Free Kids of Kabul by Deborah Ellis

play with toys. Some children do not talk at all when they first come here. They are too afraid to talk. It’s hard, but they learn, and every day they become happier. The teachers are kind to us. Like mothers.
    Now my little brother and sister are here, too. They are also doing very well in school, and I’m happy that we are together.
    The food is really good here. All of us like all the food. There is nothing we don’t like.
    In my future, I plan to be a lawyer and help women who are in trouble with the law. Women are not served well by men. Women have to be able to solve their own problems and not depend on men, because men will not help them.
    In prison I met many women who had killed their husbands because they were forced into marriage or their husbands beat them. So they killed their husbands to be free, but they ended up in prison, where they were not free. It’s not good enough.
    I get to visit my mother every two months. This home does regular visits for all the kids, plus special visits on holidays or if a child is really missing his mother. It’s good to visit because otherwise I would worry too much about her. She is not doing well. She stays in her cell a lot, but she says that the guards are treating her better because they can see she is kind.
    I like going to the prison with a lot of other children from this home because the mothers are so happy to see us. They look at their children and say, “These are not my children!” because their children have eaten well and are clean and have been to school and so they have lots to talk about.
    So, life for me is good right now. It is hard to be away from my mother, and I don’t think she should be in prison, but I can’t change that. All I can do is watch over my brother and sister and work as hard as I can at my studies. When my mother gets out of prison I want to be able to take care of her and give her a good life.
    When that is taken care of, then I will see what else I can do. I have been given a new start. I’m all right. Now I have a responsibility to make others happy.

Sukina, 15
    Violence against women in Afghanistan is pervasive because of poverty, the ongoing instability caused by decades of war, and the clinging of many to a system of values that believes women are property and are to be silent and obedient. According to the United Nations, one out of every three Afghan women experiences physical, psychological or sexual violence at the hands of men. Lack of education and economic opportunity for women means that even when laws are in place that respect women’s rights, the ability to exercise those rights is limited.
    Afghanistan has just a few shelters for women. Supported by international donors, the shelters were operating independently from the government. Early in 2011, the government wanted to bring the shelters — and the women in them — under its control, stating that before an abused woman can enter the shelter she must appear before a panel to state her case. The Afghan Supreme Court also declared that if a woman runs away from her home for reasons of abuse, and she goes to the house of strangers, such as a shelter, she will be arrested and sent to prison on the charge of adultery, because women should go to other family members for help, not to strangers.
    But what if a woman’s family is also her enemy?
    Sukina went into a shelter to save her life.
    I came to the shelter to escape my marriage.
    I was forced to get married a few years ago.
    I grew up in another province. During the Taliban, we became refugees and went to a different province, Wardak, to try to be safe. We lived in a refugee camp there. It was very hard. Then after some years we went back home.
    My father is a farmer. He works on other people’s land. Because of poverty he had to go into debt with the local shopkeeper to get the things we needed. But then he could not pay the debt. The crops were not good and he did not make enough money. But the shopkeeper had