Taliban Return: Afghanistan Hurts Five Years On

Afghanistan is facing a deepening humanitarian and human rights crisis five years after the Taliban returned to power following the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Kabul, with millions of people struggling with hunger, poverty and restricted access to basic services, according to a CNN report. The report said humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan has fallen sharply since the Taliban takeover, even as about 45 per cent of the population continues to require aid. Women and children are among those most severely affected by the decline in international support.

The United States, previously Afghanistan’s largest source of humanitarian assistance, has also fallen out of the top five donor countries after the termination of most US Agency for International Development humanitarian and development programmes in the country. The reduction in aid has coincided with increasingly severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban on women and girls, leaving Afghanistan as the only country in the world where girls are barred from education beyond the sixth grade. According to UNESCO estimates cited in the report, about 2.4 million Afghan girls are currently excluded from school.

Women have also been prohibited from many forms of employment and subjected to restrictions on movement and clothing. UN Women estimates that half of Afghan women now leave their homes only once or twice a month, while seven in 10 women describe their mental health as bad or very bad. Afghan women’s rights activist Mahbouba Seraj, who has remained in Kabul since the Taliban’s return, told CNN that the restrictions had severely limited her ability to support women in need and were forcing her to consider leaving the country. The situation has also raised concerns over violence against women and girls. The CNN report said Taliban decrees issued this year have weakened protections for women within marriage and removed the previous minimum legal age for marriage, prompting warnings from human rights organizations and United Nations experts that the measures could contribute to child marriage.

Children are also facing increasingly severe hardship as humanitarian programmes shrink. The report cited Save the Children as saying that one in 10 Afghan children is acutely malnourished, with the most dangerous form of acute malnutrition, wasting, increasing. UNICEF estimates that more than 11 million children will require humanitarian assistance in 2026, while hundreds of health facilities have reportedly closed amid funding shortages. In one remote district in northern Afghanistan, Save the Children is reportedly the only healthcare provider serving about 10,000 people, highlighting the limited access to medical services in parts of the country. The overall humanitarian funding available to Afghanistan has fallen by nearly 70 per cent since 2022. UN Women estimates that more than 10.7 million Afghan women and girls depend on humanitarian assistance, while more than half of women-led organizations surveyed by the organisation expect to suspend or close their operations within the next year because of funding shortages.

Afghanistan’s economic difficulties have compounded the humanitarian emergency. Before the Taliban takeover, foreign assistance financed about three-quarters of the country’s public expenditure. Much of that funding has since disappeared, while billions of dollars in Afghan central bank reserves remain frozen by the United States and its allies. The frozen funds have become part of negotiations between the Taliban and Western governments, with women’s rights and girls’ education remaining major points of contention. For many Afghans, the formal economy provides limited opportunities, leaving households dependent on informal trade and other precarious sources of income. The Taliban’s ban on poppy cultivation represents one of the few areas where its policies have produced a dramatic measurable change. Opium production has fallen by about 95 per cent since the ban was introduced in 2022, according to figures cited from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and other experts.

However, the ban has also removed a major source of income for many rural communities without providing sufficient alternative livelihoods. The United Nations has warned that synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, could increasingly fill the gap created by the collapse of the opium economy. Despite fears that Afghanistan could again become a major base for international terrorism after the Taliban takeover, the country has not experienced the complete collapse some analysts initially predicted. However, weak state institutions, poverty and insecurity continue to create conditions in which militant organizations can operate. The report said Islamic State-Khorasan Province and al-Qaeda remain active in parts of the country. Afghanistan has also gradually expanded its engagement with some foreign governments. Russia formally recognised the Taliban government in 2025, while China has strengthened economic ties with Kabul and Chinese companies have become increasingly involved in Afghanistan’s oil, copper and lithium sectors.

Five years after the Taliban’s return, however, the country’s humanitarian emergency remains severe, with hunger, poverty, restricted freedoms and inadequate access to healthcare affecting millions. The crisis has also raised questions about the long-term consequences of the international community’s withdrawal of support and the effectiveness of efforts to pressure the Taliban over its treatment of women and girls. John Sopko, a former US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, told CNN that the deterioration of conditions had broader implications for international confidence in the United States. The continuing crisis, five years after the Taliban’s return, therefore presents a difficult challenge for the international community: how to provide desperately needed assistance to the Afghan population while maintaining pressure on a government accused of systematically stripping women and girls of their fundamental rights.

By: Joyce Owusu