After suffering from the war on terror for decades, Afghan people are now being subjected to persistent human rights abuses due to the stoppage of international aid.
As poverty and malnutrition persist in Afghanistan, global leaders have yet to carry out effective measures to help Afghans out of the crisis.
Reportedly, more people will die of hunger in 2022 alone in Afghanistan compared to the whole of the war on terror if the international community does not bail out the troubled nation immediately.
But the decisions that impact the civilians of Afghanistan are being taken far away from the Asian country.
Powerful Nations Pushing Afghanistan to Crisis
In the power corridors of the world, the decisions to cut off aid for Afghanistan are making the Afghan population suffer.
The United States and the United Nations Security Council played a lead role in imposing these sanctions against Afghanistan due to the Taliban takeover.
While international aid observers stopped their support of Afghanistan, the US blocked almost $10 billion of Afghans’ foreign reserves.
During the pre-Taliban era, the Afghan government was highly dependent upon international aid in carrying out its affairs.
For instance, almost 75 percent of Afghan expenditures, which included healthcare, were funded by international aid, and the abrupt stoppage of funding pushed many Afghans into chaos.
According to the latest reports, one out of every two Afghans are likely to face acute food hunger soon, which will ultimately strain the country’s economy.
Stopping Aid has Collapsed the Afghanistan Banking Sector
As no government is conducting financial dealings with Afghans right now, surviving in this globalized economic system is extremely difficult for the country.
The Afghan central bank is not currently eligible to deal with international financial institutions, so it cannot do financial transactions with the world. The bank can only receive foreign money from abroad in some specific cases, which are also shrinking room for the potential improvement of the country’s economy.
The US treasury has tried to stop the strangulation of the Afghan economic system but to no avail. Although the treasury does allow transactions for some humanitarian activities, overall, this is not enough to avert the persisting crisis in the country.
Even then, the global banks are hesitant to do business with the country due to the looming threat of the US sanctions against them; thus, they prefer not to do business with the Taliban-led Afghanistan, as it put them at the risk of US sanctions.
Secondly, drought is adding fuel to the fire for Afghanistan as the stoppage of money is always followed by a trickle-down reaction in economies. Thus, almost 40 percent of crops in the country will have been lost in 2021, which ultimately triggers the hunger crisis as people suffer from malnutrition.
Reportedly, while 3.2 million children face malnutrition, 1 million of them are on the verge of dying if they are not treated immediately.
Even those who have money in their banks rush toward banks on a daily basis in order to avoid a potential banking sector meltdown that could happen any day.
Thus the reserves in the hands of the government are also declining, ultimately impacting the private sector as well.
Final Thoughts
Undoubtedly, the world does not want to fund the Taliban government at all, and for all the right reasons.
The threat which the extremist outfit poses to the world is surely a big one, which urges nations to cut off all financial flow into the country.
However, pushing the Afghan people into hot water does not make sense for the crimes they did not commit, but the Taliban did.
Stopping aid to the war-torn country does not make sense at all. The United States, along with all the other stakeholders, need to recalibrate their approach to see if it can help the troubled Afghans without putting cash in the hands of the Taliban.
The human rights organizations also cannot help the country by establishing the basic infrastructure in the country, which the troubled people could use to ease down their life.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.