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Three months after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes. Poverty and malnutrition are increasing at an unprecedented rate. Without the swift and pragmatic action of the international community, more people will starve to death in 2022 alone than in the last 20 years of violence.
This dire situation is exacerbated by decisions taken away from Afghanistan. After the Taliban took over, the state of Afghanistan was immediately cut off from international funding. It was carried out in response to sanctions imposed on the Taliban by the US and the UN Security Council. The U.S. blocked nearly $ 10 billion in central bank reserves in Afghanistan. In addition, donors froze development aid.
About 75 percent of Afghan government spending, including health care, was funded directly by international aid. This sudden cut left hundreds of thousands of public sector workers without pay.
Many millions more dependent on this income immediately fell into severe poverty. The blow to the private sector and trade has been devastating, and the public health system has been almost completely eliminated.
Today, the economy and the banking system are on the verge of collapse. World Bank institutions will not contact the central bank of Afghanistan directly. Mainly due to US and UN sanctions imposed by the European Union, banks in Afghanistan are isolated from the international monetary system. With few exceptions, they cannot receive money from abroad.
The U.S. Treasury has approved a number of limited exceptions. The US Treasury’s “General License” allows the UN and some international NGOs to conduct transactions for specific humanitarian activities. However, international banks remain very cautious to avoid the risk of US sanctions.
In addition to the financial downturn, there is a constant severe drought. According to the World Food Program, about 40 percent of the crop has been lost this year. Approximately half of the population, about 20 million people, cannot be fed on a daily basis, and that number is expected to rise, according to UN agencies. Acute malnutrition is projected to reach 3.2 million children under the age of five by the end of the year. Of these, at least one million children are at risk of death if they do not receive immediate treatment.
Only a handful of people with money in their accounts line up outside the banks these days. Fights arise when desperate people are told that there is no money. Their families starve to death. Support organizations are struggling to pay their salaries for doctors and teachers to get their funds, or even to warm up their maternity rooms to buy medicine or wood.
The Taliban’s history of human rights, especially for women and ethnic minorities, makes it clear that the international community is reluctant to legitimize the regime and provide funding to the Afghan state. No one wants to finance the Taliban regime. But today’s banks are overburdening sanctions on Afghan civilians, killing the Taliban in Islamic Khorasan province, far more than what warlords, former governments and international military forces have done together over the past 20 years.
The people of Afghanistan must not be denied essential health care and left without food, as the international community sees economic famine as the only useful tool to influence the Taliban regime. The international community is being punished effectively for the actions of a regime brought in by Afghan civilians.
For women, it is likely that the discrimination we see as institutionalized under the Taliban will be in line with the effects of a collapsing economy, which risks declining the right to health and education for decades. The humanitarian crisis we saw in the beginning will affect the people of Afghanistan from generation to generation. Jamila Afghani, a women’s rights activist, said in an interview with the Swedish Commission: “We are not helping Afghan women to starve to death.”
We represent European NGOs that reach millions of people on earth. We support the government’s recent commitment to humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. But these commitments will be useless if the UN agencies, NGOs and the people of Afghanistan are unable to enter the banking system.
Investigations into sanctions show that they affect the civilian population the most, and have almost no effect on the living conditions of political elites. The United States and the EU, together with the UN Security Council, should immediately review sanctions and take measures to alleviate liquidity and the availability of cash to alleviate human suffering.
The international community, which 20 years ago pledged to help Afghans seek peace, prosperity and human rights, has a moral obligation to stop the free fall on the path to hunger and death. And it’s time to act.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazeera.
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