after the decade-long soviet occupation of afghanistan ended in 1989, afghans hoped that peace and freedom would be restored.

instead a civil war fueled by foreign powers destroyed their capital, kabul, where tens of thousands died. in the countryside, former commanders turned into ruthless warlords.

in 1996, the taliban movement, supported by pakistan, rolled into kabul from southern afghanistan and tried to reimpose order by implementing its ultra-conservative interpretation of islamic law.

The international community, in general, I mean the people of the world, they're always talking of human rights, women's rights and they always condemn the violation of human rights. But I think Afghanistan is a country today where the words 'human rights' don't exist. They don't know what it means or what it is.

I believe that this is a time that the world should come together and help Afghans because the Afghanistan war is not a civil war. It has a lot of international involvement. The thing is we've got Central Asia in the north, we've got China, Pakistan and Iran. Now, Afghanistan is the center of international Islamic terrorism, drugs spreading and all these fanatic kind of ideologies. A lot of people fled Afghanistan, not because of hunger, not because of cold - we have had all these problems for twenty years. But a lot of these people are leaving because they are threatened to be killed by the Taliban. Now, these people, they're willing their children to die of cold and hunger in the refugee camp rather than live in Afghanistan with the Taliban.

When the extreme Taliban came over, they forced the women compeletely to stay away from any kind of social engagement like working outside or sitting in the colleges. The even closed the primary schools for the women, It's a system to make slaves. I think it's a very clear gender apartheid.

Wearing borqa is a part of our culture but before the arrival of Taliban, it was on your own choice. But now, the difference is you have to. You might be sick - as she says, 'I have to wear glasses. I can't put my glasses on the borqa or under the borqa.' Now, all the women are prohibited from working. It's a very big problem because most of the families in Afghanistan have lost their male members in the fighting. The women cannot go to the market. You cannot go to a doctor, especially to a male doctor. And a woman's words should not be heard by men. It's nonsense. Nothing is left for the new generation and the new generation is growing to be a wild one.

-"Yes, I am a Taliban."
-"Did you hear that they destroyed all the Buddha statues?"
-"Yes. It's good."
-"He says, 'well, this is Islamic Shariah and this is the saying of our holy prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. The statues everywhere should be destroyed.' He says, 'I studied this from Islamic books.'
I have to say, that the school where he studied this is the school by some fundamentalists, that's why he learned this."

There are two kinds of education in Afghanistan at the present. The one kind, schools that are running by the supplement of some fundamentalists, restricted for women. But the other kind of schools is, for example, we have a primary school for children in which we mainly try to help them learn mathematics, science and English as a language. The teachers of our school are never allowed to talk about politics in the classes. We just encourage them to love peace, to not fight with each other and to not think that the best toy for children is guns.

HAWCA is the acronym for Humanitarian Aid for the Women and Children of Afghanistan and it was established in June 1999. This is a non-profit, non-governmental organization which is mainly working in five different fields, such as health care, income generation, sanitations.

"Try to keep your children clean, try to wash their hands before lunch and after going to the toilet. And try to teach your children to wash their faces and hands all the time. Most of the health problems that you people have is mostly because you don't care about your cleanliness. If you wash your hands you will not be suffering by different diseases like diarrhea."

This is a center for nutrition for malnourished children. We are providing the supplemental food for malnutrition and we are giving health education for the mothers of malnourished children. This it the tent for minor surgery and we are providing facilities for birthing also.
- "What happened to this child?"
- "He was burned one week ago."
We have the medicine for the main diseases, but they treat one person per day.

It is very difficult to help these children get educations because most of them are working daily. Half of the time they're working and the other half they are coming to the school. Some of them are working as carpet-weavers. Some of them are working in the auto workshop, some of them are working as servants in the landlord's houses. And some of them are looking in the garbage to collect some plastics, as you say.

You can find hundreds of doctors, engineers and teachers who had a normal life in Afghanistan. But now they are forced to leave their country and they are forced to live in Pakistan and since a large number came to the refugee camp at one time, it's very difficult to find a job or to find a good place to stay.

Now the profession of the family is making birdcages and making some kind of typical Afghan rugs and with this, they make their living.

The lady is saying that when the Russians went out, we felt that maybe there is security and peace in Afghanistan. But when we went back, we found out that they are worse than Russians. Now there is fighting, the Taliban are killing their own countrymen. The lives of Afghanistans are not safe over there.

I was trying to tell them that we understand that you are poor people, that there is no need for this hospitality with us; we understand everything. But besides of our insisting, they made the tea and made the typical Afghan biscuits.

There have been a lot of educated people in Afghanistan, a lot of people who can be trusted. A lot of people who are working and fighting for democracy, for freedom of people, for freedom of women. So right now, I think it's good for the international community to come forward and help.

We urge our friends living in other countries to convey the message of the people who are apparently alive, but their spirits are dead.

It has been eleven years that I am out of my country. Whenever I come to this area, I love this area and I feel like I am home, my real home that is in Afghanistan. And coming to this place, I always remember my country and the time that I was there in a peaceful society.