Fatima is facing a torturous decision no mother should ever have to face: selling her toddler to prevent her other children from starving to death.
The 21-year-old has so far resisted, but there’s pressure from her family, who are also starving and have no money for food.
Fatima recently had to move back in with her 60-year-old father in a crowded house to avoid homelessness.
But her father also has other children to look after.
“I asked my father, ‘What should I do with this child?’ He said ‘let him die’. I told him he is my son, I can’t do this, he said ‘let him die’.”
Fatima has four children, including 18-month-old twins Milad and Ara, who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Ara's twin brother Milad. He has been unwell but his mother can't afford to take him to hospital. Source: Supplied
With no money and the father of her children — the traditional breadwinner — having left the family, the young mother says she can’t afford to look after her kids anymore.
“I told the doctor, ‘We don’t have anything to pay for hospitalisation expenses’, then he gave me some medicine,” Fatima said
“Ara was fine for a while and now she is sick [again], and I don’t have the money to take her to the doctor.
“Everyone was saying ‘we will buy her’ but I didn’t give her up. I wanted to sell her because I couldn’t keep her anymore.”
While Fatima is holding on to her child for now, others have felt they had no other choice.
Bibi sold one of her newborns in order to save its life.
Bibi was forced to give up one of her newborns. Source: Supplied
She and her husband Mohammad have seven other children to look after and couldn’t afford to feed one of their newborn twins. The family was displaced by drought seven months ago.
They gave up the now four-month-old to a childless couple, who paid a small sum that Bibi and Mohammad did not ask for.
They bought some flour, oil and rice with the money, but it’s already run out.
“It was very difficult, more than you can imagine,” Bibi said of the decision to give up her child.
“I did not give my child away for the money … I gave my child away because of destitution, not because someone forced me. I was unable to take care of him and I could not afford anything.”
Across Afghanistan, mothers and fathers are selling their children to make ends meet as tens of millions face mass starvation.
Aid groups say one million children are on the brink of death from malnutrition in the coming winter months - a figure greater than the total number of civilian casualties from the 20-year war.
A crippling drought exacerbated by an economic crisis following international sanctions against the new Taliban government has left more than half of Afghanistan’s population facing acute hunger.
Many who had a steady income under the previous government are now jobless and unable to buy food.
Save the Children, who spoke to Bibi and Fatima and provided relief to the pair, said the organisation's worst humanitarian emergency in the world at the moment is in Afghanistan.
"This is a choice that no parent ever anywhere in the world should have to face," Save the Children Australia's Mat Tinkler told SBS News.
"This isn't normally done for financial gain in terms of giving up a child, it's normally done to allow them to at least give that child the best chance of survival."
Mr Tinkler says with winter having set in, time is running out to help children survive.
The organisation is among several aid groups who’ve ramped up calls in recent weeks asking governments to make urgent exemptions to sanctions policies against the Taliban, in order to save millions of lives.
Mohammad and Bibi and their children are surviving on bread and tea. Source: Supplied
"We can't wait for every issue to be resolved that may exist in every member state of the UN in regards to how the Taliban is going to be treated or recognised," Mr Tinkler said.
"We need humanitarian exemptions to be agreed urgently. This is a life or death matter, literally day-by-day in Afghanistan right now.
"We need those humanitarian exemptions to be passed through and we need agencies to be able to get on with the reason they exist, and that is saving lives."
The United States has frozen almost US$9.5 billion (A$13.28 billion) in assets from Afghanistan’s central bank in an attempt to avert funds from getting into the hands of the Taliban.
The US’s new special representative for Afghanistan, Tom West, said Afghanistan’s dependence on foreign aid was stressed to the Taliban in the months before its takeover in August.
“They chose a military takeover. I think they knew the consequences. And they made that decision anyway,” he told PBS Newshour.
“And, unfortunately, the Afghan people are suffering as a result.”
He said there hasn’t yet been a “collective decision” from the international community to pursue sanctions relief.
“There are a range of things we want to see from the Taliban when it comes to establishing a record of responsible conduct.”
Mr Tinkler said it's understandable that governments want to avoid legitimising the Taliban, but that shouldn't preclude making sure the new rulers can deliver life-saving human services.
"Otherwise what we are faced with is literally a humanitarian catastrophe when millions of lives will be lost in the coming months if that principle of negotiation and humanitarian access is not prioritised," he said.
