Jawed Taiman‘s award winning film, Addicted in Afghanistan, which screened at Frontline on 13 September, is beautiful and utterly bleak. The documentary follows the lives of two young boys, best friends Zahir and Jabar, through the streets of Kabul. The film moves between their sober, childish hilarity and the painful grips of their heroin addiction, which they repeatedly try to beat in a city devastated by war and poverty.

The film’s mood is one of hopelessness. The boys, who guess their age to be between 16 and 17 at the beginning of the film, have been using since they were as young as eight-years-old. And despite their families’ encouragement to get treatment, they are surrounded by addicts: mother, father, uncle, younger sister. Such addiction has become endemic in Kabul and wider Afghanistan where over one million Afghans are estimated to be addicted to drugs, especially heroin. And up to 40% of these addicts are women and children.

After the screening, producer Sharron Ward, was at the Frontline Club to answer question as was Taiman via Skype from Kabul.

Photo by Chris King

Ward explained that they were originally in Kabul to make a different story, another underreported problem of HIV, which is on the increase due to intravenous drug users. Taiman said that although poppies have been grown in Afghanistan for centuries, it was previously exported to Pakistan, Iran and Europe, but that heroin production has increased since the Taliban lost control of the country.

“I’ve travelled to more than 17 provinces and everywhere I went the land was flourishing with poppy fields…. After the Soviets left, you could find one or two heroin addicts on the streets of Kabul, but it wasn’t very common, but now it’s very much a part of the Afghan people’s lives. This is the entire country’s problem now and it is not getting better.” — Jawed Taiman

In answer to a question as to how such young, impoverished boys can afford a $9-a-day heroin habit, Ward said: “There’s another darker issues, which is that a lot of the kids and particularly boys, engage in child prostitution.”

Taiman‘s frustration at the state’s failure to try and help and protect its people is clear in his lament for Afghanistan, and will be heard in his upcoming film, Voice of a Nation: My Journey Through Afghanistan. But he is not without hope.

“People of Afghanistan are hopeful. The city is beautiful… People are unsure what is going to happen post-2012 when the troops are going to leave so everybody is in a confused state. But I’m hopeful that Kabul will be as beautiful as Paris and London.” — Jawed Taiman

This reference to a famous Afghan song, which rebuffs the European capitals in favour of the homeland, was embraced by an Afghan woman in audience:

“The song very much reflects the feelings of the entire Afghan people. For all Afghans nothing can replace Afghanistan. As an Afghan, there is nothing that can be compared: those empty streets, those very dirty, filthy, dusty roads, and raggedy people – there is something there that you cannot find anywhere else and that is Afghanistan.”

Photo by Chris King

 This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have been ravaged by drugs.

Director Jawed Taiman who followed these two teenagers over the course of two years gives a heartbreaking glimpse into their lives including their failed attempts to become clean.

Almost all the boys’ family members are drug users, but the generations have different justifications for their addictions. While Jabar and Zahir blame the Americans for their drug abuse, Zahirs mother blames the Taliban for hers. Addicted in Afghanistan not only tells the very personal stories of Jabar and Zahir, but also sheds a light on the broader and deeply-rooted drug problem in today’s Afghanistan.

Director: Jawed Taiman
Duration: 75′
Year: 2009

Well known as one of the world’s leading producers of heroin, Afghanistan has over a million drug addicts, many of them children.

This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have been ravaged by drugs.

Director Jawed Taiman who followed these two teenagers over the course of two years gives a heartbreaking glimpse into their lives including their failed attempts to become clean.

Almost all the boys’ family members are drug users, but the generations have different justifications for their addictions. While Jabar and Zahir blame the Americans for their drug abuse, Zahirs mother blames the Taliban for hers. Addicted in Afghanistan not only tells the very personal stories of Jabar and Zahir, but also sheds a light on the broader and deeply-rooted drug problem in today’s Afghanistan.

Director: Jawed Taiman
Duration: 75′
Year: 2009

After years of hardship and war it becomes increasingly difficult for him to convince others of his ideas, including his eldest son. The film portrays the desperate attempts of man to uphold democratic ideals where democracy has failed and the pressures and arguments Afghani’s have to join the Taliban.

Pascale Bourgaux has been covering the war since 2001 and was taken in and accepted into Hasan’s home where she was given unrestricted access to the lives of the villagers and his own family. 

Directed by: Pascale Bourgaux

Year: 2011

Running time: 58mins

Join us this evening with veteran war correspondent Martin Bell as he reflects on a career that has seen him report from more than 80 countries and 11 wars since he joined the BBC in 1962. Tomorrow we will be discussing the situation in Somalia, a country caught between political instability, conflict and famine.

Screenings in the week ahead include When China Met Africa, exploring the ever-shrinking world in which we live and a preview screening of Kissinger.

Next week the only free member of the Angola 3, Robert King will be in conversation with director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith, and for October’s First Wednesday we will be discussing Afghan perspectives on the past ten years of occupation.

JOB OPPORTUNITY: The Frontline Club Charitable Trust is looking for a documentary and workshop coordinator as, sadly, after two and a half years at the Frontline Club, our documentary programmer Charlotte Cook has left. Details of the job description and how to apply can be found here.  

By Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi

Women would be the biggest losers if Afghanistan’s peace plan includes a deal with fundamentalist elements of the Taliban, according to Rachel Reid, who hosted Frontline’s talk with Afghan journalist Zarghuna Kargar.

Reid sais she had lost hope that peace in Afghanistan would include progress for women. Reid, currently working at Human Rights Watch, recounted a conversation she had with President Hamid Karzai last summer, in which he asked whether he should stop children dying or send girls to school. “He has showed himself capable of trading away women’s rights,” said Reid.

But Kargar, who has been documenting the lives of Afghan women for more than 10 years, argued that Afghanistan “cannot go back to what it was 10 years ago.”

Women have lost so much [from the war]. Mothers have lost their sons and husbands. Women have been raped. They have had big losses. For these women peace is what matters.

We want peace but not at the price of losing what we have achieved in the last 10 years. Democracy doesn’t work without women.

Kargar’s knowledge on what matters to Afghan women comes from presenting Afghan Woman’s Hour, a BBC World Service Trust radio show covering a wide range of issues and in which women were able to tell their stories.

The show discussed taboo subjects like homosexuality, sex and the dire consequences for women and girls of ancient traditions such as ‘baad’ where Afghan girls were given away as gifts to end local disputes. Kargar said:

One of the [problems] is lack of information. Some people think this the way that Muslims do things. They don’t. Traditions which have been made for men, by men, are continuing.

In her new book, “Dear Zari: Stories from Women in Afghanistan”, Kargar shares the unique stories of Afghan women, whose problems often seem insurmountable. One woman became an outcast because she did not bleed on her wedding night, another was forced to dress and act as a boy (and then a man) to make up for the absence of sons in one family.

There are many tales of injustice, abuse, violence and rape, but there are some positive, inspiring stories, such as the widow who is determined not take the only route that seemed open to her and go begging on the streets. Instead she started a kite-making business with her children. Such stories inspired and encouraged her to include her own experiences in the book, said Kargar:

I hope people who read it will respect what we disclose about our lives. The courage they [Afghan women] have, there is so much resilience in them for a better tomorrow. They came with such huge trust and told us their stories. That’s why I fell in love with them.