Member-only story
Water crisis in Afghanistan: The burden on women and children
Sana Atif, Mahtab Safi, and Freshta Ghani authored this report for the Zan Times in Persian, and it was translated into English by Rustam Seerat.
It’s 5:10 in the morning, and 12-year-old Hadia* tightly grips two yellow 20-litre water buckets as she sets out to fetch drinking water from the mosque in the Adah Hakim Sahib area of Kandahar City. She’s not alone. In addition to the men using the water to perform ablution for morning prayers at the mosque, a line of 50 others wait to fill their own containers. Like Hadia, they are enduring a severe water shortage at home and rely on the mosque. Hadia waits an hour before it’s her turn to fill her containers. To her dismay, the mosque’s tap runs dry before she can fill her buckets. “The mosque’s tap only provides water for ablution in the morning, and then it gets disconnected. That’s why I try to wake up earlier than usual. However, even then, it’s so crowded that I don’t get a turn before the well dries up,” says Hadia.
In the morning, Hadia’s sole concern is finding drinking water. So, after leaving the mosque, she goes to a nearby stream. After dipping the first bucket into the murky water, the skinny girl takes deep breaths as hoists it onto the stream’s edge, before…
