Aid work­ers in Afgan­his­tan have to keep their employ­ment secret. Many tell friends or rel­a­tives that they work for pri­vate busi­ness instead of work­ing to pro­vide food. They do this because kid­nap­ping is a con­stant threat, they fear putting them­selves or their loved ones in dan­ger if their true occu­pa­tion is known.

For World Human­i­tar­ian Day, this com­men­tary from the Times Online explains some of the threat in Afghanistan, the writer did not reveal their identity.

I’ve never pro­grammed the num­bers of my inter­na­tional col­leagues into my mobile phone because I don’t want some­one to find them there if I’m searched at a road­block. I leave my work phone behind when I travel to the south to visit rel­a­tives and friends.

None of this is unusual. Many of my Afghan col­leagues at WFP do the same things, and some take even more pre­cau­tions against the risks we face just com­ing to work every day.

There are peo­ple here who believe that work­ing with non-Muslims is for­bid­den. Some are will­ing to use vio­lence to enforce this belief, and may not dif­fer­en­ti­ate between some­one work­ing for a for­eign mil­i­tary force and some­one work­ing for a human­i­tar­ian agency.

The gap between rich and poor is also an issue. Afghanistan is one of the poor­est coun­tries on Earth, and some peo­ple assume that those of us work­ing for inter­na­tional agen­cies are wealthy — which could make us and our rel­a­tives tar­gets for kid­nap­pers seek­ing ransom.

There was a time, not so long ago, when a UN job was some­thing peo­ple would be eager to show off. A posi­tion like mine would bring pres­tige and social status.

But for me and for so many of my col­leagues, our moti­va­tion is some­thing much deeper, and it inspires us to face the risks that now accom­pany the work we do.

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