AFGHANISTAN. 2015. Paiwand-Alih and his family.
Paiwand-Ali, 49, is from northern Afghanistan. He was a police officer and lost his leg to a land mine in 1990. “Life was so hard in our province. I was threatened many times with death by insurgents. There were also a lot of economic problems, and I couldn’t afford food and basic needs for my family. Finally I decided to sell my house and the small piece of land that I inherited from my family,” he explained.
Paiwand Ali, along with his wife, five daughters and two sons, are currently living in just one rented room in a very poor area in Kabul. He says he is not receiving a pension because he is not yet retired, but neither has he been given a job again. “There is no one to work in our family. My little girls are sometimes collecting things from the garbage to sell,” he said. The money Paiwand-Ali made from selling his land and house were used to pay a smuggler to take his 12-year-old son, Mohammad Dawood, to Europe. The family has had no contact with Mohammad Dawood since he’s been in Europe, but they were informed by their uncle that the young boy had arrived safely there.