Afghanistan: the challenge of growing up in Taliban rule
According to UNICEF, Afghanistan has become "the worst place in the world to be born"
As if the social and humanitarian emergency caused by more than 40 years of conflict had not been enough, a "perfect storm" is now looming over the Afghan citizens who remain in the country. This is how the United Nations (UN) has defined the tragic scenario in which Afghanistan has found itself since the followers of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement seized power in the territory last summer. Rising prices, the suspension of international aid as a punitive measure, the depreciation of the local currency and severe droughts are just some of the causes that have pushed the country into catastrophe.
If before August 2021 "we already had a humanitarian crisis of incredible proportions" affecting almost 18 million people, the urgency of the situation has continued to "escalate and worsen" at an alarming rate, warned the director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Mary Ellen McGroarty, in October. Afghanistan today suffers from "the world's worst humanitarian crisis".
Throughout history, Afghanistan has been regarded as an unstable and convulsive country strategically located between the Central Asian steppes, the Iranian plateau and the Indus River Valley. However, beyond the fragility of its internal equilibrium due to the coexistence of the many and very diverse ethnic groups that inhabit the territory, one of the greatest destabilising elements that have historically threatened the country have been the interference and interests of other powers within its borders.
Since its birth as a politically independent country in 1747 - and with borders that were not definitively established until the mid-20th century - several major empires have sought to control Afghanistan, considering it a key territory in their expansionist policies in the region. A case in point was the rivalry between Russia and Britain over the last century in a race for regional dominance known as the 'Great Game'.
In this sense, the turmoil and imbalances that have marked the reality of Afghanistan in recent decades seem to be more related to these foreign intrusions and their consequences than to the very nature of the Afghan people or the misunderstandings between its various ethnic groups.
However, apparently far from any expansionist self-interest, the entry of US troops into Afghanistan in 2001 was part of Washington's fight against terrorism. The Taliban regime, which had come to power in 1996, was providing protection for the then leader of Al-Qaeda and the main perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. Therefore, from that moment onwards and over the course of the next 20 years, US soldiers moved into the country to focus all their efforts on the fight against the Taliban and the Daesh terrorist group.
During these two decades, the United States of America poured more than 80 billion dollars into the war in Afghanistan, and witnessed the democratic election of three different presidents, the political transition from the Emirate to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and a moderate and progressive improvement in the defence of freedoms and human rights.
However, in accordance with the pact reached by Donald Trump in February 2020, the last remaining US C-17 aircraft in the country took off from Kabul airport on 30 August 2021 at 19:29 hours, as explained by General Kenneth McKenzie at a press conference. This departure from the territory was in exchange for a commitment that no terrorist group would operate in the country again, including the Al-Qaeda group.
Thereafter, the sequence of events that brought the Taliban to power was precipitated, and within a matter of weeks, the Afghan authorities and security forces - depleted and disorganised by corruption and internal strife - succumbed to the offensive of the ultraconservative Islamist group.
By mid-September, a new radical Islamic government had been installed in Afghanistan, and the newly appointed Taliban emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada, reinstated the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that US troops had ended in 2001. Although international pressure demanded that the Taliban create an inclusive government team that included women and representatives of other non-Pashtun ethnic minorities - the ethnic group to which most of the Taliban belong and the largest within Afghanistan - the executive that was established fell far short of the requirements.
Among the main members of the new interim government were the emir, political and military leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada; the prime minister, Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund; the deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar; and the Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. Almost half of the members of this government are on the UN Security Council's sanctions list.
Thus, although this new executive team tried to project a more moderate and progressive image than its predecessors in the 1996 regime, the truth is that the reaffirmation of its restrictive approach to Islam, the imposition of Shari'a and the constant denunciations of human rights violations have given the international community no hint of this supposed change. This has meant that Afghanistan has had to face a number of sanctions imposed both unilaterally - by countries such as the United States - and collectively, economically, politically and diplomatically. This "punishment" was intended to force the Taliban not to violate the rights and freedoms of women, minorities and children.
However, these sanctions have raised many concerns and worries among international humanitarian organisations; as in all conflicts, the main victims of punitive measures are Afghan citizens. If their situation was already dire before the arrival of the Taliban and the imposition of these measures, the reality they face now is tragic. At the moment, some 23 million Afghans - more than half of the country's total population - are severely threatened by hunger and food insecurity; and among them, nearly 8 million are in emergency situations.
The freezing of billions of dollars - in Afghan Afghanis, the country's currency - held in banks and financial institutions abroad during the second half of last year, together with the freezing of international funds and development aid, have resulted in a huge reduction of liquidity and cash in circulation. Since the arrival of the Taliban, the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has fallen by around 40%, with international aid received by Kabul alone accounting for 43% of the territory's GDP.
Moreover, the rise in the price of basic foodstuffs, the depreciation of the local currency (1 US dollar is currently equivalent to 93 Afghanis and 1 euro to more than 105 Afghanis), the spread of COVID and the end of a harvest season that has faced the worst drought in more than 25 years have only aggravated the situation.
Fortunately, the pressure exerted by humanitarian aid organisations and international NGOs on the Central Bank and other banking institutions to release the withheld Afghan money, as well as the UN Security Council resolution - which excludes most humanitarian aid from being sanctioned as support for the Taliban regime - succeeded in easing the restrictions on assistance to the country. In this regard, the UN has sought to support humanitarian agencies' support to the millions of Afghans who are in a critical situation and are witnessing the collapse of all basic services.
For their part, the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have blamed the worsening humanitarian crisis on Western powers. "It is not the result of our activities. It is the result of the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan," one of the official Taliban spokesmen in the Qatari capital Doha's office, Muhammad Suhail Shaheen, told Sky News.
"For the past six months we have done our best to help the people of Afghanistan. But we need the international community to cooperate with us economically, not to punish the country by imposing unjustified sanctions," Shaheen added.
Despite the "perfect storm" of economic, social, political, climatic and diplomatic tragedies sweeping the territory, the most pressing crisis is undoubtedly the humanitarian crisis they have all brought about. The situation of Afghan civilians is absolutely critical.
Afghanistan is currently one of the world's leading refugee-sending countries, with more than 2.8 million people displaced outside its borders - mostly in Pakistan, Iran, India and Tajikistan - and close to 3 million inside the country. In addition, around 170,000 citizens who were forced to flee their homes during the long conflict are now being resettled.
In this scenario, the arrival of winter has loomed like a blanket of despair over the country's population, causing many families to resort to desperate measures to ensure their survival during the coldest months of the year. Countless Afghan citizens have burned their belongings to avoid freezing to death, or resorted to the clandestine sale of organs in order to buy food.
In fact, the sheer number of people forced to sell their kidneys on the black market has reached such an extent that the price of kidneys has plummeted. According to a report published by Sky News, many Afghans have complained that the value of a kidney has dropped to 150,000 Afghanis (about 1,400 euros) for women and 200,000 Afghanis (just over 1,850 euros) for men.
Government provision networks set up by previous governments and public expenditure items - more than 75% funded by international aid from the World Bank and the rest of the international community - represented almost the only safety net for Afghan citizens. And in the face of their collapse, the population now finds itself unprotected and helpless in the midst of a "crisis of crises".
But if there is one extremely vulnerable group that can truly be said to have been the hardest hit by this whole situation, it is Afghan children. According to a report issued by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Afghanistan is "the worst place in the world to be born".
"There is no childhood," said UNICEF's Chief of Communication, Advocacy and Civic Engagement in Afghanistan, Samantha Mort. "It's all about surviving and making it to the next day.
Children in Afghanistan face daily misery, violence, isolation, deprivation of basic health care and food insecurity - more than 14 million of those at risk from starvation in the country are children. In addition, difficult access to clean water and the high frequency of enlistment of child soldiers in terrorist militias have made Afghanistan one of the countries with the highest child mortality rates in the world since 2005. In the past 16 years, more than 28,000 children have been killed or injured in armed conflict, accounting for 27 per cent of all child deaths worldwide.
If this continues, up to 130,000 children could die in the country by 2022, with more than a million under-fives affected by acute malnutrition, the UN said in a statement at the end of last year. However, figures estimated by Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, have been much less optimistic: if money is not sent urgently, "up to three million children under five will face acute malnutrition in March. And, of those, one million will die".
On top of this, child labour and the sale of girls into arranged marriages to ensure their survival - as well as the sale of babies under six months old to ensure the livelihood of the remaining children - are recurrent activities among Afghan families. More desperate measures that amount to blatant violations of their children's rights. "The vast majority of the population is starving and that's why people are resorting to these extreme measures," explained Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator from 2017 to 2021.
In this scenario, we are in a race "against the clock", declared current UN Secretary-General António Guterres. "The survival of more than half of Afghanistan's population depends on humanitarian assistance. Without a more concerted effort by the international community, virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan would face extreme poverty. All this, of course, in the midst of a pandemic.
The exemption promoted by the UN late last year has not seemed to be enough, and now humanitarian agencies, along with the United Nations, have appealed to the international community for $4.4 billion for a Humanitarian Response Plan, and more than $620 million for the Regional Refugee Response Plan.
"To turn our backs now on Afghan civilians in their hour of greatest need would be the ultimate insult - a badge of shame that the free world would wear forever," said Gordon Brown, the World Health Organisation's ambassador for mental health funding.
Moreover, the consequences of alleviating this grave crisis would also extend to the Western population. Improving the living conditions of Afghans would prevent a wave of mass migration to the West, an increase in the production and export of heroin and other opioids - since Afghanistan accounts for 90 per cent of poppy cultivation, from which opium is extracted -, or the consolidation of extremism and terrorist groups.
Thus, getting humanitarian aid to the more than 23 million Afghans in need must become a key task for the international community. It is imperative to find a way to get this food and health assistance to the people of Afghanistan without the sanctioned Taliban authorities benefiting from it, or seeing this humanitarian work as political endorsement or recognition by other powers.
But as Samantha Mort said: "This is not the time for politics. People in Afghanistan are dying and they need our support. In the words of Gordon Brown in the Guardian: "A liberal world order that puts military and economic sanctions before food is neither liberal nor orderly".
