Winners and Losers in Afghanistan

Kisil Kucha is a village like many others in rural Afghanistan. It’s located in the sparse northeastern part of the country and is softly nestled in the bottom of a small valley between two steep mountainsides. Kisil Kucha’s 200 families stick close together, almost all live from farming or from raising livestock. The ride to the small neighboring town of Hazarbargh takes about an hour by donkey.

The fate of widows

Gul Nisar has a small piece of property and an adobe house in Kisil Kucha. She’s 36 years old and has seven children to raise. She lost her husband a year ago when he died in a work accident. Nisar is at the point of exasperation.

"I’ve already sold everything in my house at the bazaar to get some money," she says. "I’m the only one who can help me. I’m scared. I want to send my kids to school, but how am I supposed to care for them? There isn’t any help available anywhere. Where’s the government? My life is falling apart and I can’t take it anymore."

Nisar is far from alone. Thousands of women in Afghanistan have also lost their husbands and are struggling to make ends meet. For women, financial security is something that only exists as long as their husbands are still around.

Take Bibi Fatima, for example. At 80 years of age, she can barely walk and is too old to be begging on the streets of Kabul. Yet that’s what she’s forced to do everyday. She lost her husband and four sons in the war. "I’m so ashamed, I’d rather be dead" than have to be a beggar like this, she says. Often, the toothless woman dawns her burqa and holds out her hands begging in front of Kabul’s newest attraction, the Roshan Center.

Rebuilding businesses

The department store has five stories and a glass facade and is located in the city’s new business district. "You can get anything here, from clothing and electronics to furniture," owner Haji Gholam Hossein Roshan proudly boasts.

A woman’s black coat with fur trim is hanging in the shop window for $150. "We’ve adapted our offerings to our customers," the salesman explains. "We’ve got stuff for the less rich and we’ve got stuff for the wealthy. The economy is starting and Kabul has become safer. That’s good for business."

After the fall of Afghan King Zahir Shah, Roshan fled and lived for 25 years in exile in Britain. He sent all four of his sons to study in the United States. Now the family has returned. "I have hope. I believe in the future of my country. I think things can improve for everyone," he says.

Returning home

Abdel Majid is another former refugee who returned to the country a few months back. He was on the run for 18 years, living first in Iran and later in Pakistan. Now he’s living with his wife and three daughters in a tent on the western edge of Kabul along with 700 other families. The people there have christened their wild settlement Waizalabad. But for Majid, Kabul is only a way station. Right now he’s working as a day laborer, but he’d like to return to his property in the small Kapisa province in northern Afghanistan. "But in Kapisa, the local commandants decide what happens," he explains. "They have many armed men. They rob and they steal and you can’t build a house there." For now, he’s decided to stay in Kabul. But as soon as Kapisa is safe again, he wants to return to the village.

Currently, the country is preparing for its new constitution and free elections, but even those factors won’t be enough to determine how the next act will unfold in the lives of people like Nisar, Fatima, Roshan and Majid. Because the ability to preserve the fragile peace in Afghanistan, to disarm the local warlords and to provide tangible security and prosperity outside of Kabul depends, above all, on the political will of donor countries to maintain a lasting engagement in Afghanistan. And that could be a long time: After a quarter century of war, the United Nations estimates the engagement won’t just require years, but also decades.