‘Sometimes I need to see if she’s alive or dead’: Afghan mother drugs her daughter so she doesn’t wake up when she’s hungry

Sohaila Niazi is a widow with six children and faces many challenges every day to feed them. The woman is part of a group of ten million people in Afghanistan who stopped receiving support from the UN World Food Program last year. Today she admits that she does not have regular access to basic goods and that she even gives her youngest daughter, who is one and three months old, medicine to help her sleep when she is hungry.

“I give it to her so she doesn’t wake up and ask for milk because I don’t have milk to give her. After I gave her the medicine, she sleeps from morning to morning. Sometimes I have to check whether she is dead or alive,” the woman said BBC.

According to the same publication, Sohaila is not the only Afghan mother who treats her children to sleep when they are hungry. The end of the UN emergency food aid program has harmed an estimated two million female-headed households in Afghanistan.

Sohaila says she usually feeds her little daughter traditional tea, which has no nutritional value. “The last time I could buy milk for my child was two months ago. I usually fill the bottle with tea or soak bread in tea and then feed it to her,” he says.

Her husband was killed in a firefight in Panjshir province in 2022 during fighting between Taliban forces and those resisting the regime. Sohaila explains that under the Taliban regime, she cannot go to work or feed her family. After the death of her husband, the woman became dependent on help from institutions, family members and neighbors.

“There were nights when we had nothing to eat. I tell my children, “Where should I go begging at this time of night?” They go to sleep hungry and when they wake up, I wonder what I should do,” Sohaila said.