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Last time you were here, you were looking to help vulnerable children and families. Your support can save and change lives.

Three years since the transition of political power to the Taliban, the economic situation for children, families and communities has continued to deteriorate across Afghanistan.

According to the United Nations, in 2024, 23.7 million people – more than half of the country’s population – will need humanitarian assistance. In addition, 65 percent of families reported directly experiencing an economic shock, a 20 percent increase compared to 2022.

Life in Afghanistan has been marked by decades of insecurity and conflict, recurrent disasters, entrenched poverty and escalating climate-induced crises. As a result there are a multitude of factors that contribute to increasing the vulnerability of children, families and communities, including:

Economic crisis

The political transition in August 2021 exacerbated underlying fragilities that are limiting livelihood opportunities in both urban and rural communities.

Climate-induced crises

After a third consecutive year of drought-like conditions alongside rising temperatures, precipitation patterns have altered across the country, diminishing people’s access to water and damaging food supplies.

Recurrent earthquakes

Lying on multiple fault lines, Afghanistan remains highly vulnerable to multiple earthquakes. In 2023, nearly 400 earthquakes hit the country, including three 6.3 magnitude shocks within eight days in Herat Province that destroyed 40,000 homes and left 275,000 people in need of urgent support.

Restrictions on rights of women and girls

Barriers to women and girls’ participation in public life resulted in significant setbacks in their access to education and employment with many subjected to forced marriage and other forms of gender-based violence.

The country is in crisis. But, above all, it is a child rights crisis.

Afghanistan has one of the highest youth populations in the world, and almost 8 million children – one in three – face crisis levels of hunger. Just to put food on the table, parents are forced to let their children engage in hazardous labour and early marriage.

For women, especially those at the head of their families, rising hunger as well as ongoing restrictions on their rights and participation in public life has left them struggling to meet their own and their families’ basic needs. Under Taliban rule, women are left without the right to work or leave the house independently, and are becoming even more vulnerable and often forced to resort to emergency coping mechanisms.

Zabeeda, lives with her five children and sick husband in rural Afghanistan, and despite working everyday as a cleaner in people’s homes, she barely makes enough money to purchase bread. Out of desperation, she was forced to sell one of her children, Farshad. At the time, it was thought as the only way to save the rest of the family from desperate hunger.

After joining ChildFund’s Cash for Food program, Zabeeda could buy food, clothes for children and medicine for her husband.

“They gave us money with which I bought food (oil, rice, and pulses) and clothes for my children. I bought medicine for my husband. Our living conditions have thankfully improved. I feel many changes,” she said.

The Power of Cash during Humanitarian Emergencies

Much like the cash we use in our everyday lives, the provision of cash assistance after crises is a dignified and effective form of humanitarian assistance. Cash empowers people by giving them the opportunity to determine how to meet their most pressing needs while also fueling the local economy.

ChildFund and our partners, WeWorld and the Rural Rehabilitation Association for Afghanistan (RRAA), are supporting families to access lifesaving food supplies and other essential items through cash transfers. For women-headed households, this type of assistance plays a critical role in helping them fulfill their family’s needs and build a future.

How ChildFund is supporting women-headed households in Afghanistan with cash assistance?

Aziz was widowed four years ago. Since then, growing economic insecurity, and recurrent natural disasters left her struggling to feed her four children. Her youngest daughter become acutely malnourished leaving Aziz fearing for her health and wellbeing.

“I have been through a lot of challenges after my husband died. After he passed, there was not any income to feed the children and respond to our needs,” she said.

“Due to there not being enough food available, my small daughter became malnourished, and I was forced to borrow money from my neighbours and relatives to treat my daughter”.

Each day Aziz would go house to house baking bread, and at night she would tailor clothes as her children slept. But however hard she worked it was never enough.

“During the night, I was tailoring for people, and during the day I was going out around the village to baking bread as labour to earn something to feed my children.”

Aziz’s family was one of 500 families who were provided with cash assistance to help them meet their most pressing needs in the wake of growing economic crisis and increasing food and water scarcity.

“[The cash] helped me a lot to provide food three times during the day, provide clothes, and education materials for my children, and treat them when they faced sickness. It has made my life better.”

While restrictive policies continue to hinder women’s ability to engage in economic activities, and their access to services and assistance, it is critical to support families like Aziz’s to purchase lifesaving essential items.

Donate today to help children and their families living in protracted crises access lifesaving food and essential items.

Photo: Giovanni Diffidenti / WeWorld.

The brutal toll of conflict on children

New and escalating conflicts over recent years have left millions of people around the world without adequate food and protection. As the conflicts continue, the number of children and families in desperate need of aid grows.

By ChildFund Australia

Thirteen-year-old David* was woken in the middle of the night by his mother who told him: “You’re not going to school because war has come to us.”

It was a winter morning on 24 February 2022, and Russia had just launched airstrikes across Ukraine. David’s little town, east of the capital Kyiv, was one of the first to be attacked.

“I was scared and surprised, but I did what my parents told me,” David said.

The day before, David had been at school. His teacher had shown students where to hide in an emergency evacuation. “The feeling was that something could happen soon,” David said.

That night, David remembers seeing firefighters and ambulances heading to Kyiv.

 

Cold, sick, and frightened

David’s town was quiet for a few days, but then sounds of gunfire and shelling swept through. “It was very scary … Things in the house were shaking from the explosions,” David said.

David and his family hid in the basement. The water and the electricity in the house cut off. It was cold and damp in the basement, and David and his family got sick.

After a while, David and his family fled to a relative’s house, which still had heating. They were warm but they lived in constant fear.

“One day the siren sounded very loud and we heard a very loud roar,” David said.
“There was a big explosion, and we went outside and saw that a house nearby had no roof, and there were wounded and dead people.”
“Everything around the house was on fire.”
David and his family had to wait some days to leave. When they began to flee, they came under fire.
“There was a tank in the distance aiming at us,” David said.

Photo: Maxim Dondyuk.

David and his mother eventually ­arrived at a shelter, but David had to say goodbye to his father. “The last time we saw my dad, he was leading us to the evacuation site,” David said. “He went to save other people.”

Many surviving children like David, have been separated from family members. Since the conflict started in Ukraine, most men aged between 18 to 60 have been banned from leaving the country.

 

Conflict is stealing children’s lives and futures

Conflicts have led to the death of millions of children. For even more children, conflict has pushed them further into poverty and placed them at a high risk of abuse and exploitation.

In Ukraine, an average of at least two children have been killed or injured every day since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022.

In Myanmar, at least 30 children were killed in sudden airstrikes in February 2023 as part of ongoing conflict in the country.

ChildFund Australia CEO, Margaret Sheehan, called on the international community to get behind organisations on the ground that are helping children and families caught up in conflict. “This senseless loss of children’s lives is devastating and reinforces the importance of ChildFund’s work to protect children wherever we can, especially in times of conflict,” she said. “Donations can help provide children like David a chance to survive and begin to recover from conflict.”

In Afghanistan, decades of conflict have led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

Help children survive conflict

As of April 2023, 15 million children in Afghanistan – more than a third of the country's population – were in need humanitarian and protection assistance.
Basic services and food are limited. Infrastructure has collapsed and it is almost impossible for women to work or get an education.
For single or widowed mothers, it is especially difficult to sufficiently provide for their children.

Around the world, conflict is depriving children of their basic rights to survive, to be protected, and to grow up safe and healthy. The harm of conflict on children is compounded by the effects of climate change, poverty, and food shortages.

Change what happens next

How your donation can help children

The uncertainty and violence of the conflict has left a mark on David and his mother. While they now live in safer conditions, in a shelter for displaced people, for a long time David shuddered at every sound. A psychologist diagnosed him with a high level of post-traumatic stress disorder.

David is one of more than 2.5 million children who have been internally displaced in Ukraine and who are living without adequate food, health care and shelter. Many children no longer can go to school and are living in constant fear and uncertainty.

The donations of ChildFund supporters in Australia and around the world are helping to provide food, health care and safety for children like David.

Your donation can provide families with emergency transfers of cash so they can buy the food, medications, and other essentials that their children need.
Ameena*, a staff member of ChildFund Alliance partner, WeWorld, in Afghanistan said: “Some mothers have sent their children back to school, some have been able to protect their daughters from forced child marriages.
The emergency cash saved them from freezing in the winter. Now they hope for a better future.”

Your donation can also provide hygiene kits and warm clothes, and provide safe spaces for children where they can learn and continue their schooling, play, and just be children for a while.

Thanks to the generosity of ChildFund supporters, David is receiving psychosocial support to help him recover from trauma. He is feeling safer now and has made new friends. He also sleeps better, and he thinks about the horrors of his home being attacked less often.

“I really want to go home… My dream is to go home and ride my bike like before,” David said.

Please donate to help children like David survive conflict, and begin to recover.

Donate now

*Names have been changed to protect individuals’ identities.