Children of War: Nuzhat Shahzadi

During my four years in UNICEF-Herat, thirteen children were born, among them was a pair of twins. LM worked in our operations. She couldn’t have children––adopted a baby girl and later an infant boy––a tiny, happy fellow who gurgled in joy at any sound. GH was also childless She adopted a boy.


In the Afghan culture, adoption isn’t acceptable or common. The tribal rivalries and the blood lineage of the adoptive child are major concerns. After the adoption, LM couldn’t get legal documentation from the government department for her children to be officially recognized as her family. I remember we needed some kind of affidavit in order to include them in the UNICEF documents.


I learned about interesting cultural taboos that revolved around adoption. The view was that an adopted boy could marry his adoptive mother when he was of age (14 or above) if she was widowed (or divorced). The norms about adopted girls with their adoptive fathers weren’t as clearly defined.


“Why did you adopt sons?” I asked.


“A girl’s life is full of misery,” both women responded almost in unison. “Afghani women’s fate depends on our men-folks. Even if we work in the UN, we have different status in our own families, Nazhaat Jaan.”


Our project assistant NB’s third daughter was born after I joined. Her first two born were girls. Her husband was a doctor and worked in the government. The Herat office got lots of support from him and his boss, the Director of Health who became a good friend. I found it easy to talk to both men, laugh with them. Foreign women were treated differently. And we held positions of power. The Herat office alone programmed 7-8 million US dollars yearly and most of it was implemented through the government channels.


The female staff openly discussed about their personal lives with me. Some male staff were equally frank. I got diverse perspectives of the Afghani culture. The men didn’t seem to be shy talking about their family matters. Somehow, I had assumed they would be more private. Men had to keep a facade of strength––the patriarchal society dominated by testosterone. It was interesting!


The women knew their stories of shame and fears would be safe with me––there was hardly any safe space around them where they could speak fearlessly. Women themselves sometimes could be stringently judgmental of other women. The conditioning was too strong.


NB came to me almost in tears one afternoon. She had received a threat from her mother-in-law––unless NB produced a boy, she would get her doctor son to remarry. He could get a young beauty from a noble family to restore the lineage by producing male heirs.


“UNICEF is giving so much funds for girls’ education, women’s literacy but look at what’s happening to us!” NB was bitter.


NB was terrified and got pregnant after her daughter turned 8-9 months. She invited me and the women-staff at lunch on a weekend. As a woman, I could visit the families of my colleagues. Men weren’t allowed to socialize with women unless they were related. In the office though they interacted without any qualms, after office they couldn’t. DD and Teeranuch were on R&R/missions so I went alone to the women’s lunch.


NB lived in a beautiful house at the other end of the city. The hill tops were barren, the ground was sandy, very brown. Her husband was rich. She ran to welcome me with a warm embrace. The tiny girl jumped into my arms with a big smile and grabbed my jewelry with both hands. I was a familiar face to her. She spent most of her day time on work days in the office-creche.


I allocated a large room with an attached bathroom as the women’s break room where they prayed, ate lunch. It was also used as our creche. Our three female cleaners happily took turns to look after they babies. They were from the same community as the female staff and knew each other well. On an average, 3-4 little ones came with their mothers daily.


I got a notification from our Staff association (SA) in Kabul. Every zone office had their own staff associations affiliated with the Kabul-SA. The issue was–– we were exposing the children at risk of RPGs or bombs in case the office came under attack. We coped with threats daily, for sure. The children weren’t entitled to insurance coverage if they were bombed with us.

 

We discussed many scenarios, options. We also looked at different creche operations. UNICEF-Dhaka’s creche was considered as the model in our South Asian offices. Kabul-SA warned me sternly––wanted me to close down the creche. In the Herat office, we discussed the matter as a family-team. The women felt their children were safer in the office from guns and bombs than in their own homes. Collectively, they signed a waiver- email relieving UNICEF of all liabilities. I agreed as I was one of the Area Security Coordinators for western Afghanistan.


. . . We had a great lunch at NB’s that day. We ate and talked and laughed fearlessly. The children played around us, sometimes took bites from our plates.


We forgot the bombs.

You can contact Nuzhat at nuzhatshahzadi@gmail.com

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