MAKKAH, 23 May 2008 — Across the Kingdom, solemn looking and shabbily dressed Afghan children often sell gum to diners and shoppers leaving restaurants and supermarkets. While many people harbor ill thoughts about the parents who send their children to work on the streets, very few understand the poverty that forces these parents to do so.
Afghanistan has seen conflict for decades, leading to thousands of Afghan refugees coming to Saudi Arabia. Although many Afghans here are legal, others reside illegally. Arab News met a number of illegal Afghan families who use Makkah’s winding alleyways and poor neighborhoods to hide from officials from the Passport Department.
Mariam Muhammad, an Afghan woman, had come to live in Makkah with the help of smugglers two years ago. She traveled from her native Afghanistan via Pakistan and Yemen to join her husband who had come here four years before her.
“My husband pays SR5,000 a year to rent a squalid two-room flat, which we share with his first wife, his parents, two sisters and all of our children. There are a total of 22 people living here,” she said.
Mariam said Afghans generally have large families and that her husband’s children — from her and his first wife — range between four months and 28 years. “Everyone has to contribute toward the family income to survive,” she added.
“The women make handmade products at home, such as woolen gloves, socks, men’s trousers, caps, scarves and veils. We also make prayer beads, bracelets and necklaces, and snacks such as mantu, farmoza, sambosak and cakes,” she said.
Afghans generally depend on their kids to sell the items they make. When the children turn four, they are told to sell items in front of mosques, restaurants and hotels. Some people complain that Afghan parents use their children’s innocence to gain people’s sympathy to buy their products.
“The children get up early in the morning to start work. They work from Fajr prayers until Zuhr prayer at noon. They then come home to get some rest and go back after Maghreb prayer and work until midnight,” she said.
“At the end of the day, they return home with money and whatever goods are left. Sometimes they lose both, trying to escape from Passport Department officials,” she added.
“My husband has no fixed job. He sometimes works as muezzin in the neighborhood mosque, and also works as an odd job repair man, even working on construction sites. At times he also works as a cobbler,” she added.
Like other illegal immigrants in the Kingdom, Afghans try not to wander out of their neighborhoods and risk getting caught by Passport Department officials. “My brother-in-law was working in a restaurant outside our district and got caught by the Passport Department,” she said.
Zeirina Nour, another illegal Afghan woman who lives in Makkah, arrived in the Kingdom on an Umrah visa with her husband and two children. The family then overstayed their visit.
Nour and her family share an apartment with her brother-in-law and his family. They pay SR4,600 a year in rent for the two-room flat. Her husband works in a grocery, and can barely pay for their monthly expenses.
“I work from home where I sew garments, table cloths and blankets. My kids sell bric-a-brac in the street, such as wristwatches, kids’ shirts, accessories and prayer beads,” she said, adding that her children are sent onto the streets from after Asr prayers until midnight.
“We can’t afford essential needs such as food and medicine and so we’re forced to do this...What really makes me sad is that my kids are illiterate because they can’t go to school like other kids. We don’t even have access to hospitals. When someone gets sick we buy medicine directly from the pharmacy, without speaking to a physician. Sometimes we can’t even afford it and so we leave the person to suffer,” Nour said.
She added that Afghans prefer to live in poverty in Saudi Arabia, rather than returning to war-torn Afghanistan.
Huria Aslam, a 35-year-old Afghan woman, came to the Kingdom with her husband and children four years ago. After arriving here, her husband died and she was left with no source of income. Unable to pay her rent, she moved in with a relative and shares costs.
“I work as a part-time maid. I also buy food and items such as sweets, biscuits, popcorn, tissues and cooked potatoes for my kids to sell in the streets and in front of big markets. As they’re still young, they sometimes get robbed and we end up losing both the food and money they earn,” she said.
