Ajmal Wants to Become a Doctor

by Rainer Lang

Ajmal Gul [left] has to concentrate very hard when he speaks English. The young Afghan boy haltingly searches for the right words to express himself, but manages to keep up the conversation. Ajmal lives in the Pakistani town of Quetta, close to the border to Afghanistan.

Every evening, between 8 P.M. and 9 P.M. the 14-year-old attends school. "I learn English and the local language, Urdu," he says.

The rest of the day he works as a carpet weaver, as do his older brothers and sisters. Twelve hours a day. The children all have to work to help the family survive.

Ajmal's mother left Afghanistan with her children shortly after the Taliban killed her husband, according to her. The family fled to Pakistan where they have been living in one of the big refugee camps for the last four years. The Gul family belongs to the minority Farsi speaking Hazara people, who traditionally live in central Afghanistan, and make up 27 % of the 22 million strong Afghan population. The Hazara people are Shia Muslims who have been involved in an ongoing struggle with the ruling Taliban, who are Suni Muslims from the Pashtun tribe. The conflict has resulted in thousands of Hazara people being driven from their homes, many making their way to Iran, a mainly Shia Muslim country. Others have fled to Quetta in Pakistan.

Today Ajmal accompanies his mother to the Quetta compound of ACT member Church World Service (CWS) to help her carry the raw materials for quilts home. His mother is involved in a three month quilt-making program launched by CWS two weeks ago and implemented by its local partner Shuhada. Some 400 women refugees participate in this project, working at making 25,000 quilts for the expected influx of new refugees. Other NGOs and the UNHCR in Quetta see this as an extremely useful project, as it supports the refugees that have been here for a long time, as well as new arrivals. It has been proposed that other NGOs buy the quilts from the refugee women to make it possible for CWS to expand the program.

Ajmal is not the only child working in the refugee camps. Aid workers say that most of the workers in the carpet weaving industry are children. "The refugee situation drives them into a state of poverty and one of the results is child labor," says Marvin Parvez, director of CWS Pakistan. The CWS project aims to alleviate the situation people like the Gul family find themselves trapped in, by at least providing the women an opportunity to earn an income. Each quilt earns them 50 Rupees (about 84 cents). The women are also learning a skill they can use once the project is completed. The majority of men however have no regular income. They are forced to rely on odd jobs as daily laborers to earn small incomes. "The only way to fight child labor is to improve the situation of families so that they have enough income to send their children to school", says CWS project coordinator, Eileen Kiran Laldin.

The refugees who have been living in Quetta for many years have it especially tough as they have had very little support or attention focused on their plight. "Urban refugees are totally ignored", an aid worker says. "The millions of dollars being pledged now to help people are all for new arrivals."

The Pakistani border is still officially closed to Afghanistan and the estimated 25000 families that have crossed illegally since the border closure has put enormous pressure on the old existing camps. Those who complete this harrowing journey often end up with relatives or friends in the old camps -- places of refuge that are already overcrowded. Aid workers say that the needs of these people are growing daily.

Marium Gul (no relation to Ajmal's family), along with her husband and eight children arrived in Quetta during the first week of October. They have found refuge in a single room in the refugee camp that they share with four other families -- 40 people crowded into a room with no access to gas or electricity. Marium and her daughter are working together on a quilt. Her husband has left for town in hope of finding work as a daily laborer. Even if she and her husband manage to scrape together 100 Rupees -- not much more than $1.50 -- it is simply not enough for a family of ten, Marium explains.

"I only want peace so that we can return home", the 42-year-old woman explains. With their livestock -- more than 100 sheep and 300 goats -- and land, the family always had enough to eat. "We drank a lot of milk" this mother who can barely feed her children now, remembers. Marium recounts how nearly two months ago, the Taliban burnt their house down. They lost everything. "Three times they attacked us", she says. In response to a question about her family's experiences, she says that the women were beaten and abused. After being driven from their homes, the family lived in a tent before they came to Quetta about two weeks ago. They travelled by truck part of the way. The rest of the distance from central Afghanistan, they covered on foot. "We had to walk for 24 hours and we had no food", Marium says.

The ethnic conflict in Afghanistan has changed life in the town of Quetta completely where refugees make up a large proportion of the population -- a situation that has led to growing tensions in the town where refugees and locals compete for work in an environment where very few job opportunities exist. Throw into this already complex mix the fact that the refugees offer their services at far less than do the locals and a highly volatile and tension-filled atmosphere result. A severe drought over the last four years has added to increased tensions -- a scenario that is playing itself out not only in Quetta, but many of the areas where the big refugee camps have sprung up. There are currently more than 200 camps for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Mehr Niger who lives in another crowded room of the same house as Marium Gul's family, shows a sack with hardly any flour in -- all she has left for her family of 7 people. "This lasts only for two more days", she says. And then she starts crying. With so little food left, the men have all gone off to find some work.

Ajmal Gul has become a master at the art of carpet weaving. Although this is what he has been doing for the last four years, he wants to achieve more with his life. Like his father who was a teacher. Or his uncle who was an engineer. Both men were killed in the conflict between the Hazara people and the Taliban. "When I grow up, I want to become a doctor." He nods his head firmly. "This is what I want to be."

UMCOR 9/11 Update September 2004: UMCOR's response to the aftermath of September 11 continues. We thank are thankful for all of contributions that United Methodists and others have so generously given.

October 23, 2001

Photos: Credit: Rainer Lang/ACT International