Highlights from New Photo Exhibition about Afghanistan

(Friday 13 September 2002 )

On 11 September 2002, President Hamid Karzai deposited Afghanistan's instruments of accession to the Mine Ban Treaty, following through on his promise to delegates at a landmine conference in Kabul just two months ago. This brings to 126, the number of States Parties to the 1997 treaty which prohibits all use, production, stockpiling and trade of antipersonnel landmines.

The move should boost funding and other international support for mine action programmes in the country that tops the list as the most mine-contaminated place on earth. It will also come as welcome news to diplomats, deminers and campaigners gathering in Geneva for the annual meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty this week.

These are a few stories from a photographic exhibition by John Rodsted, Afghanistan: Clearing the Path to Peace, which is on display at the Palais des Nations during the Fourth Meeting of States Parties (16 – 20 September 2002, Geneva).

• Mukhtar was walking to his house on the outskirts of Kabul when he stepped on an antipersonnel landmine. It was two days after the Taliban had fled the city, in November 2001. Mukhtar is 14 years old and hopes he can return to school once his injured legs has healed completely and he has mastered his new prosthetic limb. “I hate the people that did this to me”, he told as he waited in line to be seen to at the prosthetic centre of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kabul. “But I hope that now there will not be so many people hurt like me”.

• Jamila is in her 20’s and lost her leg to a mine in the Khost area in South Eastern Afghanistan. After she had recovered from her injury and had her new prosthetic leg, she was afraid to go outside again. “Every time when I was walking and I saw an open bit of ground I thought maybe there was a landmine there. I am scared to stand on another mine because then I will lose my other leg”, she said.

• Rohafza is one of the physiotherapists at the ICRC clinic where she treats women patients, many of whom are landmine survivors. She is a mine survivor herself. “I was injured 16 years ago when the Russians were here”, she said. “I was going to school one day and I was right outside the door of the classroom when I trod on a mine”.

  After a painful recovery she returned to school but there she had to face her classmates’ laughter and jeering as she struggled with her crutches and new artificial leg. But her experience is not unusual for disabled people in Afghanistan she says. “Nobody wants to be with disabled. Nobody wants to work with disabled. And nobody wants to be disabled themselves”, she said.

  After finishing school Rohafza went to a medical university in Kabul. However when the Taliban put a stop to women’s attendance at university she transferred to a physiotherapy course run by an international organisation in Kabul. Today she finds her work as a physio very rewarding. “When patients are coming here they are very unhappy and in lot of pain”, she said “but when they go home later they are smiling and ready too enjoy their life”.