Kabul Schools Run Out of Room

Eight-year-old Abdullah waves a can of burning incense at passersby, begging for tips. Najila, 10, scavenges in the streets for twigs and scraps of paper to sell as heating fuel. Nearby, Gulnoor, 7, buffs fenders he can barely reach before imploring motorists for coins.

It’s another day on the job for three of Kabul’s hustling street children, all thrust there by poverty and the mass repatriation of refugee families that is overwhelming the country’s fragile social structure, especially schools.

Street children have been a chronic problem in Kabul, the Afghan capital, since war broke out in 1979. But their ranks have swollen to an estimated 38,000 by the mass return of refugees who spent years, or even decades, in exile in Pakistan, Iran and other countries.

The U.N. refugee agency expects the number of Afghans who have returned home since the Taliban regime was ousted late last year to surpass 1.5 million today--60% more than anticipated. And the number could reach 2 million this year.

The vast majority of refugees, about 1.4 million so far this year, have returned from Pakistan. The story of Mantaz, a 14-year-old girl who sells water, does light manual labor and serves as a messenger in Kabul, is typical. Her family comes from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, but it can’t return to its farm land there because of drought and because the Taliban destroyed the irrigation system and orchards to eliminate cover for its enemies. The family members sought safety in numbers in Kabul, where they struggle with overcrowding, high costs and scarcities.

Afghanistan faces myriad health, food and shelter problems as it struggles to recover from a generation of mayhem and dislocation.

But the plight of children is causing special concern. Their loss of childhood and education will make it harder for Afghanistan to break its vicious cycle of violence and hatred. Elke Wisch, UNICEF’s chief of child protection services in Afghanistan, calls it “the culture of the gun.”

“Unless it changes, the same fate will await them as their parents and grandparents,” Wisch said. “Everything will continue as it has.”

Preliminary results of a government study show 2.6 million children enrolled in grades one through six last March, a sharp rise from the 1.1 million pupils who registered the previous year and far above the 1.8 million that UNICEF had projected.

Much of the increase comes from the reregistration of girls, who had been forbidden by the Taliban to attend school. Now, girls account for nearly half of Kabul’s elementary school enrollment. But a bigger boost has come from returnees, who are arriving at the schools in such high numbers that some are being turned away.

That is what happened to Nashad, 11, a shoeshine boy whose family comes from another devastated farming area in Afghanistan, the Shomali plain, which was on the front line between Taliban and opposition Northern Alliance fighters. The plain is strewn with so many land mines, burned-out mud brick houses and the wreckage of tanks and other vehicles that his family prefers to stay in Kabul.

After Nashad was turned away by public schools, a private school found a place for him.

Just as the situation becomes more acute for children, the United Nations has had to cut back on aid to education here because the tide of refugees has made relief aid--food and health assistance--a high priority, said Maki Shinohara, spokeswoman here for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many of the countries that promised millions of dollars in humanitarian aid at an international conference in Tokyo in January have failed to deliver so far, she said, forcing budget cutbacks. One-third of emergency food aid, or $90 million, has failed to materialize, and aid officials here bitterly criticize the European Union and Japan for falling behind on their pledges. U.N. housing assistance also has been cut.

“We’re simply running out, which is not a good thing before winter,” Shinohara said.

More aid could help finance schools such as the Swiss-run Aschiana. The school has temporarily taken about 2,000 children, including Nashad, off the streets to teach them reading and writing skills, plus vocations such as appliance repair and crafts.

“Without education, the only future these children have is as better thieves,” said Aschiana school administrator Sadat, who, like many Afghans, goes by only one name.

Najila spends her mornings learning to make paper flowers in school before hitting the streets.

Abdullah, his skin already parched and stained by sun and pollution, isn’t as lucky. He spends all day outside with his incense burner, which is supposed to bestow good luck on those who cross its path. He says he needs to work to help his widowed father, a cobbler who makes about $1.40 a day. Still, Abdullah’s intelligent face darkens when he is asked if he’d rather be in class.

“I registered for school,” he said. “They said they would answer when they could take me, but they never did. There is no room.”