Recent developments have indicated that, some parents in Afghanistan drug their children with sedatives to enable them sleep in the midst of their hunger. According to the parents, they give their children sedatives because their children kept on crying due to hunger, and the parents had no food to give to them.
These parents explained that they went to the pharmacy to buy these drugs because the drugs made the children drowsy and it was quite cheap as well. When asked how many parents were giving these sedatives to their children, a group of parents who were in the crowd replied, “a lot of us, all of us.”
Ghulam Hazrat, a parent who also practiced the act pulled out a strip of tablets from his tunic, and these tablets were identified as alprazolam; tranquilizers that are usually prescribed by doctors to treat anxiety disorders. Ghulam disclosed that he had six children, with the youngest being a one -year- old and even he [his one year old son] was not exempted from taking the sedatives as well.
After the Taliban took over and foreign funds were frozen, millions of citizens in Afghanistan are just a few steps away from famine. Most families according to the report, were seen sharing a few pieces of bread amongst themselves. One woman disclosed to the reporters that they ate dry bread by day and dipped the bread in water by night to make it moist for dinner.
Majority of the men outside one of Afghanistan’s greatest cities, Herat, took jobs as daily wage laborers and have been finding it difficult to make ends meet over the past years.
Afghans Sell Their Body Parts In Order To Survive
Due to an economic collapse that hit Afghanistan after their foreign funds were frozen, citizens in the country were forced to take extreme measures to save themselves and their families from hunger. Some citizens resorted to selling their kidneys and lungs, others also sold their children, in order to survive.
In an interview, a boy in his twenties, said he had to get surgery to have his kidney removed three months ago, in order to sell it for some money. He showed the scar from his surgery to the reporters.
“There was no way out, I had heard you could sell a kidney at a local hospital. I went there and told them I wanted to. Some weeks later, I got a phone call asking me to come to the hospital. They did some tests, then they injected me with something that made me unconscious. I was scared but I had no option.”
Ammar(victim)
Ammar (not his real name) disclosed that he was paid about 270,000 Afghanis for his kidney, and most of the money went into the repaying of money that he borrowed to buy food for his family. Selling organs in Afghanistan was not new, but recently it has been the only alternative for most families in the city.
“If we eat one night, we don’t eat the next. After selling my kidney, I feel like I’m half a person. I feel hopeless. If life continues like this, I feel I might die.”
Ammar(victim)
Another woman expressed her grief and sorrows as she told her story on how she had to sell her kidney seven months ago at a cost of 240,00 Afghanis, which she also used to repay a debt. Now, she said that she and her husband are being forced to sell their two-year old daughter, because the people they have borrowed from keep harassing them and asking for their daughter as a form of payment.
READ ALSO: Government To Ban Use of V8 And V6 Vehicles In 2023
