Statistics by Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled show that more than 500,000 widows are living in the country and that most of them are war widows. 

More than 70,000 of the widows are breadwinners of their families, the ministry said.

TOLOnews’ reporter Nabilla Ashrafi interviewed a widow in Kabul to reflect the lives and challenges of most of widows in the country. 

Rahima, a widow, said her husband was killed four years ago in the war between government forces and the Taliban in Baghlan province.

Her husband was a worker. Rahima moved to Kabul with her six children to find a job after she lost her husband. 

Her eldest son is 15 years old.

Her children go to school and some of them work after school time. She makes handmade products and sells them to earn an income for her family.

“I pay all the expenses. One of my sons suffers from mental problem,” said Rahima. 

She said one of his sons died in a traffic accident three months ago and that the incident has mentally affected her children.

“I did not have money to take my son to a good hospital to stop his bleeding. I lost him,” said Rahima. 

Rahima’s children said they are faced with many problems.

“We face lots of problems and my mother cannot take care of all of us,” Madina, Rahima’s daughter, said. 

“We want to be educated, but we don’t have pen and notebook. We ask government to help us,” Murtaza, Rahima’s son, said. 

A Kabul-based psychologist, Rohullah Rezwani, said families who lose their relatives in the war are physiologically affected by those incidents. 

Seddiqullah Khaliqi, the provincial director of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled in Helmand, said they have registered 5,007 widows in the province. 

“Almost 2,200 of them (the widows) are from families of soldiers and the remaining are civilians who all have been killed,” said Seddiqi. 

This comes after Afghanistan will mark the International Widows Day on Saturday.