August 15 marks one year since the Taliban takeover, but it’s not a happy occasion for Afghanistan, and the fundamental human rights of Afghans continue to be violated.
Afghanistan is under occupation. There have been many reports detailing the forced displacement and systemic genocide against the Hazara population, targeted violence and eyewitness reports of the mass killings of 600 Tajik hostages, crimes against humanity in Panjshir, strip-mining of mineral wealth and the war the Taliban are waging against women.
The Doha Agreement, a peace pact signed between the U.S. and Taliban to mark the withdrawal of all forces in Afghanistan, has also been breached as terrorist groups reposition themselves under the Taliban.
War against women
Amnesty International’s recent report describes the situation of Afghan women as “death in slow motion.”
Women face harsher restrictions here than anywhere else in the world, barred from secondary education and most work outside healthcare and education. They are forced to be accompanied by a male guardian for all but short journeys and required to cover their faces in public.
Restrictions are enforced intermittently but, particularly for poorer and more vulnerable women including those without a guardian, the fear of enforcement alone can be crippling.
A lack of food is having devastating consequences on children’s health
Life for children one year since the Taliban takeover, shows that 97% of families are struggling to provide enough food for their children, and that girls are eating less than boys. Almost 80% of children said they had gone to bed hungry in the past 30 days. Girls were almost twice as likely as boys to frequently go to bed hungry, according to a new report by Save the Children.
A lack of food is having devastating consequences on children’s health and threatening their future. Nine in 10 girls said their meals had reduced in the past year and that they worry because they’re losing weight and have no energy to study, play and work.
Afghanistan’s people: What matters is that we’re hungry
Life for Afghanistan’s 40mn people has changed significantly since the withdrawal of Nato troops and the victory of the Sunni militants one year ago, with a dramatic economic collapse leaving many Afghans much poorer and hungrier.
“I’m very worried about this next winter,” said Hsiao-Wei Lee, the UN’s World Food Programme’s Deputy Director for Afghanistan. The country was in urgent need of food aid as well as a wider programme of investment, she said: “We need the economy to breathe . . . so that [Afghans] are not in the same position as they are now.”
For most Afghans, making ends meet remains the biggest challenge
Rajab Ali Yousefi, a 35-year-old shopkeeper in Kabul, said sales of staple foods had halved, forcing him into debt to keep paying his rent.
“Business is going down and down,” he said. “The people who used to buy a bag of something will now buy half of it.”
While humanitarian assistance has helped to stave off mass starvation, aid agencies fear vulnerable Afghans will be unable to withstand further economic shocks.
“You can spend all day looking, and there won’t be any work,” said Qalandari. “Everything has collapsed and now we’re begging just for bread.”
Religious police return
Despite the Taliban’s claim to have ended its repressive ways, the signs are inauspicious.
The Taliban also brings back the feared Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, enforcing the group’s austere interpretation of Islam.
Terror attacks have killed about 700 civilians
Terror attacks have killed about 700 civilians and wounded 1,400 between August and June, said the UN. These are mostly on the Hazara ethnic minority, attributable to the local affiliate of Isis, the Taliban’s Islamist rivals.
The Taliban, who previously persecuted the Shia Muslims as heretics, say it is now their duty to protect minorities but many Hazara are deeply distrustful of the group.
source:shafaqna
