Period+2+Group+3

Challenges Facing Human Rights in Afghanistan (Period 2, Lesson 3)

James - Section 3.2 - Challenges Facing Human Rights in Afghanistan My part gives us a little introduction about the opium production in Afghanistan. Since the 1970s, the opium production in Afghanistan has been the highest and it singlehandedly supplies the world with 90% of it's opium. Opium is grown and transported out of here mostly because it is cheap, easy to store and transport and because it grosses the most money that the country can afford. Warlords mostly profit from this plant, making about $3 billion dollars a year in a country whose average wage is less than $2 a day. Afghanistan because of opium has been labeled a key source of the black market and is constantly increasing the amount of crops of Opium that the country has. However, the warlord system of producing opium has displaced many people making the refugees especially women and children that cannot work in the fields. There are communities of these people called IDPs (internally displaced people) where the drug problem is very high. Many hospitals being found ill-equipped, many wounded soldiers and civilians get addicted to opium to numb the pain that they suffer. About 45,000 people are addicted to opium and some use it on their children to calm them down and stop them from crying. This causes many more problems in life such as lung cancer and brain damage. Many pregnant women also use opium’s because they are addicted and lose the babies and in some cases lose the ability to have babies altogether. Opium is not only damaging to people here in their heroin, but has a horrible effect on the t people in Afghanistan that become addicted. I really feel that this is horrible and that opium should be taken out of their country for the better of the people
 * Afghanistan as a Narco State**