Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian crisis and is particularly difficult with children.
When the Taliban took over in August, most funding in the West was cut and the country’s assets were frozen. Without this money, the economy collapsed, most medical facilities closed and people could no longer afford to buy food, exacerbating the drought and famine that already existed.
The problem is not just hunger. School attendance dropped sharply and last week the Taliban gave up on their promise to open schools for girls in the sixth grade.
Aid agencies are now the only savior in Afghanistan. The United Nations has called on countries to deliver on Thursday Humanitarian aid is $ 4.4 billion For Afghanistan, but the country is still waiting for the necessary funds.
Save the Children has been operating in Afghanistan since 1976 and is present in 10 provinces of the country. After a brief hiatus after being captured by the Taliban, he resumed work in October.
Yanti Soripto, President and CEO of Save the Children, visited Afghanistan in early March. Soeripto spoke to HuffPost about the situation in Afghanistan and how children are living.
How would you describe the humanitarian catastrophe after your visit?
I would say Afghanistan is currently the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. And that’s not a perfect statement, knowing that Yemen is the second worst crisis on the planet, and even Yemen hasn’t improved in the past six months. That’s why Afghanistan is getting worse.
When I spoke to people in the country, they were amazed at how quickly the particular situation had deteriorated in terms of malnutrition, economic poverty, education and child protection. It won’t be perfect until Aug. 15, let’s face it. But it quickly broke down.
How serious is child malnutrition in Afghanistan?
Daily visits for children [to Save the Children clinics] People with symptoms of malnutrition have doubled in the past five months. We immediately saw those children up close [were dying] Hunger in very remote areas where there is little to start with, but also in cities where the situation was actually more stable then.
What else poses a threat to the health of Afghan children?
The main concern of children [in remote areas] There is dengue, measles and diarrhea. In many of these areas, mobile health clinics are the only primary health care facility available. As of August 15, we have over 2,000 health facilities. About half of them are not yet backed up and running.
How many children are not in school today?
The Minister of Education told me that they think up to 8 million children are out of school and by August 5, about 2.5 million children were out of school. The fourfold increase in children’s disabilities over the past six months is extremely disturbing.
What do you think is the Taliban’s ban on girls ’schools?
The return of the girls to school was a huge disappointment and a real surprise. On Saturday, our team met with the Ministry of Education when they still wanted all the children back to school. And then Wednesday [of last week], The opposite happened. This is a real step back.
I had the opportunity to visit some of them [primary] The schools we run in Kabul are for girls. The genius of women. They were super involved and energetic in what they learned. You know, they told me they wanted to be doctors, nurses and teachers. But they also told me they were worried and their mothers told me they were worried that they would not be able to continue their education after elementary school.
What can humanitarian agencies do to help?
We are happy to continue to implement educational programs when we know how to do it. But we need to make sure we don’t put women at greater risk. We need to continue the educational programs we have. We want to resize them [and train] Nearly 1000 female teachers. Because even though we have a policy that allows girls to go back to high school, you should have teachers to teach them.
We wanted to make sure that even practical barriers would not prevent girls from going back to school, except for the whole political conversation. We need to pursue some of the practical possibilities we are considering, such as getting non-formal education for middle-aged girls, seniors.
But we will examine it carefully. We will not play in a way we don’t think and will do proper risk assessments to make sure we can do it as safely as possible.
What are the main barriers to the arrival of humanitarian aid to Afghans?
It is an immediate problem for humanitarian agencies to have access to money to continue our work. We have little access through an international banking partner that is still doing business in Afghanistan. We have the United Nations, which is incredibly creative in ensuring that money flows into the country are for its own operations and some international players on the ground. And then we use informal money changers, which, of course, are expensive and risky and not very sustainable. But our biggest concern is the economy, which is completely dysfunctional because of these sanctions, and humanitarian funding alone will never replace the state’s current economy.
How do humanitarian agencies work with the Taliban?
We have already cooperated with the Taliban. Before capture, they control certain areas. So we first had these conversations at the operational level and we needed to have them where we wanted to thrive. We felt that the negotiations we had conducted in various provinces had led to sufficiently acceptable results to begin our work. We can do our job with female staff, which is an absolute necessity for us. We got visas for international colleagues.
It is also clear now that when we talk to the authorities, they do not always speak at the same time. What you hear in one ministry the next day can be completely changed by another, so what you have agreed upon at the national level does not always happen at the provincial level and vice versa. So this is the balance that we all try to work in the country.
What are the possible scenarios for Afghanistan?
We have some scenarios for this. There is always hope, because otherwise you may not be in this business. The hope is, and until now, that, as you know, this educational failure is temporary, that the right level of agreement can be reached with the authorities to allow the girls to return to school.
[The other hope is] May the international community truly take back the Afghan people and provide humanitarian funding. Let’s not forget that the humanitarian funding they are asking for, over 4 billion dollars, is part of the amount spent each year during the war.
Maybe even worse? Yes, it is possible – if the harvest fails, if the seeds are not planted in the ground, if we do not bring the amount of food we expect because of the crisis in Ukraine and general inflation. It can only get worse and eventually also lead to more violence.
So we really have the worst case scenario. We also have a better scenario. And for this we need a good political will, but also an international involvement in the country.
This lecture has been edited for clarity and length.
Source: Huffpost
