Now, Afghan women face starvation threat
With many men killed, they have been left as sole breadwinners
One of the Taliban’s first acts after they swept to power in Afghanistan a month ago was to force most working women out of their jobs and into their homes. That’s going to add to the risk of starvation facing the country after years of crop failures and the collapse of this year’s wheat harvest.
In an aid-dependent economy already in deep trouble, the sudden removal of tens of thousands of wage earners, many supporting large, extended families, only adds to the numbers facing hunger in a country where 47.3 per cent live below the poverty line. What happens outside the cities could be even more devastating. Women make up nearly a third of the rural labour force. Without them, the problems of a country that’s barely able to feed itself will only be compounded.
Clear and present danger
With so many men killed in the conflict, or fleeing the country, a significant number of women have been left as both single parents and sole breadwinners supporting their parents and other relatives. “The Taliban cutting off women’s ability to work is not about their feelings of empowerment it is about losing any ability to feed themselves and their family,” says Heather Barr, the associate director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch. The Taliban’s takeover will make all these problems more acute, because poverty, undernourishment and gender inequality go hand-in-hand. Although women and girls tend to be more resilient in the face of malnutrition, in patriarchal societies they also suffer the worst deprivation and long-term sideeffects, as more food is allocated to the males of the household.
As much as 97 per cent of the population may sink below the poverty line by the middle of next year without an urgent response to the twin political and economic crises, the UNDP warned last week. Hunger may prove as devastating to Afghanistan’s women as the Taliban itself.