When humanitarian workers talk about what they saw, one scene keeps coming up near the Islam Qala border crossing on the western edge of Afghanistan. Mothers with children who have been traveling for days and don’t know where they are going next are waiting for someone to tell them what to do while sitting under temporary shade structures. The kids are quiet in the way that kids are quiet when they think their parents are scared.
This scene has been seen before. But because of how big it is now, in 2025 and 2026, it’s in a whole different group. In 2025 alone, almost three million Afghans who had been in Iran or Pakistan came back to Afghanistan. There were families with children in about 60% of those. In July of last year, more than 50,000 people crossed the border all at once. It’s hard to deal with that number.
In light of this, UNICEF’s decision to send parenting support trainers to 10,000 families across Afghanistan may seem like the kind of “soft” program that gets lost in the news between stories about food banks and vaccination drives. It’s not. It shows something that UNICEF and its partners have known for a while: a child who comes back to Afghanistan hungry can be checked out and fed, but a child who comes back to a family that has been broken up by trauma, displacement, or lack of money will suffer harm that takes longer to show and is harder to see.
During a briefing in March 2026, Dr. Tajudeen Oyewale, who is UNICEF’s Representative in Afghanistan, made the situation clear: too many mothers coming to reception centers looking tired and overwhelmed and needing help right away. It wasn’t just a matter of logistics that he was talking about. It had to do with the mind. When families who have lived in Iran for years, sometimes even a decade or more, go back to places they barely know, places that are already struggling from more than four decades of war, drought, and economic collapse.
It’s hard not to notice that the parenting program is in the middle of a lot of problems that are getting worse at the same time. There are 11 million children in Afghanistan who need help right now. Over 6,000 separated and unaccompanied children were found and put back with their families by the end of July 2025. Children who were separated on the way back, saw people crossing borders while under a lot of stress, and who ended up in places where they might not be able to go to school need more than just extra food. They need care that is stable and responsive. And caring for others is a skill that can get worse, especially when you’re under a lot of stress.
This is what the parenting training program is meant to take into account. Trainers work directly with families, focusing on building strong emotional foundations, structured routines, and age-appropriate stimulation for young children. These are the kinds of early foundations that research shows are very important for long-term development. It’s still not clear if 10,000 families is enough, given how many people need help. Most likely, it’s not. However, it is an important recognition that rebuilding a country includes, among other things, rebuilding the conditions inside homes.
The other dark cloud over everything is still education. In Afghanistan, girls are still not allowed to go to school past the sixth grade. UNICEF watched as teachers, who were young women who were just a few months away from finishing medical school before the restrictions, watched younger girls go to accelerated learning centers to finish primary school. Even though those girls are bright and full of hope, they will run into a wall that has nothing to do with their skills. That can’t be fixed by the parenting program. When a girl turns twelve, the door shuts on her. Early childhood support doesn’t change that.
So, UNICEF is trying to do something fair and honest about the limits of its work. It can’t let schools open again. It can’t change the rules. It can help families when they are at their weakest and give them something real—a trained person, a consistent approach, and a reason to believe that they can rebuild their normal family life. It’s still not clear if donors will give enough money to do this work on a large scale. There is no need.
