8-june-2018
For 14-year-old Ahmed*, life as a kid on the streets of the Afghan capital has become synonymous with abuse.
His voice calm and unwavering, Ahmed reels off stories of the assaults he has suffered over the years. “One day, a man asked me to buy him a pack of chewing gum. I went out and bought it, and took it back to his house,” Ahmed tells me in a dimly-lit apartment he shares with his family. “He then forced me inside his home and raped me.” It happened two years ago, but his stories go back to when he was five years old.
After the first time he was sexually assaulted, Ahmed tried to be more careful, avoiding quiet areas and trying not to travel anywhere alone. But one day, when his brothers were not around to protect him, three teenage boys followed him to a Kabul backstreet, and took turns raping him. This became a regular occurrence but he felt he couldn’t tell anyone – especially not his family. Ahmed feared his family would be ashamed of him if they knew; he didn’t want to be the one who let them down.
Kabul is heaving with street children like Ahmed, impoverished boys and girls who are sent out by their families to work or beg. They snake through the city’s congested traffic, trying to clean car windscreens or peddle trinkets. They are are often subject to abuse by male drivers, especially taxi drivers
