The starvation situation in Afghanistan: Parents are giving sleep medicine to children crying from hunger, selling daughters

Things have turned worse in Afghanistan. The condition of starvation is such that people are giving sleeping pills to their hungry children to make them sleep. Many people are even selling their daughters and kidneys for food. The reason for this is the ignorance of the Taliban government toward its people. There has been no foreign aid here since it was captured last year.

Thousands of people are struggling to survive in thatched mud houses outside Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city. Abdul Wahab, who lives here, says that most days in a month the family is unable to manage even to have one meal. Our children cry out of hunger and cannot sleep at night. For this reason, he brings sleeping medicine from the pharmacy. Almost most of the people living there do this.

giving medicine to one-year-old child

Another person Gulan Hazrat says that he even gives this medicine to his one-year-old child under compulsion. At the same time, doctors say that in the treatment of depression, these pills are used to put the patient to sleep, but their regular use is not approved.

It is said to be used only occasionally. This is because it can cause liver damage. Apart from this, there may be persistent fatigue, sleepiness, and behavioral problems.

Girls are being sold for 2 to 2.5 lakh rupees

According to an AFP report, to avoid starvation, the price of girls being sold at a young age in the name of marriage is between 2 to 2.5 lakh rupees. Nizamuddin said that under compulsion he had to sell his 5-year-old daughter for Rs 90,000.

In western Afghanistan, a woman named Fahima said that her 6-year-old and 1.5-year-old daughters were sold by her husband. The price of the elder daughter was 3350 dollars (about 2.5 lakh rupees), while in exchange for the younger girl they got 2800 dollars (about 2.1 lakh rupees). This money is also not given in lump sums, rather the families buying the girl child will pay it in installments.

Taliban said – this is not our problem

In the camp for the poor, Abdul Rahim Akbar is providing bread or other food items to the poorest of the poor. They have pleaded with the local Taliban administration after several cases of daughters being sold due to starvation, but a Taliban official said that child marriage is not a Taliban problem.

He said – behind such marriages, not the power of the Taliban but the bad economy is responsible. He blames the economic collapse on the US, which has imposed an embargo on the Afghan government's transfer of foreign currency to the Taliban.

The pressure to keep the family alive, secretly selling kidneys

People are ready to go to any extent to deal with hunger. 20-year-old Ammar (fictitious name) told that under pressure to keep the family alive, he sold his kidney three months back for Rs 2.5 lakh.

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