60 minutes overtime
this week on 60 minutes our story is about humanitarian efforts going on in afghanistan
it's very important that they hear what you've had to say today
ashley veli is the producer of this story and that's what's missing right now setting up a story
to shoot in afghanistan is one of the most difficult things you can imagine
and it all starts back at home in new york city dealing with missions and consulates
for afghanistan whose workers are not part of the taliban who say to you well look we
can give you a stamp in your passport but we can't guarantee that you're actually going to get in or
that you're going to be you know okay there and you have to absolve us of all responsibilities
so this is the final leg of our long journey i feel like i wasn't feeling confident until we got
through the airport in afghanistan that we were gonna get in in fact our crew went in and they
got stamped the guys right and when we both went in the guy was very angry to see us women arrive
and he stamped it and pushed it to the side and we were like okay welcome to afghanistan here we go
i had been negotiating to get an interview with this taliban health minister who speaks english
that interview was on the ropes like for most of the week you know it was on it was off and so
you know we were at the very end of our week we were pretty tired and we got the late call to set
up to do the interview with the health minister as we're setting up you know there's guys with guns
standing behind us i kept thinking is he going to stand behind me they were smart enough to move out
of frame we do the interview and um the minister keeps trying to cut it off and leave at various
points during the interview and he's i think we've had enough i think till this time we have covered
all the issues you don't want to talk about food it keeps going and afterwards they
invited us to come eat with them and if invited to eat you say yes and we did and was it strange yes
it was so they were pretty comfortable speaking english and they were there to charm i also know
that that i have a 13. you know i told her yeah he has 13 kids but this was a secret oh
the conversation went for about 30 minutes my daughter is a 19 year old
okay i don't think it was lost on anybody that were there doing a story about people
starving the children starving these families starving and they've just laid
out this beautiful spread for us it was a really surreal event really surreal really
serious there were definitely moments when we didn't feel safe whether you were in the car
in traffic and worrying about being a target that way or walking through a province or sitting down
with the taliban i think that our heads were on a swivel the entire time we were there
there's all these pockets of checkpoints now
the taliban are manning and they're all wearing american military uniforms and they're all sitting
on top of sort of discarded american humvees and they there you are face to face with people in
your own country's uniforms that used to be the enemy the people you would actively try to avoid
when you were yeah when you were there and then they're you're relying on them you're relying
on them to escort you into these far-flung provinces two hours outside of the capital
that were heavily entrenched in war up until a few months ago i'm not sure if things had really
gone south that they were gonna you know protect us and there were definitely times when we felt
the opposite of being protected who wants to be a doctor raise your hand if you want to be a doctor
oh whole school of doctors we went into a girl's in this far-flung province called wardak
and this school was something that unicef had sat down with the taliban with and started talking
about back in 2018 the need for education the benefits of education what could come of it a
young girl 10 11 years old got up and read a statement talking about how they deserve to be
educated they deserve to work and have a place at the table in afghan society and that resolve
coming from a 10 year old heartbreaking because you know it's hanging in the balance but also
heartening because there's that fight in there and there's that recognition that things can change
what's also like really fantastic about being western women going into
afghanistan is the way the women respond to you so sharon because she's a woman
was able to sit down with a young 19 year old girl who was in desperate situations
a female doctor same kind of thing how is it that you as a woman
are still working under this taliban rule to be honest my family is not encouraging me to come
and continue my job the environment outside is no safe any longer so the feelings as a mother
as a woman and as a doctor makes me to come i was surprised i think a lot of the groups we spoke to
the heads of these ngos the people have been doing the negotiating with tubman were women have they
given any indication that they want you here that they need you here yes mel mcgorty is the director
of the world food program in afghanistan i don't think there's any man or woman in afghanistan at
the moment that doesn't understand the extent of the crisis that afghans are are seeing
i was there 20 years ago the taliban had just fell and it's a whole new world and there was a lot
of hope there in afghanistan at the time and 20 years later here we are and the taliban are back
everybody paid attention at the evacuations everybody paid attention with refugees now
let's look and see what's happening in afghanistan now and politics aside it's humanitarian crisis
we're going into winter it gets really cold in afghanistan there's no food we are about
to walk into some very dark days just because we left afghanistan doesn't mean the story is over