Afghanistan humanitarian crisis

Yes it’s horrific stuff, including a return to stoning as punishment.

I agree with this. I don’t think ‘billionaires' are the issue here.
I read that the Taliban banned women from being treated by male doctors and also banned them from receiving medical training themselves.
They banned women from talking in public places and even from being seen from the street through the windows of their own homes. Twisted, woman-hating monsters.
There was a recent earthquake in Afghanistan where male rescuers refused to pull women from rubble, because of a “no-touch” rule enforced by the Taliban.
I’d love to know how to effectively help these poor women and children in an environment rigorously controlled by men who hate them.

The problem in Afghanistan is dire, but this is 100% down to the taliban rules. Even if billionaires donated food, it would not make it to the people.. and certainly not women and girls who the Taliban see literally as lower than animals ! In fact animals have more freedoms and rights.

there is only one way this would be resolved and that’s a war - with international
support cooperation and staying long term in the ground - and no one will support that.

Coalition and afghan northern alliance forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as the Taliban refused to say, or handover Osama bin laden without "evidence" of his guilt for 9/11.

In the intervening 20 plus years, allied and western countries, charities, NGOs and others encouraged education particularly if women and girls, set up schools, hospitals and support services.
Defence and police were trained for local people to protect what they had gained. Twenty years. I am aware people reading this may not be aware of this.

The plan had always been to withdraw western forces and let the liberated Afghan people take back control. This would have mean standing up to and defending their 20 years of freedom from the Taliban.

It ended badly.

Hopefully at some point the male relatives of these women will try end fight back. Unlike super sophisticated regimes like iren I imagine guns etc maybe easier to get to fight back.

If women are forced to do nothing but bear child after child then yes most of the children will die. If healthcare for the women is restricted then most of the women will too.

This is what the men chose. The women no longer have a choice. Not even to speak to journalists about their plight apparently since it’s all from the men.

But the Taliban are directly responsible.

They have banned women from working, including healthcare professionals, halving the work force. They have forbidden women from education. They have banned most charities, made it impossible for aid organisations to operate in their country. Their policies have destroyed their economy and chased away any ilikely nvestment in their country.

The result of more ignorant barbaric men and religion. Any aid will feed them, not the refugees.

Women are not allowed to go to health clinics in Afghanistan. They are closed because there are no female hcps due to no education or training for females.
Females cannot be treated by males.
Children cannot receive treatment unless a male accompanies them.
So I honestly can't see how food would get to women via health clinics unless enough men, relatives only, were willing to collect it and take it home.
A family member volunteered in a Sudanese refugee camp for a while. None of the foreign aid got anywhere near the refugees. It was small groups of volunteers who built shelters, got clothes, blankets and food in.

Frankly, given the women and children are quite literally treated less humanely than animals, with fewer rights and protections, and it would be nigh impossible to get meaningful humanitarian relief to them that isn’t just propping up the utter hellscape that is Afghanistan, there’s little way to solve the problems.

Unless an invading country wanted to go back in, and accept massive civilian casualties as part of the cost of cutting out the rot of the Taliban for once and all, what can be done? Honestly, that nearly seems a reasonable price – I’d rather die than live in that kind of hell, and too many women in Afghanistan feel the same. Although the ingrained dehumanisation of women goes so deeply that even with the Taliban gone, it's a misogynistic culture in many ways.

As the landay goes,
When sisters sit together, they’re always praising their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they're selling their sisters to others.
– Anonymous

The only reasonable option is for all citizens to emigrate.

You sound deeply troubled about this.

Yanbu. Of course.

Its bloody upsetting. Those poor, poor families, its unbearable

Everyone working there is delivering on the ground. Honestly I’d never bother donating to UN as the vast majority of our funds are through country funds and we’re not very economical on a global scale… smaller local organisations are usually best in terms of impact per $, from the ones I know that do good work are only international purely because I don’t know any local ones unfortunately (CARE, Save the Children, ACF all do nutrition interventions)

@ginanddreamsso what NGO would be most likely to deliver on the ground? If people wanted to make a donation, what would you recommend?

I admit i know very little about the Taliban and Afghanistan, but I'm pretty sure if it had been in the interests of the powerful Western countries to get involved and do something, it would have been done. The country was interfered with for years for political reasons and now when the only reason to get involved is to save human life, no one gives a shit. I suspect little can be done but it's still sickening that no one even tries. The media don't even bother reporting it.

To answer a couple of points from posters - I’m UN (not WFP and I’m not on the Afghanistan mission but in other conflict zones in the area and namechanged for this) but I have a lot of colleagues there so familiar with the portfolio and I run similar programmes in Gaza / Yemen / Syria and Iraq so somewhat similar context and access issues - yes - aid is delivered in AFG, via UN and international NGOs - these funds do not go through the governmental structure. Food and malnutrition support are usually the easiest programmes to negotiate to foreign and hostile governments… simply because everyone needs food…. With the current aid funding cuts in the sector some programmes have been cut by over 50%. Aid is a mix of specific supplements for malnourished children and pregnant women from a health clinic / food vouchers / physical food baskets and kits.

Its not a question of money

It's not even really a question of the Taliban

Afghanistan's tribal patriarchal society combined with a very strict version of Islam creates this situation almost inevitably, and you have to have an external foreign force (whether democracy from the US, or historically in the 70s and 80s communism from the USSR) to try and change that society. It always bends it to an extent during the occupation, but the society springs back like a ruler as soon as the occupation ends and finishes in the way it initially operated. You can't change peoples living habits from outside.

Do you seriously believe that the Taliban would happily let money flow into help the starving citizens, and that they wouldn't just take it for themselves? People don't give money to Afghanistan as giving money to Afghanistan equals giving money to the Taliban. And most people don't really want to give money to the Taliban. Not least because if people pay them for treating the people horribly, it will just encourage them to keep treating the people horribly. Preventing money from reaching the Taliban is much more likely to make them loosen their grip than rewarding them with billions in free cash.

Can the world food programme physically get food to the women and children in Afghanistan?
I wouldnt trust the Taliban an inch.

How do you get the aid to the women and children? The Taliban won't let women and girls access education, work to earn money, access medical care, read, speak, leave their homes. They won't let anyone in to help them.
Who can we donate to that can actually help?
It is absolutely heart breaking.
Women are dying in child birth because they are not allowed to have care or to train as doctors and midwives. It is barbaric but I can't see how to help.

But they are not an elected govt - they are a terrorist dictatorship - a totalitarian regime

do you really imagine the people all voted for the Taliban in a free election?

Ah interesting thank you