with their mothers.

  In 2009, a home opened up for the children of prisoners. Children live there, go to school, take computer and other courses. They receive counseling to help them deal with the things they have seen in prison and in their lives, and they are taken on outings around the city.

  Nilab knows too well what it is like to be in prison. She spent a lot of time there, even though she committed no crime.

  I have been in this home for one and a half years. Before that, I lived with my mother in prison.

  It was very bad, living in the prison. It is a place where people go to be punished, so it is not a nice place. All the women there have some problems, and these problems mean they don’t always get along. Everyone’s life is too hard. There are fights, there are arguments, there are people yelling.

  I was very small, very young, and it was very bad for me. I was scared every day.

  I lived with my mother in one small room, a cell. We were not locked in, but she wanted us to stay in that room, and it wasn’t really safe to wander around. There was a mat for her but no mat for me. She was the one in prison. I was just an add-on, so nothing was given to me. My mother got food, but I got no food. My mother shared her portion of food with me, so neither of us had enough to eat. The food was not bad — not good like at this home, but okay. There just wasn’t enough of it, and we were hungry all the time. Those mothers with more than one child would have a very bad time.

  There was nothing to do all day. No school, no place to play. Just sit in the cell with my mother. She cried every day. She was unhappy about being in prison and worried about me, and about my brother and sister, who were living with my grandmother. Every day, she would cry. It was a burden on me because I could not cheer her up.

  She had problems with her health, too. Her teeth hurt and her bones hurt and she could not sleep very well. I got pains in my head.

  Before my mother was arrested, I had been to school for a few years. I knew a few things, like reading and some arithmetic. I tried to keep studying in prison, but it was not good. No good light to see by. Lots of noise. And my mother crying all the time.

  The guards had a very bad attitude to the prisoners and the children. I don’t know why they were so mean. Little children make a lot of noise — that’s what they do — and the guards would beat the children for making noise.

  My cousin kidnapped a baby. When the police arrested my cousin, my mother was with her, and they arrested her, too. She did not do the kidnapping, but they put her to trial and she got a sentence of six years.

  I was with her in the prison for many months and then the commander of the prison came to my mother’s cell. He said to her, “Your daughter is too old to be here. If she was a small child, okay, she could stay with you, but she is growing up and should go somewhere else.”

  That made my mother upset because she had nowhere to send me. My grandparents are poor and it was hard for them to take care of my younger brother and sister. And my father has committed suicide. His family blamed my mother for this, but I don’t think that was right. I have very bad memories of my father’s su
icide. I don’t like to talk about it.

  The commander of the prison told her about this house, and the head of this house came to the prison to meet us. My mother wasn’t sure, but she had no choice, really. The prison said I couldn’t stay there any longer.

  And so I came here. And I am very happy.

  It is a big house, as you can see. It has a high wall around it and guards at the gate so we feel safe. There is a big yard and garden. In the basement there is a big, bright playroom for the smallest kids. I help out down there a lot because the little ones are funny and it is easy to make them happy.

  We have dorm rooms where we sleep in bunk beds, a lounge with a TV set — although we don’t watch much TV since we have so much studying to do. There is a bit of a library, too. I like to sit there and read when the weather is warm enough. The library is too cold in the winter.

  On the first floor, just as you come in, there are classrooms. We have computer classes and English classes and teachers who help us with our homework.

  When I first got here I couldn’t go to a regular school because I had hardly been to school. I was far behind where I was supposed to be. Plus I was too upset to really study. The teachers here encouraged me, so I started to work really hard and found that I could do it! I can learn and get good grades, and now I am at the top of my class.

  But I am not special here for that. None of the kids had much school when they came here, but the teachers expect everyone to do well and they show us how to work hard. We encourage each other and help each other.

  There are kids here that I knew when I was in the prison. They are much happier here.

  I’ve been here long enough now to see how it happens. When kids first come here from the prison all they know how to do is fight. They are afraid and they don’t even know how to play. They have to learn everything — how to get clean, how to share, how to eat without trying to grab all the food, how to sleep at night without nightmares, how to play with toys. Some children do not talk at all when they first come here. They are too afraid to talk. It’s hard, but they learn, and every day they become happier. The teachers are kind to us. Like mothers.

  Now my little brother and sister are here, too. They are also doing very well in school, and I’m happy that we are together.

  The food is really good here. All of us like all the food. There is nothing we don’t like.

  In my future, I plan to be a lawyer and help women who are in trouble with the law. Women are not served well by men. Women have to be able to solve their own problems and not depend on men, because men will not help them.

  In prison I met many women who had killed their husbands because they were forced into marriage or their husbands beat them. So they killed their husbands to be free, but they ended up in prison, where they were not free. It’s not good enough.

  I get to visit my mother every two months. This home does regular visits for all the kids, plus special visits on holidays or if a child is really missing his mother. It’s good to visit because otherwise I would worry too much about her. She is not doing well. She stays in her cell a lot, but she says that the guards are treating her better because they can see she is kind.

  I like going to the prison with a lot of other children from this home because the mothers are so happy to see us. They look at their children and say, “These are not my children!” because their children have eaten well and are clean and have been to school and so they have lots to talk about.

  So, life for me is good right now. It is hard to be away from my mother, and I don’t think she should be in prison, but I can’t change that. All I can do is watch over my brother and sister and work as hard as I can at my studies. When my mother gets out of prison I want to be able to take care of her and give her a good life.

  When that is taken care of, then I will see what else I can do. I have been given a new start. I’m all right. Now I have a responsibility to make others happy.

  Sukina, 15

  Violence against women in Afghanistan is pervasive because of poverty, the ongoing instability caused by decades of war, and the clinging of many to a system of values that believes women are property and are to be silent and obedient. According to the United Nations, one out of every three Afghan women experiences physical, psychological or sexual violence at the hands of men. Lack of education and economic opportunity for women means that even when laws are in place that respect women’s rights, the ability to exercise those rights is limited.

  Afghanistan has just a few shelters for women. Supported by international donors, the shelters were operating independently from the government. Early in 2011, the government wanted to bring the shelters — and the women in them — under its control, stating that before an abused woman can enter the shelter she must appear before a panel to state her case. The Afghan Supreme Court also declared that if a woman runs away from her home for reasons of abuse, and she goes to the house of strangers, such as a shelter, she will be arrested and sent to prison on the charge of adultery, because women should go to other family members for help, not to strangers.

  But what if a woman’s family is also her enemy?

  Sukina went into a shelter to save her life.

  I came to the shelter to escape my marriage.

  I was forced to get married a few years ago.

  I grew up in another province. During the Taliban, we became refugees and went to a different province, Wardak, to try to be safe. We lived in a refugee camp there. It was very hard. Then after some years we went back home.

  My father is a farmer. He works on other people’s land. Because of poverty he had to go into debt with the local shopkeeper to get the things we needed. But then he could not pay the debt. The crops were not good and he did not make enough money. But the shopkeeper had to be paid.

  Another man came to my father and said he would pay the shopkeeper. In exchange for doing that, he wanted me to be his wife. I was very young.

  I did not know anything about this. No one talked to me about it. I was brought to Kabul to this man’s house. I thought he was my uncle. That’s how he was introduced to me. He was very old, an old man.

  He showed me a white dress and asked me, “Do you like this dress?” I did and I said so. Then he said, “If you like it, put it on. Let’s see how you look in it.”

  So I put it on. Then they put some papers in front of me and put my thumb on a pad of ink. Then they put my thumbprint on the paper. And with that, I was married.

  I was not allowed to go home after that. I belonged to this old man and I had to do what he said. I was so surprised that all this was happening. I thought I was in a bad dream, that my life could not be this.

  If he wanted a nice, quiet wife, he did not get one. I was angry and scared and I missed my mother. I cried a lot. Then he would beat me for crying and I cried some more.

  My husband’s family would not let me see anyone outside the family. They would not let me see my own mother. When neighbors or other visitors came over, they locked me in a back room and threatened to beat me if I made any noise.

  They said I had to make carpets to be able to earn some of the money it cost to feed me, and to pay back the money my husband had given to my father for his debt.

  There is skill to making carpets. I didn’t know how to do it. They would stand over me and wait for me to make a mistake. They would beat me and say, “Why don’t you know how to do this?” They locked me in the back room and I was not allowed out into the sunshine.

  After a year, my mother came to visit me. When my husband discovered that she was coming, he took a big pair of scissors and cut off my hair. He cut it right off, like I was a boy. He said he did it because it would make me too ashamed to let anybody see me.

  When my mother came, I kept my hair covered. I did not let her know what he had done to me. She told me she was not in favor of this
marriage but what could she do? She could not go against my father.

  My father-in-law ordered me to tell her that I was happy with them and did not want to go home with her. I refused to speak. I could not lie to my mother, but I was too scared to say what was really going on. And because I kept silent, they hit and beat me.

  So my mother left without knowing everything that was happening to me.

  It went on and on. The beatings, the hunger, the hard times with my husband.

  I would cry for days at a time. I cried so much my in-laws would go a little crazy with it. It went on and on.

  Finally, one day, when they let me move about more freely so that I could do the chores, I went out into the yard to throw away the garbage. I threw it away and then I kept moving. I ran away. I walked and walked for days and then finally made it home to my mother’s house.

  She had heard about the Afghan Human Rights Commission. Once I told her about what was going on, and how they were treating me, she found out about how to get in touch with them and she took me to see them. They helped me to get into the women’s shelter.

  I had to go somewhere safe and hidden. If my husband or his family knew where I was, they might kill me. I am not saying that just to tell my story. They told me they would kill me if I ran away, that I belonged to my husband now and if I left without his permission it would be like I was stealing from him and that was a crime. And if I ran away it would bring shame to my husband’s family and to my family.

  I didn’t want to shame my family, but in the end I wanted to get away and that was all I wanted.

  I have been in the shelter now for over two years, waiting for a divorce.

  My husband disappeared. He went to some other part of Afghanistan, I think. It is very hard to get a divorce without him. Finally, after waiting for a long time, a lawyer went to my father-in-law. She demanded he produce my husband. When that happens, which I hope will be soon, then I will get my divorce.