Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Kabul reports on how surging poverty and hunger is forcing destitute families to sell their own children. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our Correspondent’s name. The text has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.

To survive, an Afghan family has sold four of their daughters for 42,000 Afghanis. This family, who live in Afghanistan’s Sar e Pul province, told a local newspaper that they sold their daughters to buy food and other necessities, particularly flour and oil.

This family has sold every child they have had in the last four years for small sums of money. Their first daughter was sold for 11,000 Afghanis, their second daughter for 12,000 Afghanis, their third daughter for 9,000 Afghanis, and their fourth daughter for 10,000 Afghanis.

The local newspaper further reports that the family’s mother is now mentally ill due to the sale of her daughters. The family have no money to either pay for food and treatment of the family’s mother.

Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan there have been numerous reports of the sale of children by their parents, due to poverty in Afghanistan.  Humanitarian aid in the country is mostly not enough for the poor and needy, and people complain that the Taliban-led government do not distribute the aid received from the international community to the needy. In Takhar province, local media have reported that people have complained that aid is only going to one specific tribe received it in that province, and that the Taliban are replacing the poor with their own families. In the same province, people have also complained about the quality of food and other stuff distributed by the WFP and other humanitarian organizations.