There are more than two million orphaned Afghans. That's enough to populate a city. It's a serious problem and a challenge to Afghanistan's long-term prospects. Yet thanks to organizations like the Omid-e-mirmum that have grown up since the fall of the Taliban, more of these children will have a chance for a happy future, as CASC founding member Terry Glavin reports in the Calgary Herald:

The Omid-e-mirmun orphanage is hidden away behind high walls and a sturdy metal gate down a dusty back street in the Koshalkhan district of Kabul. When you arrive for a visit, you are ushered into a courtyard and up the stairs. A flock of girls will hurry to greet you at the door.

The girls are bold, and each of them offers a broad smile and a firm and hearty handshake. "Good morning. How do you do? Salaam."

Afza Hosa, the 45-year-old house mother, is quick behind them, and she shoos the older ones away to make tea and to clear a place among their toys and their books in the living room.

"Around Eid, it is really hard," Hosa says as about a dozen of the girls clamour around the room to find a place to curl up and visit. "They want shoes and underwear and bangles and socks. 'I need the kind of scarf that I saw at school! I want this! I want that!' " Hosa laughs at herself, and the girls laugh along. "They drive me crazy."

The girls of Omid-e-mirmun defy all the odds that are spelled out so bleakly in all the relevant statistics assiduously accumulated by the United Nations and its various departments and agencies since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that even by 2008, one out of every four babies born in Afghanistan wasn't expected to live to the age of five. Half of Afghanistan's 28 million people are under 18. Close to half the country's children are still not in school.

Child labour is ubiquitous. More than one million Afghan children are their families' main breadwinners. Even schoolchildren are not safe from harm: between May, 2007 and February, 2008, the Taliban attacked and burned 98 schools, killing 147 teachers and schoolchildren.

More than two million Afghans are orphaned children -- enough to populate a huge city, all on their own.

There are 29 orphans here at Omid-e-mirmun, all girls, all in school, all healthy. The youngest is Zarina. She's about 18 months old. Zarina was a newborn abandoned at Kandahar Hospital, and Hosa heard about her and arranged to take her in.

Strictly speaking, Zarina is not a resident here. She lives with Hosa, who wants to adopt Zarina -- but Islamic law prohibits adoption. Afghan law allows only a form of guardianship that isn't recognized by many countries.

Five million Afghans are returned refugees -- more than twice the number of the country's orphaned children. Many returned Afghans, like Hosa, have dual citizenship. Like Hosa, many would be happy to adopt an orphan, but mere guardianship is insufficient to qualify as adoption in most countries. This puts Hosa and Zarina in a predicament.

Hosa is an Afghan-American, but she can't return to the United States with Zarina. At least not yet. There's hope: a new adoption law is slowly making its way through the Afghan legislative process.

That's the thing about those statistics. For all the ghastly conditions that still haunt Afghanistan all these years after the Taliban's fall, at least now there's hope. For the 29 girls of Omid-emirmun, at least there's Afza Hosa. In the Dari language, "omid" means hope.

To their credit, the Liberal party finally seems to have gotten over its reluctance to discuss a renewed role for Canada in Afghanistan post-2011. But are Bob Rae's brave words in vain?

It seems our Prime Minister still isn't willing to give Canada's most important foreign policy engagement in recent memory any words other than a dishonest point about "respecting the will of parliament." But parliament didn't vote to end our involvement in Afghanistan after 2011. They voted to end the military mission in Kandahar. So there's actually quite a bit that Canada can do -- training of soldiers, development aid, electoral reform, education supports, institution building -- there is much that can be done. Indeed, to pull up stakes at this point, just as the international efforts are gaining momentum, would raise an even darker question of what our sacrifices were for.

Will the PM show leadership now and take up discussion of our role in Afghanistan for the future in a pragmatic approach with his fellow MPs? Or will political partisanship continue to throw a cloak of silence upon this critical issue?

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee has been hosting panels across the country asking the question "What Should Canada Do in Afghanistan Post-2011?" Tonight, our panel will discuss this question in Regina at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum Theatre. For full details and to learn how to RSVP, click here.

At our recent panel in Calgary, the Afghan Canadian Association of Calgary representative Nassir Faqiryar gave an excellent speech about what Canada's role might look like going forward. A transcript of the speech is below:

I would like to welcome you all on behalf of Afghan Canadian Association of Calgary. Your Excellency Jawed Ludin and all the panelists, Najia Haneefi, Terry Glavin and Lauryn Oates, welcome to Calgary and hope you enjoy your stay here.

My name is Nassir Faqiryar and I am the President of Afghan Canadian Association of Calgary. I have lived here in Calgary for the past 24 years, which I now call home; I left Kabul Afghanistan at the age of 14.

I love Afghanistan as much as I love Canada. I have grown up here and I am proud to call myself a Canadian, however being born in Kabul Afghanistan have kept me close to my culture and history and have kept me thirsty for our nation’s peace.

I would like to thank you all for your support for the Afghan people. Please do not abandon the afghan people like the United States did after the fall of the Soviet Union. Don’t forget us, like the United States did when they used Afghan’s blood to get rid of communism. We all know the outcome of that mistake; let’s not let history repeat itself. Keep helping the Afghan people to reach the point where they can stand on their own feet.

We recognize that a withdrawal of Canadian troops from Kandahar would almost certainly lead to a total collapse in security, and this could lead to a civil war, the return of Taliban to power and the future denial of human rights.

To my Canadian brothers who served and to Canadian families who have lost their loved ones in Afghanistan to date 142. I am sorry for your loss, they have given ultimate sacrifices and thank you Canada for all you have done so far, I know it’s a Canadian thing to do, I know we are just taking a little bit of Canada trying to help others in the world try to have a better place to live

Canada's participation is guided by our core values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, especially the rights of women and girls. Because of Canada's efforts and those of the international community, the Afghan people now vote, women and girls have rights and children are going to school. Rebuilding a shattered state, however, is a slow and complex process in a country that is emerging from more than three decades of oppression, terror, conflict, drought and poverty.

Before I start with my questions, I would like to thank you all for providing this environment to all Afghan’s here to listen and contribute “What should Canada do in Afghanistan post 2011”.

My wish list; Canada should still be participating to re-build infrastructure, peace keeping, education, democracy building, literacy and advance of human rights, support for institutional capacity building and training of Afghan Security forces, so Afghans can take over their own responsibilities short and long term.

To overcome current crises in Afghanistan: We need to invest in Education, institutional building, literacy.

1) New strategies to combat Taliban

2) Eradicate corruption in government

3) Improve education

4) Democracy building

5) Improve governance (electoral distrust)

6) Stabilize the country

7) Ending the agony of long suffering of Afghan people         

For far too long, virtually any political discussion in Canada about Afghanistan has focused on events that happened back in 2005 to 2007. As noted many times on this site, the silence from our elected representatives on the future role of Canada in our most critical foreign policy venture of the decade has been deafening.

It seems that more and more opinion makers and journalists are coming to the same conclusion every week. One of the latest is Martin Regg Cohn, who describes in the Toronto Star how the taboo nature of the debate has gone from ridiculous to tragic, with an insightful comment on the Dutch experience:

The Dutch know a thing or two about the politics of pulling out of Afghanistan, ever since their coalition government collapsed last February over whether to extend the mission of their 2,000 troops in Southern Afghanistan.

Unlike the Canadians, the Dutch have come to realize that pulling out is hard to do. Even with an election campaign underway, a consensus is emerging to continue supporting the fledgling Afghan police force with a contingent of 50 police trainers on the ground, backed by a protection force of perhaps 300 troops.

That’s a far cry from the Canadian context, where talking about post-Taliban Afghanistan has become taboo. In 2008, the House of Commons adopted a resolution saying that “Canada will end its presence in Kandahar as of July 2011 . . . so that it will have been completed by December 2011.”

Nowhere does it say all Canadian troops must leave Afghanistan entirely, only that our front-line contribution to the Kandahar counter-insurgency should come to an end by the end of 2011. Harper’s determination to shut down the debate is a matter of expediency by a Prime Minister unwilling to risk any political capital on the mission...

Will we continue our police training presence in Kandahar? Follow through with our major polio eradication program and the Dahla Dam project? Protect Canadian aid workers and diplomats in Kabul? After all our squawking about torture, will we maintain a strong presence in Afghanistan’s penal system to press reforms?

For all the talk of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, Harper’s government has to make the case in Canada, too: why we went to Afghanistan (to help our allies stabilize the country post-9/11, after the Taliban were toppled and Al Qaeda terrorist bases destroyed); why there’s work still to be done on development and training; that we are there under a continued UN mandate; and that any serious polling shows the Afghan people very much want foreign forces to stay for as long as it takes to keep the Taliban at bay.

Afghanistan's future depends on how much foresight, political will and determination will be forthcoming from the Afghan leadership and the many nations involved, says Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's former foreign minister and a leading contender in the country's 2009 presidential election.

Naturally, Abdullah reminds that Karzai is not necessarily the only leader that can make things happen. Indeed, Karzai's strategy of reconciliation with the Taliban is frightening much of the population and leaving international backers confused. An excerpt from Foreign Policy:

Following closely on the heels of Karzai's visit to Washington last week, Abdullah concentrated on the importance of strengthening Afghanistan's democracy. "The success of the Afghan government ... will depend on the trust and sympathy of the majority of people in Afghanistan," he told his American audience. Unless the country's government drastically improves, the Taliban would still find willing recruits among Afghanistan's population. Afghans "want a moderate Islamic country, democracy, equal rights, respect for women's rights, education, and [to live] at peace with one another in a dignified manner," Abdullah asserted...

Abdullah Abdullah: First of all, the peace jirga is mainly a government-led initiative. It should have been a national, much more broadly based initiative, in order to gain the trust of the people. Some people in the country have interpreted this effort as an attempt to bring the Taliban back. I'm not saying that this is an attempt in that direction, but that perception -- it matters. Those things are not being considered in the preparation of the jirga. To think that we can bring [the Taliban] back [into the political process] -- they are not fighting there because they cannot be painters or carpenters. Part of the incentives is vocational training for the ex-combatants. I don't know. 

Abdullah poured cold water on the Karzai government's hope that it can offer Taliban forces incentives to abandon the insurgency and rejoin the political process. "They are not fighting to join the system -- a democratic system," he said. "They want to take Afghanistan back to the old days, where Afghanistan was the heart to international terrorism." 

Panels exploring the question "What Should Canada Do in Afghanistan Post-2011?" are continuing in cities across Canada this week. 

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee would like to thank concerned citizens in Halifax for joining the discussion on Sunday. The public's engagement is critical for ensuring that Canada continues to contribute positively to the international effort in Afghanistan after our present mission comes to an end.

Our next panel takes place in Montreal on Monday night and will include leaders and experts who can provide the audience with a better perspective on what a renewed role for Canada might look like. Full details below:

A Panel Responding to the Question: What Should Canada Do in Afghanistan Post-2011?

Date and TimeMonday, May 17 from 7-9pm

LocationAtwater Library
1200 avenue AtwaterWestmount, QC

Panelists

ERSHAD AHMADI, Deputy Chief of the Afghanistan Mission to Canada

LAURYN OATES, a human rights and gender equity activist with CASC and Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WA).

TERRY GLAVIN is an author of several books and a journalist whose writing from Afghanistan has appeared in newspapers and magazines as diverse as Democratiya, the National Post, the online daily The Tyee and Vancouver Review. He is a co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee.

STEPHEN SAIDEMAN is Canada Research Chair in International Security and Ethnic Conflict

BERYL WAJSMAN is President of the Institute of Public Affairs of Montreal, editor-in-chief of the Suburban newspapers, publisher of The Metropolitain (Moderator)

RSVP and media inquiries: info@afghanistan-canada-solidarity.org

Learn more about our other panels happening across the country in Winnipeg and Regina at http://afghanistan-canada-solidarity.org/events