TEHRAN Afghan women prefer to stay at home and work there rather than going to poppy farms and produce opium.
According to Pishawar-based Frontier Post, recent studies in Afghanistan show that the Afghan women really hate working in poppy farms. Due to the continuation of a devastating war in Afghanistan and the policy of the stone-aged Taleban militia who prohibit women from working in cities, Afghan women started to work in poppy farms in recent years.
Quoting a woman in the city of Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province, the daily wrote, "Due to financial problems and contrary to their will, Afghan women have to work in poppy fields." Another Afghan woman told the daily that working in a poppy farm will lead to addiction of Afghan women, adding that if they find other jobs they will immediately leave poppy fields. An Afghan woman in Jalalabad, east of Afghanistan said, "Working in poppy farms generates negative impacts on our main work which is raising our children, doing the houseworks, sewing and making handicrafts." The Taleban militia who captured Afghanistan four years ago, have imposed a number of restrictions on Afghan women. Reports from Afghanistan indicate that Afghan women live in a very deplorable condition. The militia have prohibited Afghan women from education, work and presence in public places. Even Afghan men work, going and coming in streets under particular restrictions. Afghanistan has been one of the main centers of the narcotic drug production.
Drug production has increased considerably in Afghanistan after coming to power of the Taleban. The Drug Control Program of the United Nations announced Afghanistan as the biggest producer of opium in the world in 1999. Although the leader of Taleban, Mulla Mohammad Omar, has recently banned cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan, experts believe that this was a superficial measure.
Cultivation of poppy and production and sale of narcotic drug are the main financial sources for the Taleban militia.