Like most other problems, it all started with the British. Back in 1838, Afghanistan was minding its own business. I imagine everyone drinking tea, children fly kites and people calling each other “Jan.” Then Britain invaded. After that came the Indians, then the British again, then the Soviets, the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the US, the UN, NATO, the US again, and now apparently Daesh.

The consequences of this painful history have been varied and far reaching. Here are some sad but true facts about Afghanistan. Half of the population lives below the poverty line. Remember that the poverty line in Afghanistan is very, very low. Ninety per cent of women and sixty three percent of men cannot read and write. The education system was devastated by decades of conflict. This means that many senior government officials have not attended any third level education. Some have not completed high school. There are a million, (1, 000,000) orphans in Afghanistan.

Like most solutions, it all started with the mothers. In 2009, I was contacted by a mother who was determined to get her adopted baby out. I started to research Afghan adoptions. The web site of the Afghan embassy stated (incorrectly) that adoption was simply not possible in Afghanistan. I remember a challenging conversation with another mother adopting from Afghanistan at the same time, who said to me, “Do you realize that if this child doesn’t get a visa, he’ll be selling toilet paper on the street to support himself when he’s four years old?” A few years later I watched a Netflix PBS documentary called The Dancing Boys about the bacha bazi practice in Afghanistan. It disturbed me to the core of my being. Babies are starving to death every day. As a global society, we have a moral obligation to assist children in Afghanistan who do not have families.

Adoption in Afghanistan is not easy, but it is possible. There is a written juvenile code in Afghanistan. And it’s a good one! It clearly allows the court to place a child in need under the care of a legal guardian. Guardianship orders are accepted by the United States as legal mechanisms to form a relationship that is similar to adoption. This means that the US government will grant a visa to a child with US citizen guardians.

What always surprises me most about Afghan adoptions is the difficulty that people have locating any child who might be available for adoption. There are a million orphans there after all. Upon seizing power, the Taliban regime instituted a system of gender apartheid effectively thrusting the women of Afghanistan into a state of virtual house arrest. This meant that not only could they not go to school, they also were subjected to very severe punishments for social behavior that was deemed immoral or inappropriate. The vestiges of this regime remain. Mob justice is a regular occurrence. People are afraid. This makes it difficult to comply with US immigration law.

In order to obtain a visa for an orphan, not only do we have to have a guardianship; we also have to prove that the child is an orphan because the biological parents are dead, have abandoned the child or because the child is the child of a single parent. Deaths (and births for that matter) are often not documented. What use does one have for a death certificate one cannot read? Children are sometimes left in orphanages temporarily by parents who cannot house or feed them. The parents cannot leave written instructions as to what is to become of the child but may visit periodically. Orphanage workers may not be able to read or write so no records are kept. Witnesses to abandonment are often not willing to confirm to Afghan or US officials that they know a baby was deserted or abandoned for fear of being accused of being a witness to or concealing an extra-marital relationship. Corruption is rife. Afghanistan is not a safe place. The list goes on.

Despite the challenges, we do see a small trickle of orphans coming out of Afghanistan every year. I’m doing as much as I can to reduce the amount of actual time spent on the ground in Afghanistan. All immigration applications can be filed in the US and forwarded to the US embassy in Kabul at the end of the process for visa issuance. At present, the families only technically need to be in Afghanistan to obtain the actual court order; something that typically takes a relatively short period of time. In practice though, the process moves more quickly if someone is physically in Afghanistan to gather documents. In some cases, the process will not move at all unless someone is physically there to obtain the necessary documentation. And of course, mothers never want to leave their babies; so most families opt to stay in Afghanistan throughout the process or go to a third country with their child while they wait for visa issuance. Afghanistan is not the well-oiled adoption machine that Morocco or Pakistan are. The shortest adoption I have ever seen there took 6 months from home study to homecoming with the family being in country for only six weeks. The longest took over a year.

People often ask me what the orphans that come out of Afghanistan are like. How old are they? Are they healthy? What do they look like? The vast majority of the children are very young infants- abandoned at birth. The eldest Afghan child that I ever worked for was seven. I am not aware of any particular health problems with the children that I have worked for but the same rules apply as in any other country. Malnutrition in infancy can cause serious damage. Parents should always have their children seen by a good pediatrician in a private hospital before finalizing a court process and as soon as they come home to the US. How do they look? They’re extremely cute! But of course, I’m biased.

Questions, comments, criticisms? E-mail me at [email protected]