Reference :
V-P-AF-E-02515
Date :
27/08/2016
Caption :
Kabul. Portrait of the mother of a 16 year old girl has been bedridden with tuberculosis of the bones for four years and who receives homes care from the ICRC orthopaedic centre.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
publication without restrictions
Description :
By chance, the family came to know of the ICRC through their local mosque and her daughter has been able to get physiotherapy treatment and home care for the girl through the ICRC’s orthopaedic centre in Kabul. In Afghanistan, where children are seen as the light of life, being unable to give birth has often tragic consequences. But for the mother and the first wife of her husband it was the beginning of relationship that has endured over time. The first wife was unable to have children and her husband took a second wife, as is allowed under Islam, who was decades younger than her husband and bore him seven children, three boys and four girls. Today, three years after the death of their husband, the first wife, now old and frail, still lives with the family in their one-room rented property in a poor neighbourhood of Kabul city. The mother’s small income as a seamstress has to cover the family’s every need. It was through the ICRC orthopaedic centre’s programme where her paraplegic daughter is a patient, that she learned her sewing skills. As she sits making clothes, her youngest boy turns the handle of her ancient sewing machine. “The boys always give me this precious help,” she remarks, “It stops my arm from getting tired.”
Original material :
digital
Resolution :
4867x6489
Orientation :
portrait
Colour/B&W :
colour
