The women are known by the names of their sons, such as "the mother of Mohammad," or "the mother of Habib." Of the four who volunteered to be interviewed, only one felt comfortable enough to uncover her face. She exclaims "I am a widow and two of my sons were martyred during the bombing by the Russians. I had five sons, now I have three. My daughter's husband was also martyred. There are several widows working here cleaning seed. They have children to take care of."

Without work, Afghan women raising children alone find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into abject poverty and

debt. One woman exclaims "I had to borrow 30,000 rupies to buy food for my family and I have to pay it back now." Families have occasionally resorted to marrying off their daughters to debt holders, some at extremely young ages.

The Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Afghanistan employed over 300 female heads of household. They worked at seed cleaning stations cleaning a portion of the 5,000 metric tons of wheat seed distributed to Afghan farmers for planting fall 2003. This facility just outside Kabul is one of four located around the country. To date, more than US$1 million has been injected into the economy of Afghanistan as part of the Future Harvest Consortium's seed procurement, cleaning, and distribution process.

The women spoke of their losses over 23 years of war. "Everyone in the village, and each one of us, has lost one or two members of our families."

Presently, only 31.5% of the population over the age of 15 can read or write. Under the Taliban, women were denied education, health care, jobs and birth control. As a result, the fertility rate per female is 5.79 children. The infant mortality rate is amongst the highest in the world at 147 per thousand and the maternal death rate is high. The life of expectancy for men and women in Afghanistan is around 46 years.

For more information: Dr Nasrat Wassimi n.wassimi@CGIAR.ORG