The Taliban's lucrative allure
Wed, October 01 2008
Driving factors towards increasing instability, according to Afghan sources, is the high rate of unemployment and poverty in the country.
Many of those fighters joining Taliban insurgents are illiterate, young seminarians and low educated jobless youths.
“If I fail to find job I would have no choice except to join Taliban or leave for Iran as I heard they [Taliban] pay more stipend than the government,” said a jobless youth who was waiting for at a square in western Kabul. According to the youth, the Taliban pays $400 dollars whereas a government soldier receives some $200 a month.
Hundreds of jobless Afghans are seen waiting from dawn to dusk at Chawk Kota Sangi square west of Kabul to be hired.
If any one calls for a labourer, dozens would surround him.
The job-seeking man who introduced himself Faiz Ali emphasized that “no one would commit suicide unless he or she is fed up with the miserable life.”
Though there is no exact statistic about the rate of unemployment in Afghanistan, it is said that some 40 per cent of the country’s 25 million populations are jobless and some five million Afghans live under the poverty line in the war-battered nation.
Afghanistan is largely dependent on the international community’s assistance to recover from over three decades of war and civil strife.
Since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 the international community has contributed more than $35 billion for the rebuilding of the war-ravaged central Asian state.
In the post-Taliban Afghanistan the per capita income has increased from $70 in 2001 to $300 in 2008,according to Aziz Shams, an official at the Ministry of Finance. Even though Afghanistan has made tremendous achievements in the fields of communication and road building, it still has a long way to go to recover from war devastation and to get back on its feet.
The majority of Afghans have little access to clean water, jobs, job insurance and regular income to run their daily life smoothly.
