The tweet was blatant and heartbreaking.
“There is nothing to eat at home. I live in exile in a country worse than Afghanistan. I want to sell one of my kidneys in case anyone wants to buy it. I do not have another choice.”
Sami Jahish’s tweet included his photo and phone number.
The 34-year-old, who has reported on the suffering of the people in Afghanistan for twelve years, has been living in Pakistan in economic hardship for a little over a year. Jahish was unemployed at the time and said he was in debt.
“I lived under Taliban rule for five months and they arrested me three times. I was forced to leave the country in January 2022,” he told the star in Persian via WhatsApp.
“We are eleven in our family and I am the only breadwinner. I have decided to sacrifice myself to save other members of my family. One should make sacrifices to save others.”
The move he is considering is extreme, but his plight is not unique.
Afghan journalists and media workers in exile, particularly in Pakistan, are struggling to survive.
Pakistan, where many Afghans have fled for generations, does not allow Afghans to stay and most of the people who have fled there live illegally. Some have tourist visas. As a result, many are unable to work.
NGOs helped Jahish for the first month after he and his family entered Pakistan so that he could stay in a guest house and pay for his wife and son’s expenses. Since then, he says, no NGO has contacted him. The French embassy asked him about an immigrant visa eight months ago, he says, but hasn’t responded since.
He criticized the institutions that work for journalists’ rights, saying there are more than 20 of them but they have not the faintest idea of the real situation of journalists.
Younus Qarizadah, 26, a disabled journalist, also told a local newspaper he wanted to sell one of his kidneys.
“I’m in a terrible state,” he said as the star reached him. “Because of my disability, I can’t work physically. I am willing to sell one of my kidneys to feed my family.”
Qarizadah worked for Radio Haqiqat and Sima-e-Sulh TV in Samangan province in northern Afghanistan before the collapse of the republic. He could support his family. But for a year he and his family have been living in Pakistan and fighting.
“It’s really hard for a disabled person like me,” Qarizadah said in Persian via WhatsApp. “There is no work, no food, no mental and physical security.
“The West used Afghanistan to its advantage, but when we were down, they left us alone.”
A doctor in Islamabad found that selling kidneys was a crime and those involved could face severe penalties. On the black market, people can get $1,000 to $10,000 for a kidney, he said.
The doctor, who asked the star not to publish his name because he works for a Pakistani hospital, said that if you eat well, exercise, monitor your blood pressure and get regular check-ups, you can expect to only one to lead a healthy life kidney. But there are always risks, including the surgery itself.
Afghans in Pakistan are also threatened with deportation. Following the recent terrorist attacks in Peshawar and Quetta, Pakistani police began arresting and deporting immigrants again. One of those arrested was a journalist from Afghanistan who was released with the help of Pakistani journalists.
The news comes as the Taliban continue to target the media.
In the year since the Taliban took power on August 15, 2021, Afghanistan has lost 40 percent of its media and 60 percent of its journalists, particularly women journalists — three-quarters of whom are unemployed and there are none left in 11 provinces, according to a survey by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“Journalism has been decimated in Afghanistan over the past year,” said Secretary General Christophe Deloire.
“The media and journalists are subjected to unjust regulations that restrict media freedom and pave the way for repression and persecution.”
A year after the fall of Kabul, 76 percent of female journalists no longer work in the country. Allegations of “immorality or behavior contrary to society’s values” are often used as an excuse to harass female journalists and send them home.
Stephanie Sinclair, President of Too Young to Wed, said the nonprofit has helped move more than 1,000 journalists, filmmakers, translators, writers, human rights activists and other high-profile women and their families out of Afghanistan over the past 18 months.
It’s part of an emergency response in collaboration with other groups for the organization, which focuses on child marriage around the world. But the evacuees still had to seek resettlement.
Sinclair added that many governments emphasize the fact that they welcome journalists – as they are listed as risk groups eligible for visas – but the process is often opaque and limited in scope. Those at risk because of their links to Western Democratic publications appear to have been given priority, while others are struggling to find sanctuary, she said.
“It has become sad that refugees from Afghanistan have only been prioritized for a short period of time, despite the unprecedented threats facing women and girls around the world,” she said via WhatsApp. .
She added that her team raised concerns about “security, uncertainty about the future, inability to support children/extended family financially, education and health care for children, fear of arrest and deportation, threat from the Taliban in Pakistan, policy changes on part of foreign… Governments affecting her status, being turned down after an interview, having no additional options and the continued safety of her family in Afghanistan among other things.”
According to Jahish, Afghanistan has become a dark prison with 30 million people locked up.
Jahish noted that he was born in times of war, as was his son who was born in 2019. Afghanistan has experienced war for three generations.
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