Afghanistan humanitarian crisis

[Ihatetomatoes]

BBC news 3 out of 4 struggle to find food

A growing number of billionaires and yet shocking food famine around the world.

Shocking decisions taken to sell children.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q25dwj807o

It was so shocking. Major humanitarian crisis. Men were weeping. The girls futures sold. It was shocking.

We are so lucky to live in the UK.

Why should we in the west fight the Taliban..The nuts and bolts are fighting the Taliban? They hate women and would fight any western intervention. Therefore not our circus?

We are so so privileged - I can’t even imagine the trauma and heartache

Even people who hate the Taliban do not want western intervention. Imagine someone else came into your country and bombed your people? You would never support it. I have met quite a few Iraqis in my time for example, all of them hated Saddam Hussein, but they all also reviled the US-UK invaders even more.

I don't think we should be giving aid to a country whose government policy is to treat women and children as sub human, until they agree to change that policy.

Ah interesting thank you

So let them starve? The children too?

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?

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.

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

Well they are taking donations so I'd expect them to get the food aid there.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

You sound deeply troubled about this.

Yanbu. Of course.

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

The only reasonable option is for all citizens to emigrate.

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

@callmej attached post explains how aid gets to Afghanistan

I am, the report really moved me. We are so very lucky in many ways in the UK

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.

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.

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.