Ten Dollars a Day

Photo from an American Soldier in Afghanistan's collection

In Afghanistan, the American Soldier in this photograph, per the US Department of Defense, wears and carries US$17,472 worth of gear. On average, the family of the rural child in this photograph makes approximately US$1 per day. If this girl's family makes $1 per day, and she lives to her life expectancy, of 44 years (UNICEF)-- her family's lifelong earnings will be less than the value of this single soldier's uniform.

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42 children, like the girl in this picture, will die this month in Afghanistan by stepping on or encountering a land mine.

That's more than one child a day.

Do you remember being a child, running aimlessly through that field by your house, perhaps chased in a game of tag, or running after your dog? Can you look out the window of your house right now, and see your child -- or your neighbor's child -- doing the same?

What if scattered about your front yard were buried explosives, dropped 25 years ago from a Soviet airplane...multi-colored, shaped in the form of butterflies. Intended to be a curiosity to a child. Designed to be picked up by a child...to maim or kill a child...in a sinister act of all out war. Because a disabled child, or a dead child, is a distraction to the family of a rebel soldier. And, a disabled child -- and certainly a dead child --is unlikely to grow up into an effective future soldier

So, 25-year-old butterfly bombs lay buried in the fine dust that migrates around the arid desert that is your front yard... to be found by your curious child, after a wind or rainstorm, which reexposed its deadly form.

"Hey," says your daughter, turning to look at your young son. "Look at this," she says, as she picks up the mysterious, pink-winged thing...

And then, in an instant, she is dead.

It could happen today...if you lived in Afghanistan.

What if you were a rural Afghani goat farmer, with no interest in politics at all. And last night, unbeknownst to you, your neighbor down the street -- who is jobless, hungry, and cannot feed his family -- decided he would join the Taliban...

Because they said they would pay him $10 a day.

Not because he really understands the conflict. He has not read about it -- because as a rural Afghani man, there is a 91% chance he is illiterate.

No, he joins because he understands that $10 a day is more than abject poverty.

$10 a day is $2 a day more than being a state police officer. $4 a day more than working for a cash-to-work program funded by the international relief community. $8 to $9 a day more than the average daily Afghani wage -- if you are fortunate enough to have a job. And $10 a day more than his current condition..of having absolutely no income at all.

What if your neighbor is now tasked, in this complex fight against the Americans, with burying IEDs (improvised explosive devices) randomly in the dirt road that runs in front of your house -- the street that you walk daily to the market, or into town -- because the enemy might drive down the road.

Will you -- as his neighbor -- have any idea that he buried explosives there? Will you know exactly where? Will your little girl? Will he tell you where he hid them? Or is this secret one of the many conditions of his newly acquired daily wage?

Will you discover his actions because you hear an explosion, and come running out of your house, to find the decimated body of your child splayed lifelessly in the road, or in a nearby field? Your child -- an incidental casualty in this confusion known as war. Your child -- reduced to a black tic of ink on a bureaucrat's statistical log.

One in 42...this month.

Tic.

Your dead child.

This happens more than once a day to a child -- to a family -- in Afghanistan.

* * * * *

If the girl in this photo is 10 years old, then all she has ever known is war.

In the days that she was conceived, so was al Qaeda's plot against America. And so, the American conflict in Afghanistan, that began in Kabul on October 7, 2001 -- in response to the attacks on New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon -- has been waged her entire life.

Now suppose this girl is 2,339 years old. It's less likely, I admit. But, at 2,339 years old, it would still be true, that most of what she has ever known is war.

Alexander the Great marched in here in 328BC, followed by the Scythians, White Huns, then Turks. In 642, the Arabs came, and introduced the religion of Islam. Then came the Persians, then the Turkic Ghaznauds. A man named Gengus Khan stopped by with his Mongols in 1219, and occupied the area till his death. Local Princes took the power back, till Tamerlane -- a descendant of Khan -- came through for another enduring visit. The story of warlords and factions and power struggles continues here through modern history -- seeking a trade route or a political buffer between north and south, east and west, in this sandy, mountainous interspace of cultures known as Afghanistan.

In 1839, the British came, and during their ongoing colonial quests, made three attempts to rein in the locals -- in the form of First, Second and Third Anglo Afghan wars. Then there was Russia, from the North, who also savored a piece of the pie. It was, in fact, the Russians and the British, who, in 1880 -- in the semi-random way that imperialists do -- took out their Sharpies and their maps and sketched the modern borders of Afghanistan.

If our girl is 2,339 years old, then something very hopeful happened to her 92 years ago, in 1919 -- the year the 19th Amendment and women's right to vote was introduced to Congress in America. In Afghanistan, the new King Amanullah -- who took power when the British finally threw in the towel -- sought to modernize Afghanistan. Amongst other advances for women, he advocated for female literacy and education. He removed the mandate of the public veil from women -- making it a choice instead of an obligation. In 1919.

These were, for many tribal leaders of the time, unpopular decisions. A clash of religion, culture, conservatism and change. So, the rights of Afghani females to gain an education, to choose a husband, to learn a profession, to run for public office -- all slowly sputtered forward, and sometimes back -- for decades. In 1959, women in urban centers again were given the choice to publicly unveil. In 1964, women were given the right to vote and were allowed to enter politics. In 1978, under the influence of the Soviet Union, communists came to power. Girls' education became compulsory, marriage age was raised to 16, and brideprice was abolished. Unfortunately, along with these changes, the overt practice of religion -- Islam -- was banned. And understandably, ensued a popular revolt amongst Muslims across the countryside.

Our ten year old girl wasn't alive during the occupation by the Soviet Union, which lasted until 1989 -- more than a decade before her birth. But the legacy of that era of war lives on for her, and children like her, to this day. It is estimated that 1 million Afghani's died during that conflict. Many of the casualties were children, caught in the crossfire, or more unthinkably -- injured or killed by those butterfly-shaped bombs.

When the Soviet military finally withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, a power vacuum ensued. Once the Mujahadeen, who tenaciously fought off the Soviets (with American military aid), took power, the result was nearly a decade of infighting and clan wars. A radical Islamic group called the Taliban, slowly rose to power, occupying the capital Kabul in 1996, and 90% of the country by 1998. And implemented an ultraconservative interpretation of Sharia law -- the moral code of Islam -- that some call "Talibanization".

Five years before our girl's birth -- when almost 50% of urban professionals in Afghanistan were women -- came a decree that would ultimately change the course of her human rights, her health, and her very life. The Taliban Decree of 1996.

The decree begins:

"Women, you should not step outside your residence."

And so began a new era of women's rights (or lack-there-of) in Afghanistan.

If you were a professional woman in 1996, imagine a declaration from your new government that you are no longer allowed to leave your home. Imagine they have also declared that you must paint the windows of your home black, to prevent anyone from looking in, and glimpsing you pacing around frustratedly inside.

Imagine they declare you are no longer allowed to go to work. Nor school. Ever. Ever again. You, nor any of your female children.

If you must leave the house for, say, emergency medical care, you must wear a burqua, which covers you from head to toe, with a small vent at the eyes to allow you to see. And you can only go out with a male family member. If you do not have a male family member -- as happened to 400 female orphans after the decree in Kabul-- then you are not allowed to go outside at all; the 400 orphan girls were kept locked inside for over a year.

If you are a widow, with no male relatives, you and your children will likely starve, due to your lack of access to the outside world.

In an emergency, your male doctor is not allowed to see your entire body -- only the perceived affected body part, and only if you are accompanied by a male relative. Your female doctor (40% of the doctors in your city are female), is the one female professional still allowed to work. She could treat you, if she could safely find a way from home to work. But like you, she now requires a male relative to escort her through town. You will soon discover only 25% of them can safely make the trip. The other 75% of female physicians remain imprisoned in their homes -- like you -- creating a crisis in women's access to health care.

You (and all persons of Afghanistan) are forbidden to listen to music, dance, sing, fly kites, raise birds or own a mirror. You cannot take photographs of loved ones, and must destroy all photos of people you have, because this is considered idolatry. If you violate these rules, you will be punished.

And what will be your punishment? It depends upon your crime. But, it is possible you will be led into a soccer field in your home community, wearing your burqua. In front of the crowd -- who are no longer allowed to clap or cheer at public ceremony -- you might be flogged, or stoned, or possibly shot in the head at close range with a rifle. As a lesson to others to obey.

The Taliban were driven from official power approximately one month after the US invaded in October 7, 2001 -- in response to the 9/11 attacks, and "Talibanism" was replaced with an elected democracy. But today, 10 years later, the Taliban continue to fight, and influence, and intimidate. And the war that rages in response continues to devastate the people and development of Afghanistan.

So, what about our girl of ten. What happens when a country is in a constant state of war, and cannot (or chooses not) to properly invest in the development of its people? How have these ten years of war, and all that has gone before, influenced her life and her future?

She beat the odds when she turned one -- because 11% of infants here die before 12 months of age. She beat the odds again when she turned five, because one in every five children in Afghanistan die before the age of five.

One in five.

Even under Taliban rule, the women of Afghanistan did not fail her. When female education was banned, women risked the punishment of death to run secret schools for girls within their homes -- understanding the value of her education, and her future. Nevertheless, today, only 18% of girls here are enrolled in school, and a mere 6% actually attend. (Boys rates are not much better -- with 38% enrolled, and 15% attending.) Only 13% of females in the country are literate.

If she marries, legally it will be at age 16 or older-- although it is estimated that 50% of girls are forced into arranged marriage before 16 years of age. If she gets pregnant at 16, or 15, or 12, her youth and small size -- enhanced by poverty and malnutrition -- puts her at risk for a small pelvic opening, and birthing difficulties. With only a 14% chance of having a skilled birth attendant at her side, she has a 10% chance of dying each time she gives birth.

And today, while I, an American female, am expected to live to 81 years of age -- her life expectancy is 44.

I have to smile, though, when I look at the picture again. This little girl in bright pink. No fear. Unhidden. Hands folded quietly, staring with bold curiosity at the foreign soldier. Does she represent the shrewd, historical strength of the people here? Yes. Is her courage a glimmer of hope for the future of Afghanistan? I hope so.

At least for the next 34 years, which -- if she survives war and land minds and childbirth -- is predicted to be the extent of her life.

* * * * *

Why does this conflict continue? It's an exquisitely complicated question. But here's one of many things to contemplate:

Food. Shelter. Clean water. Health care. Education. Literacy. Security.

What would you do if you didn't have them?

What would you do, for $10 a day?

Map: Areas in dark maroon have a life expectancy of less than 45 years. Can you find Afghanistan?