The Taliban has shattered the lives of girls in Afghanistan, who are far more likely to be going hungry than boys, a new report has found.
The drought in Afghanistan combined with the economic crisis and the Taliban’s stringent rules for girls are having “dire” repercussions on their lives, researchers warned.
Save the Children’s study, which comes almost a year after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, found 97 per cent of families are finding it difficult to give their children enough food.
Nearly eight in 10 children said they had gone to bed hungry in the past month, while girls were almost twice as likely as boys to routinely go to sleep while hungry.
Nine in 10 girls said they were eating smaller meals in the past year, have concerns over the weight they are losing and are lacking the “energy to study, play or work”.
Meanwhile, 46 per cent of Afghan girls said they are not going to school, which is more than twice the number of boys who said the same (20 per cent).
Parishad*, a 15-year-old girl living in northern Afghanistan, said she is unable to go to school as her parents cannot afford to feed her and her siblings, let alone the books and stationery she requires to study.
“Some days my father cannot bring food. My brothers wake up at midnight and cry for food. I don’t eat, and I save my food for my brothers and sisters,” the teenager said.
“When my brothers and sisters ask for food, I get upset and cry a lot. I go to my neighbour’s house and ask for food. Sometimes they will help and give me food and sometimes they say they don’t have anything to give me.”
Parishad said her life has changed profoundly in the last year due to her family being evicted from their home as they could not afford the rent, with her parents forced to reject the landlord’s request to buy one of her siblings.
She added: “When we left our old house to come to this house, I was deeply upset and I said: ‘Why are we leaving again? Why are we facing these problems again?’ I was deeply angry, and it was a very difficult time and I cried.
“I would love to go to school. When I see other girls going to school, I wish I could go to school too. Every month we change houses and it’s difficult for us to go to school. We also don’t have any stationery and we need money to buy books. I can’t tolerate it. I can’t do anything about it.”
Parishad urged people to “help my family – and the most vulnerable children and families – with money and…
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