He was just 15 years old and already working, polishing shoes. I met him outside the premises of a foreign radio station in Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan district, where he was waiting for customers, about two decades ago.

Amar carried a white-painted wooden box on his back, which held all that he needed to do the job. Like thousands of other boys in the Afghan capital, he offered to polish shoes for a few Afghani, the local currency.