Mar
9
Being an Afghanistani
March 9, 2008 | | 2 Comments
By Violet Wang
Being a young Afghanistani, first of all, it may mean that you could never get a decent job. Secondly, opium poppy is immediately available to you. Thirdly, one can be holding a gun to fight after luring by small gifts like a mobile phone from insurgents.
According to the latest official figure by Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S.,Afghanistan’s unemployment rate was at least 40 percent by 2005, and rising every year.
Kabul’s population has swelled from an estimated 500,000 in 2001 to over three million, according to the Afghan Central Statistics Office, and returning refugees comprise the bulk of this increase.
However, employment opportunities under the Karzai administration and international presence are hardly meeting the needs of job seekers.
Thousands of young men and teenagers ended up working in the poppy fields. With no protection, they are are particularly exposed to opium addiction.
Take the Helmand Province for example, which according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report is producing about 50 percent of the country’s total opium harvest.
Availability of opium and other narcotics in that province has increased the vulnerability of Afghanistani to addiction.
“Opium is the biggest commodity and is widely available everywhere in Helmand Province,” Jahanzeb Khan, a UNODC drug demand reduction specialist in Kabul, told IRIN in a report on the province.
However, it seems not until the worst situation happened, Afghanistani won’t have the knowledge or awareness that the situation they are in are so damaging to themselves.
They are left alone without much help from the weak local government and easily lured by Taliban insurgents who will offer mobile phones or other financial aids to recruit fresh blood fighters.
In the very same Helmand Province, considerable insurgency-related violence were seen, with hundreds dead in suicide attacks, roadside explosions and military operations over the past few months.
According to a IRIN February report citing Safiullah, a resident of Sangeen District in Helmand, many young guys join Taliban ranks for pocket money, a mobile phone or other financial incentives, due to high levels of rural poverty and unemployment.
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Are they any figures on the level of opium and heroin addiction in Afghanistan? It would be useful to see where the opium is processed into heroin- whether in Afghanistan or outside.
Actually your previous story has the figures…