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

Does the food aid get to the people who need it?
Does the regime benefit more than the people?

Many times the Afghanistan problem has been attempted to be solved and each time it fails.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_conflict

The solution is probably not taking money from Billionaires. That's never the answer.

You’re probably right.

Why is it abhorrent to say the men don’t care about selling their daughters? You’ll notice they are not selling their sons. The only two values of women in the very conservative areas of Afghanistan are 1) to sell off as a potential wife 2) to produce babies to keep the population going. It’s true that this value won’t be so widely held in the more cosmopolitan areas of Afghanistan, where if a woman is ‘lucky’, she’s more likely to have a husband who sees her as something more than a mere bedfellow, but the story of oppressive regimes which target women is as old as time. You may want to read up on how the nazi youths / young men thought it was fine to rape women, and guess you got punished for being raped? I’ll give you a clue it wasn’t the men.

You are being slightly naive. There's been food charities for women and girls for decades, because girls don't get fed, particularly during food shortages. As said, the men decide this, the men control the conditions, they decide no contraception and baby after baby. They are in crisis, but we are just putting a sticking plaster on, decade after decade. In the west we've been schooled to have children under favourable conditions and only if solvent. Suggest family planning and we are accused of trying to depopulate the ME and parts of Africa.

Why is it abhorrent? We're talking about a country steeped in so much misogyny that they treat women as less than animals. A country where they keep getting their wives pregnant over and over despite a lack of food, resources, and medical care. A country where even before the Taliban, they were misogynistic and saw women as lesser. Do you really think the vast majority care?

Correct - it is abhorrent. Not my statement, but the reality of life for girls and women in that backward country.

Very interesting framing by the BBC about the 'poor men selling children to feed their families' rather than 'these men are selling young girls/their daughters (who are very likely going to be sexually exploited) because women/girls have no rights whatsoever under the Taliban in order for the males to feed themselves'

There’s been a horrifying assault against women and girls by the Taliban for years. The BBC haven’t said much on that, but focus on the men as you say.

This ^

I also think it's interesting how the original poster's question around 'if only there was the money, resources etc from billionaires to give to these people' completely overlooks (perhaps naively) all the things wrong in Afghanistan and how money and resources are not the simple solution to solving problems there.

Thanks so much for this list, @ginanddreams and for your posts explaining what aid does get through.

Also @noctilucentcloud for recommending the Linda Norgrove Foundation.

Like many folk I've been wanting to donate but was held back by wondering whether it would actually reach families.

There's no shortage of places in the world in desperate, desperate need of food aid at the moment, and I'm splitting my usual giving between them. I find the breadth of need can be paralysing, but I'm trying to just keep going adding my tiny stone to the hill.

it very easy for us to say this we are here in the comfortable west where we we are all able to work/or receive benefits. we have access healthcare for us all, education and safety.

We do not fear our children starving to death, not getting basic medical care, we do not for our lives if we step out of line by whatever rule a Taliban official/soldier has decided we have done, we do not fear being beaten or worse just for speaking out, we do not fear our sons escaping abroad and never seeing them again, we do not fear our neighbours could talk to someone that puts us or our families life in real danger, we do not fear our daughters being forced into marriage, we do not fear our sons are taken at a young age to fight or to perform for old men

Its a terribly warped society and people are beyond desperate one child is tragically worth more sold to keep the rest of the family just about existing, its absolutely pitiful and I can not find it in me to be critical of a parent who is so broken to have to make such a terrible choice they feel there is no other choice, there is one other choice that has at times been made and I am sure that will have crossed many of their minds

Note they weren't selling their sons !!

This ☝️

The man in the clip sold his daughter to a relative to marry when she was older to pay for an operation that she needed now, to stay alive. It was in the story, perhaps you didn't read it?

Wow. Sounds like a delightful family.
They're all as bad as each other.

You misunderstand. How can a child be bad 'they're all bad as each other'. The child needed urgent medical treatment and the only way the father could keep her alive was to have that treatment and to pay for that treatment he sold/promised her to a relative as a bride for his son once she was older. It's sad that people have to do that to keep a child alive.

I imagine his wife didn't get a say in finding a solution to the problem, seeing as she has no rights. Really though, is keeping their daughter alive just so she can be sold off to be raped at the age of 10, then bred like cattle, watch her children starve and die, and possibly die in childbirth herself, really a 'win'?

It's difficult to feel any sympathy for a man in Afghanistan. In fact, I have none. All my sympathy is with the women and girls who suffer the deprivations and depravities inflicted by men.

Indeed the women and girls have it incredibly tough, it's not their fault they were born in a country with extremist islamic leaders though. Hence, why I chose to donate. Others don't. that's up to them.

Are you really not getting this?
They didn’t have to sell her to keep her alive. The men in the family are trading her life and her medical bills. She’s a piece of meat.
It’s disgusting, yet you are somehow sympathising with their position.

Your money has gone straight into the pocket of an Afghan man. Well done. At least you’ve made yourself feel better.

Ok enough of this. It's my money and if I wish to send it to a charity that says it helps people who are starving then that's up to me. You do you.

Interesting video from WFP posted this afternoon specifically on the food crisis in AFG and for anyone more interested in the context - it’s on Instagram for anyone using that platform.

https://www.instagram.com/worldfoodprogramme?igsh=a2hhbGZiM2JoNmR

there’s also a short video on how WFP transports aid to various destinations for those interested.

Hey, you started the thread. Thought you wanted opinions?

You haven’t thought this through, and your charity donation is the worst sort of virtue signalling as it ends up in the pockets of abusers. You don’t want to hear that, I get it. Doesn’t make it less true though.

Where do you think the ' billionnaires' money would go in Afghanistan? The Taliban leaders have ££££. Some of send their own daughters to Western schools ( private boarding schools) to be educatedvwhuoe denying others and education. Maybe the Taliban should stop wasting their time policing women who dare to speak outside or whatever rubbish they are doing this week and actually run the country?