8am: Child labor figure in Afghanistan, especially in Parwan province, has risen dramatically since the establishment of the Taliban-led government and the emergence of poverty in the country. Click here to read more (external link).
Pakistan qualifies for quarter-finals after beating Afghanistan by 24 runs
Ariana: Pakistan U19 team beat Afghanistan by 24 runs on Thursday to qualify for Quarter Finals in ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2022 in West Indies. Afghanistan team had won its first match by 135 runs against Papua New Guinea on Tuesday night. Click here to read more (external link).
Kunduz Residents Complain of Unfair and Discriminatory Aid Distribution
8am: Khanom Gul, another Kunduz resident, said she lives in a rented house, stressing that her head of household is unemployed. According to her, when she knocks on the door of the Kunduz Refugee Office to receive aid, no one includes her on the list. “People with links to the Taliban are on this list,” she added. In some other provinces, it has also been claimed that the Taliban exclude the poor, distributing aid for their own affiliates. Click here to read more (external link).
Norway to Host Talks with Taliban on Afghan Aid and Human Rights
VOA News
January 21, 2022
ISLAMABAD — Norway said Friday that Taliban delegates, Afghan civil society representatives and officials from “a number of allied countries” will gather in Oslo next week for three days of talks on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and human rights.
Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will lead the Taliban team at the dialogue starting Sunday, his office in Kabul said.
“They are scheduled to hold meetings and discussions on various issues with American diplomats, European Union delegates, and a number of Afghan personalities,” said Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesman.
Officials from Britain, France, Germany and Italy are reportedly among the participants.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry quoted Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt as stressing the meetings Oslo is hosting will “not represent a legitimization or recognition of the Taliban.”
However, she emphasized the need for engaging with the “de facto authorities” in Afghanistan in order to help the civilian population there.
“We are extremely concerned about the grave situation in Afghanistan, where millions of people are facing a full-blown humanitarian disaster,” Huitfeldt said. “We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster.”
“We will be clear about our expectations of the Taliban, particularly as regards girls’ education and human rights, such as women’s right to participate in society,” Norway’s foreign minister stressed.
The Taliban military regained power in Afghanistan last August as the Western-backed government collapsed and all remaining U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country later that month after 20 years.
The change in power immediately halted international assistance for aid-dependent Afghanistan and the United States blocked the Taliban’s access to roughly $9.5 billion in foreign assets — largely held in the U.S. Federal Reserve — in addition to imposing financial sanctions on Kabul.
International donors have urged the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect the rights of women as a condition for the release of more aid, which the group has not done.
The punitive actions have plunged the fragile Afghan economy into an unprecedented crisis, worsening an already bad humanitarian crisis in the country. The United Nations says it needs $5 billion this year to bring urgent relief to an estimated 24 million people experiencing acute food insecurity, with 9 million of them threatened with famine.
“Humanitarian assistance, while essential, is not enough. We must prevent a collapse in basic services such as health and education. We must support the livelihoods of families and communities,” Huitfeldt said.
The International Labor Organization reported this week that 500,000 jobs have been lost in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, saying the number could go to as high as 900,000 by the middle of this year because of the economic upheaval.
Critics say despite pledging not to re-introduce harsh Islamic polices of their previous regime in Kabul, the Taliban rulers are cracking down on human rights, particularly those of women.
Most female government employees have been prevented from returning to their jobs and most secondary schools for girls remained shuttered across Afghanistan.
Taliban officials maintain they recognize women’s rights to education and work within Sharia or Islamic law but they need funds to pay salaries to teachers and organize a safe environment for female students. The Taliban have pledged to allow all girls to return to schools in March, when the new education year begins in Afghanistan.
Related
Will Afghanistan be Polio-Free in 2022?
Child getting polio drops (file photo)
Akmal Dawi
VOA News
January 22, 2022
International health workers say the end of the war in Afghanistan brings new hope to efforts to rid the country of the crippling disease polio.
For many years, efforts to immunize all Afghan children under five years old were considered unfeasible because of widespread insecurity and threats to health workers.
But with the end of the war, and Taliban pledges last year to support the polio immunization campaign, aid agencies now say they can access nearly all parts of the country, giving them an opportunity to eradicate poliovirus.
“If we succeed to implement the planned polio campaigns with high coverage of 95%, we can interrupt the circulation of polio virus by the end of 2022,” Kamal Shah Sayed, a UNICEF spokesman in Afghanistan, told VOA.
Backed by the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), a three-day nation-wide polio immunization campaign targeting nearly 10 million children was launched in Afghanistan on January 17. Four additional campaigns are planned for this year.
Taliban back immunization campaign
Once considered a major obstacle in the way of anti-polio efforts because of their indiscriminate attacks as they fought U.S. and Afghan Government forces, the Taliban are now helping U.N. agencies to eradicate polio, Sayed confirmed. The U.S. withdrew all forces from Afghanistan last August as the Taliban fighters toppled the U.S.-backed Afghan government and declared the country an Islamic Emirate.
Only four cases of poliovirus were confirmed in 2021 in the landlocked country, down from 56 cases a year before.
However, there are still several challenges for making a polio-free Afghanistan in 2022.
Poliovirus is still virulent in the neighboring Pakistan and can easily be transferred through the long and porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border crossings. Polio cases also saw a significant drop in Pakistan from 79 cases in 2020 to only one confirmed case in 2021, according to the Pakistan Polio Eradication Program.
Poor awareness about poliovirus and how to protect children against it remains another problem, particularly in rural Afghan communities.
Immunization workers also need to have access to every household across the country, but this has been resisted by some Taliban officials who prefer to conduct immunization campaigns at local mosques.
“The house-to-house polio campaigns are very important,” said Sayed of the UNICEF adding that such access should be especially ensured in the traditional “key polio reservoir regions of the South and East.”
The drive to rid Afghanistan from poliovirus is taking place as the country suffers from an economic paralysis and a widespread humanitarian crisis which threatens most of the country’s estimated 35 million population. The U.N. has called for nearly $5 billion to provide life-saving food, health, and shelter assistance to the most vulnerable Afghans in 2022.
The polio immunization campaigns appear to have no funding shortfalls thanks to some 70,000 Afghan volunteers as well as financial contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary International, the Canadian government, United Arab Emirates, and the Japanese government, UNICEF said.
An Afghan woman says a Taliban gunman struck her mom across the face and left a bruise because she was outside without a male escort
Taliban fighters (file photo)
Insider: An Afghan woman said a Taliban gunman struck her mom across the face after the group’s takeover, leaving a bruise. The two women were approached by the militants because they were outside without a male escort. Under the Taliban, women across Afghanistan are severely oppressed and deprived of opportunity. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
US military releases videos of August drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians
US MQ-9 Reaper drone (file photo)
CNN: The US military released videos Wednesday of the botched August 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. The newly released videos show the view from above Kabul as the military tracked a white Toyota Corolla through parts of the city, believing that it was an ISIS-K car laden with explosives and building a case for targeting it with a preemptive strike. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghan women losing jobs fast as economy shrinks and rights curtailed
Reuters: Hard-won gains in women’s rights over the last two decades have been quickly reversed, and reports from international rights experts and labour organisations this week painted a bleak picture for female employment and access to public space. Click here to read more (external link).
HRW Criticizes Policy for Girls’ Schooling
Tolo News: Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a special interview with TOLO news’ Hamid Bahram said the international community should “never recognize” the current Afghan government as long as it is imposing the “worst discrimination in the world” against women seeking an education. Click here to read more (external link).
Biden defiantly defends Afghanistan exit, makes ‘no apologies’
Joe Biden
Ariana: Biden suggested Wednesday there was nothing else that could have been done to bolster Afghan allies. “Raise your hand if you think anyone was going to be able to unify Afghanistan under one single government,” he said. “It’s been the graveyard of empires for a solid reason. It is not susceptible to unity.” Click here to read more (external link).