The most dominant social problem in Afghanistan is poverty. Most of the people have limited economic resources and their standard of living is low. The people have been deprived of modern facilities in education, health, communication and sufficient food. Such people are worried due to lack of income resources and they are unable to fulfill their needs to live alive parallel to their fellow human beings. In this age of competition they feel deprived of their rights and inferiority complex prevails upon them. They feel shy in sitting with the well-off families. They cannot easily get into marital relation with the families that are better than them economically.
Poverty, though itself is a great problem, is also the root cause of many other social problems as well. Many children are unable to get education due to this problem. Millions of children every year prefer to earn instead of education because of economic problems.
Terrorism is also a product of poverty. Terrorists trap young children and poor youths by giving lots of money and train them to become terrorists to destabilize the country. And, crime and social evils are produced under the umbrella of poverty. People commit crime due to poverty. Many other social evils are also generated because of it. It also hampers economic and social growth of country which disturbs the whole nation.
Poverty also creates beggars in the society. Most of the beggars opt for begging due to poverty. It can be observed that in Afghan society, it has become an organized way of earning easy money. Beggars have now formed groups that are involved in distribution of drugs, stealing, transferring information, kidnapping and even prostitution.
It can be easily observed that mostly poor are the victims of addiction like heroin, alcohol, marijuana etc. These kinds of people are usually found on the footpaths and under the bridges, in the most pathetic conditions. They are not aware of themselves, their lives and their families. They also engage in small crimes like stealing small items that they can sell to buy their drugs. They are in fact unable to follow the norms and values of society, which are luxury for them.
Poverty prevails because Afghan authorities are unable to focus and dedicate efforts for extracting economic resources from the natural environment. Afghan land has hills, mountains, rivers and a large amount of minerals underneath, but unfortunately they are not being used properly. Moreover, the assistance and support that arrived in the country were never spent for improving the living condition of the people and fighting poverty. Therefore, most of them were misused and did not achieve their target.
Another important reason of poverty is unemployment. There are many young and educated people in the country who do not get the chance of finding proper jobs for them. Both the government and private sector have limited number of positions available for the youth; therefore, many of them after completing their tiring education can only wish for a position of their choice. Many of them even opt to do the tasks that are not related to the field of their study, yet the job market is limited.
Even for the people who do not have education, the work opportunities are not sufficient and therefore they are living from hand to mouth. They mostly depend on daily labor and if they do not get any work for some days consecutively they have to starve along with their families.
The government, therefore, needs to eradicate unemployment first. People should be given job opportunities so that they are able to feed themselves and their families and do not become a burden on the country and ultimately on the government. Moreover, there should be efforts to enhance incentives for menial work as well so that the youth who are educated and shy away from such work must be motivated to get involved and start earning.
Those who are poor and mostly those who are beggars may be given technical education. In this way, their potential will be utilized in the best way. For this purpose, there can be special training institutions. Moreover, such a policy can also be useful for the ones who are addicted to drugs. Government can construct rehabilitation centers equipped with facilities for technical education so that the addicts after leaving the centers can start their own work and be positive members of the society.
Importance and benefits of education and literacy may be conveyed to the people because education enables individuals to get better jobs in society. A special project may be started for the rural area because illiteracy is more in rural areas.
Women form a large portion of the population in Afghanistan. However, only few among them are well-educated or employed. They should be given technical and vocational skills, so that they could start some work at their home. In this way, they can remain in the house and productively utilize free time.