Published in The New York Times, 12/30/2017 By Rod Nordland Kabul, Afghanistan — On visiting days in the women’s wing of Pul-e-Charki prison in Kabul, Najia Nasim would regularly see a little girl named Dahlia waiting outside her mother’s cell, standing up straight, wearing a small backpack. Inside the backpack were all of the girl’s clothes and a few personal possessions. Ms. Nasim goes to the prison regularly to look for children who are older than 5, and thus eligible to be freed and put in one of her organization’s orphanages. These are children who are in prison only because their mothers are there, with no one else in their family willing or able to take them. Dahlia was hardly bigger than a toddler, but her mother claimed she was 5, which Ms. Nasim did not believe; 4 at most, she said. “Her mother would always say, ‘The last time when you didn’t take her, she cried all day.’ She begged me please take her,” Ms. Nasim said. Their orphanages were not equipped for children …
[Read more...] about Some Afghan Children Find an Alternative to Jail — for Now
