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This clip shows Afghan couple Shah and Habiba, who both lost limbs as a result of treading on landmines. Shah describes how during the war in Afghanistan between the Mujaheddin and the Soviet Union, when both sides used landmines, he planted the devices. Habiba says she wants a pair of pretty shoes but has to make do with sandshoes fitted to her prosthetic leg. The clip includes footage of a de-miner using a metal detector to locate landmines, a workshop where a prosthetic leg is fitted with a sandshoe and a rehabilitation centre where a woman who has lost both legs is shown practising walking with prosthetics.

Educational value points

• The production of prosthetic limbs is one of Afghanistan’s largest industries. Landmines or antipersonnel weapons are designed to maim rather than kill their victims. They can cause blindness, burns, injuries to feet, legs and groin, and secondary infections that can then lead to the amputation of limbs. People can be killed by the mine blast, from loss of blood or as a result of inadequate medical care. Most victims are civilians and about 4 per cent of the Afghan population is disabled as a result of landmines or unexploded ordnances. Victims require long hospital stays and rehabilitation. However, decades of conflict have decimated the health-care system in Afghanistan.

• Afghanistan is one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world. In 2002, Halo Trust, a British de-mining organisation, estimated that there were about half a million landmines covering about 730 million sq m in Afghanistan, with only two of Afghanistan’s 29 provinces believed to be unaffected. However, estimates of the number of landmines vary, with some agencies claiming that there may be as many as 10 million. Agricultural and grazing land is the most heavily mined, although landmines are also found in urban and residential areas, irrigation systems, roads and footpaths.

• Landmines are a legacy of decades of conflict in Afghanistan, although most mines were laid during the war between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the Mujaheddin (Afghan insurgents backed mostly by the USA and Pakistan). The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979 was designed to shore up communist rule in the country, and after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 warfare continued between rival factions until the US-supported Taliban seized control in 1996. During the war in Afghanistan, launched by the USA following the 11 September 2000 terrorist attacks, the Taliban, terrorist group al-Qaeda and the US-backed Northern Alliance all made limited use of landmines. Cluster bombs, which act in a similar way to landmines, were also dropped by the USA.

• Landmines kill or injure more people in Afghanistan than in any other country. The Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghanistan Rehabilitation reports that up to 15 people are injured or killed by landmines each day in Afghanistan. Thirty per cent of victims are children, many of whom pick up landmines thinking they are toys. Landmine education and the erection of signs warning people of the danger of mines have reduced the numbers killed and injured; however, in rural areas people risk going out into fields that may be mined because the land is their livelihood.

• The clearing of landmines, which has been made a priority by the Afghanistan Government, is costly, time consuming and dangerous. According to the Landmine Survivors Network, landmines cost about $4 to make but up to $1,300 to remove. De-miners locate landmines using metal detectors and a metal prodder to hand-probe every square centimetre of ground. Sniffer dogs are sometimes used to locate the scent of mine explosives. On average a de-miner might clear 7 sq m per day.

• In 1997 the Mine Ban Treaty, officially known as the 'Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction’, was signed by 122 countries in Ottawa, Canada. The Treaty bans the production, acquisition, sale and use of landmines, and requires that stockpiled mines be destroyed, existing landmines cleared and assistance given to victims. By October 2006, 151 countries including Australia had ratified or acceded to the treaty, and were therefore legally bound by its provisions. In 2002 Afghanistan acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty; however, as of October 2006, 40 countries remained outside the treaty, including China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia and the USA.

• The International Campaign to Ban Landmines estimates that at least 78 countries are affected by landmines and unexploded ordnances, which cause between 15,000 and 20,000 new casualties each year or about two casualties every hour. Aside from Afghanistan, the worst affected countries are Vietnam, Burma, Angola, India and Cambodia.

• Filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke has a reputation for making socially critical and often controversial documentaries. His films tend to focus on people on the social margins and, through personal stories, expose larger issues of political and social injustice. O’Rourke says that Landmines: A Love Story tells the story of Habiba and Shah who, despite their suffering, have a warm relationship, but it is also 'among other things, about how much soldiers love their weapons’ ('Shattered lives’, The Age, 2005). O’Rourke’s films include Half Life – A Parable for the Nuclear Age (1985), 'Cannibal Tours’ (1988), The Good Woman of Bangkok (1991) and Cunnamulla (1999).

This clip starts approximately 1 hour into the documentary.

This clip shows Afghan couple Shah and Habiba, who both lost limbs as a result of treading on landmines. Shah describes how during the war in Afghanistan between the Mujaheddin and the Soviet Union, when both sides used landmines, he planted the devices. Habiba says she wants a pair of pretty shoes but has to make do with sandshoes fitted to her prosthetic leg. The clip includes footage of a de-miner using a metal detector to locate landmines, a workshop where a prosthetic leg is fitted with a sandshoe and a rehabilitation centre where a woman who has lost both legs is shown practising walking with prosthetics. The clip contains English subtitles throughout.

A soldier carefully removes a rock that is hiding a landmine. We cut to Shah, standing against a mud brick wall.
Shah In the war with the Russians and us Mu-ah-deen…they laid mines everywhere and we did the same. We all planted mines. I planted mines with my own hands, then I trod on one. The mines were in the ground, waiting for anyone. No one knew who planted which mines and where…and when the Russians left, the mines stayed in the ground…

A de-miner looks for mines on a country path using a metal detector.
Shah …waiting to kill and maim the people of this country.

The scene cuts to a workshop where a woman is being fitted with a prosthetic leg. In a bedroom, a woman who has lost both legs fits a simple tennis shoe to a prosthetic foot.
Habiba Having your own legs is something else. When I see someone buying shoes or sandals…I get a drowning feeling in my heart. The other day I asked Shah for a pair of lady’s shoes. He said, 'Our days of wearing proper shoes are over.’ I told him, 'I’m going to the shoe shop…’ 'to ask them to make me a pair of pretty shoes.’ He said, 'No, your sneakers are fine.’

Back in the workshop, against the backdrop of a buzzing chainsaw, sneakers are fitted to a prosthetic leg. Outside, a woman sinks into a chair, panting after managing to walk a short length with two prosthetic legs as an assistant looks on.