In difficult conditions for coverage, and a worse environment for Afghan families, AP reveals parents driven to heartbreaking measures to survive.
This powerful all-formats story highlights the desperation in Afghanistan under its new Taliban rulers, with the stories of parents who are selling their very young children so the rest of the family doesn’t starve.
Southeast Europe Bureau Chief Elena Becatoros and multiformat journalist Mstyslav Chernov were on assignment, reporting stories on drought in remote and lawless western Afghanistan, when a family told them they were looking to sell their son because they needed money to feed the others. Back in the nearby city of Herat, they met a distraught woman at a mobile health clinic who told them that her husband had already sold their 10-year-old daughter and she needed help to get her back. Another said she had sold a daughter and was looking to sell another.
Hamid Abdullah stands outside the room where his children play at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021. Abdullah was selling his young daughters into arranged marriages, desperate for money to treat his chronically ill wife, pregnant with their fifth child. Afghanistan’s destitute are increasingly turning to such desperate decisions as the country spirals downwards into a vortex of poverty.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Guldasta and family members gather in their house at a settlement near Qala-e-Naw, Afghanistan, Dec. 14, 2021. Guldasta said that after days with nothing to eat, she told her husband to take their 8-year-old son Salahuddin to the bazaar and sell him to bring food for the others.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Aziz Gul, second from right, and her 10-year-old daughter Qandi, center, sit outside their home with other family members near Herat, Afghanistan. Dec. 16, 2021. Qandi’s father sold her into marriage without telling his wife, Aziz, taking a down payment so he could feed his family of five children. Without that money, he told Aziz, they would all starve.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Fatima holds her 4-year-old daughter Nazia, who is suffering from acute malnutrition, at their house near Herat, western Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021. Two years ago Nazia was a plump toddler, Fatima said. Malnutrition stalks the most vulnerable, and aid groups say more than half of Afghanistan’s population faces acute food shortages.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
A makeshift clinic, center, near Herat, Afghanistan, draws people at a sprawling settlement of mud brick huts housing those displaced by war and drought, near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 12, 2021.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
A nurse checks the weight of a child in a makeshift clinic organized by World Vision at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Afghan women wait inside a makeshift clinic organized by World Vision at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Afghan women and a child wait in a makeshift clinic organized by World Vision at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021.
An Afghan woman holds her children as she waits for a consultation outside a makeshift clinic at a sprawling settlement of mud brick huts housing those displaced by war and drought near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
Sardar Muhammad, who sold one of his kidneys, shows the scar of kidney removal surgery at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021. Afghanistan’s destitute are increasingly turning to such desperate decisions as the country spirals downwards into a vortex of poverty.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
A nurse shows the scar of Chinar’s kidney removal surgery, at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16, 2021. Chinar said her husband is sick and she had to sell her kidney to feed their four children.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
An afghan girl runs on a street near Herat, in western Afghanistan, at a sprawling settlement of mud brick huts housing those displaced by war and drought, Dec. 16, 2021. The aid-dependent country’s economy was already teetering when the Taliban seized power in mid-August. The consequences have been devastating for a country battered by four decades of war, a punishing drought and the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Mstyslav Chernov
The team worked with knowledgeable local drivers and coordinated with aid organisations and the Taliban to get access to this stunning story. Chernov’s photos and video were haunting — and particularly rare in Afghanistan, where insecurity and the difficulties of getting around mean that sensitive stories, especially in the remote provinces, are very rarely reported on camera.
Some readers and viewers were so moved that they reached out to Becatoros and Chernov, offering to send money to the affected families.
For getting exceptional access and telling the story beautifully in all formats, Becatoros and Chernov earn AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner.
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