The start of a new year is often a time for hope and looking towards the future. Afghan-istan's ten million children have more to hope for than many. While the war against the Taliban may be coming to an end, the humanitarian crisis is far from over. Even before the terrorist events in America on 11 September, Afghan-istan was at crisis point with the country's infrastructure wrecked by more than two decades of armed conflict, five years of Taliban rule and a three-year drought that killed livestock and crops and left children malnourished.
Chrissie Gale, head of programmes at the charity Children in Crisis, says, 'A lot of politicians are discussing what the future of Afghanistan will be at the moment. Their discussions will shape the future for Afghanistan's children. Currently we are not expecting the situation to change much and it will take an interim government a while to have an effect on the country's social welfare, health and education. Aid agencies are anxious to alleviate hardships in Afghanistan until the new government can take over from the interim one. Some food is getting through but there are difficulties because there is still territory with rebel groups and the harsh winter is rapidly cutting people off.'
Oxfam reports that the 2001 harvest was only about half that of a normal year and even lower in some regions. Even before the current crisis, 5.5 million Afghans, around one fifth of the population, were already at risk of severe food shortages.
'While the world community has been generous at funding emergency food relief, health needs have been largely overlooked,' says Andrew Wilder, Save the Children's Afghan-istan and Pakistan field office director. 'This winter, more children will die of respiratory illness, diarrhoea or measles than any other causes.'
Difficulties accessing water leads to sanitation problems, and Oxfam estimates that 75 per cent of Afghans have no safe water, 90 per cent lack adequate sanitation and more than 75 per cent have no access to basic health care.
The country has some of the worst maternal, infant and child mortality rates in the world, as well as the highest proportion of widows and orphans. One out of four children doesn't live to see their fifth birthday.
Surviving winter
Now is a particularly bad time because temperatures during Afghan winters can drop to minus 26 degrees centigrade. Children living in the freezing conditions need shelter, clothing and warm blankets.
'In Afghanistan hundreds of thousands of people will be exposed to the elements this winter, no matter which authority sits in Kabul,' says Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy. 'We are moving supplies every day, but we still face a very tough road ahead.'
Dr Eric Laroche, the Unicef representative for Afghanistan, warns that as many as 100,000 children could perish this winter if aid fails to reach them and their families in sufficient quantities.
Most families live in mud huts without heat. Those who have fled to refugee camps sleep in tents or under plastic sheeting. Last winter Unicef reported that in one camp alone, more than 100 children froze to death when temperatures dropped.
Moving on
In the year before 11 September, an estimated 800,000 people had already been displaced from their homes, both within Afghanistan and to Pakistan and Iran. Many Afghan children were born in the refugee camps and have never seen their home country.
Children are not safe even in these refugee camps because, especially in camps close to the borders, they face the risk of being recruited as soldiers. Children also risk getting separated from their families and left extremely vulnerable when they travel away from their homes. In comparable emergencies, two to five per cent of children have lost their families.
Along with poorer families, many skilled and highly educated people have fled Afghanistan, which has led to shortages of doctors and teachers. This problem has been exacerbated by women being banned from working under the Taliban regime.
Accessing education
Girls were also banned from receiving an education and schools are now virtually non-existent in Afghanistan. What few schools remain are under-resourced.
Chrissie Gale from Children in Crisis says, 'Nationally there is a shortage of schools, teacher training, school buildings and good environments for children to learn and develop.'
Oxfam has run a Winter Schools programme in Afghanistan for the past six years and has been determined to operate the 307 schools in the Hazarajat region, one of the country's poorest areas, again this winter. The Oxfam programme teaches children up to 12 years old basic literacy, numeracy and life skills.
'Most of these children work on the land during the spring, summer and autumn. The brutal winter months are the only chance they get for a basic education,' says Oxfam's Afghanistan Winter Schools programme manager Melinda Young. 'Food keeps people alive, but education gives the country a future.'
Play time
One positive result of so many people being illiterate and books, pencils and paper being in short supply is that a great tradition of oral storytelling has developed. But the books that are available tend to be dull because the Taliban banned pictures of people or animals. Flying kites used to be a popular pastime, but the Taliban also forbade that.
There are few safe places for children to play amid the mines and unexploded bombs left by warring groups. Around 100,000 people in Afghan-istan have become victims of landmines, and a third of these have been children. An average of four children are injured every day.
Save the Children worked with mine-clearing agencies in Kabul to make safe play areas and build playgrounds. Nilgun Ogun, Save the Children's director of programme operations in Asia, addressing a Save the Children Youth Council, said, 'I went to Kabul about a month after we opened the first playground and it was great. You walked in and there were hundreds of kids. There were grandparents bringing one-year-olds and two-year-olds. We had to keep repairing the first playgrounds we built almost every month because the older kids and the adults would come in after dark and use the swings.'
War trauma
But the nightmare for many Afghan children will continue long after the fighting ends. Accounts from Kabul and other parts of the country affected by the recent warfare indicate that children are experiencing traumatic stress similar to that found in a Unicef study in the city five years ago - the last time the city experienced direct conflict.
The 1997 report showed the violence that children experienced influenced their emotional development and dramatically affected their views of themselves and their future. Three-quarters of the children believed that they would not live to adulthood and eight in ten children reported that they sometimes or often 'feel so sad I can hardly cope with life'.
Teachers remaining in Kabul report that many pupils suffer from sleeplessness, nightmares and anxiety which causes a lack of concentration and inability to study properly and affects their appetite and ability to play.
Before 11 September Unicef sponsored several emotional counselling programmes in Afghanistan to help children who continued to struggle with the trauma of previous fighting. Re-establishing these programmes is a Unicef priority when Afghanistan enters a rehabilitation phase.
Unicef's Carol Bellamy says, 'Afghan children are experiencing not only the hardships of physical survival, but the fear and hardships of emotional trauma. As we look ahead to the recovery and rehabilitation of Afghanistan as a nation, we must work hard on the emotional recovery and rehabilitation of Afghanistan's children. For Afghanistan to have a decent future we must help children leave their nightmares behind.'
Facts and figures
One in four children will die before their fifth birthday.
* Almost half the children under age five are malnourished.
* Every 30 minutes an Afghan mother dies giving birth.
* Education, particularly for girls, is virtually non-existent.
* There are ten million unexploded landmines in Afghan soil - the equivalent of one for every child.
Further information
* Afghanistan: A Children's Crisis (6 November 2001), a briefing position paper from Save the Children is on the website www.savethechildren.org.uk Donations hotline: 020 7701 8916