Poverty is defined as a condition in which individuals lack access to basic necessities of life and do not have sufficient income to obtain them. According to the World Bank, anyone earning less than 1.90 USD per day is considered poor.
It is midday. The sun is harsh, a warm breeze passing through.
Taimani Street is filled with the voices of vendors and buyers. Every passerby is occupied—someone is shouting to sell an item, someone else is bargaining with a shopkeeper, while others simply hurry along their route. A little further ahead, in an alley, two tired but hopeful dark eyes watch the crowd.
She extends her small hands toward passersby, holding out pens, and calls loudly:
“Buy a pen! It’s 10 afghanis!”
Twelve-year-old Soheila sells pens on Taimani Street. She works from 7 a.m. until late at night.
She is the eldest child in her family and lives with six family members in a rented home in Kota-e-Sangi, Kabul. For the past year, she has taken to the streets to help earn bread for her family. To this child laborer, selling each pen is “purchasing a dream”—a dream called food. Her father sold juice near Kabul University and was killed in the attack on the university. After his death, Soheila and her mother assumed responsibility for the household.
Speaking to Public Tribune, she says:
“When my father was martyred, my mother and I had no choice but to work.”
She adds that her mother collects charity for income. According to Soheila, a pack of pens costs her 90–100 afghanis, and selling one full pack earns her only 20–30 afghanis profit per day.
With teary eyes and a trembling voice, she describes how people treat her:
“Rich people come once a week with their cars and give money or clothes to the women who work in the streets. But when we children go to them and say we are also deserving, give us something too, the men or women yell at us and say it’s not for you.”
Because of financial hardship and not having an ID card, Soheila has never been able to attend school.
She says they need money to obtain an ID card, which they cannot afford. When her mother went to the school, officials told her that Soheila could enroll using her father’s ID—but that too was lost during the university attack.
Soheila knows school only from the color of the uniforms her neighbor’s daughters wear—clothes that, once too worn for them, are passed down to her.
She has no particular idea about what school would be like if she ever had the chance to go. Growing up in deep poverty, her only concern has been silencing hunger.
Soheila’s wish is simple:
That the Taliban regime provide work opportunities for families without a male breadwinner, so that children like her will not be forced into street vending.
Like her family, thousands of others in Afghanistan are struggling with extreme poverty.
Despite receiving significant cash aid during its two years in power, the Taliban regime has not managed to bring even dry bread back to the tables of Afghan households.
Since the Taliban takeover, poverty rates have sharply increased, and international organizations have repeatedly warned of severe hunger and impending famine.
The World Food Programme has said that cutting food aid would trigger a hunger crisis in Afghanistan.
The organization further reported that extreme hunger has affected around 20 million Afghans, with 6 million of them only a few steps away from famine.
