In Afghanistan, women and children suffer the worst of the hunger crisis

CONSTANTINOPLE:

Afghanistan is one of many countries around the world facing a food crisis, where a combination of politics, economics and natural disasters have taken a heavy toll on huge swathes of a vulnerable population.

In a country emerging from decades of war and turmoil, women and children are among those particularly affected by food insecurity, according to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP).

“Some of the most affected by the hunger crisis right now are women and girls,” said Philippe Kropf, WFP’s head of communications in Afghanistan. Anatolia.

Currently, a third of the Afghan population, or nearly 16 million people, are hungry, and every province is at crisis levels of food insecurity or higher, according to the UN agency.

“We have 15.8 million people in acute food insecurity, which includes 3.5 million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity,” Kropf said.

UN figures paint a bleak picture for women and girls, with an estimated 1 million malnourished, pregnant and lactating women in Afghanistan in 2023.

About 2 million girls and boys under 5 years of age were moderately acutely malnourished, and almost 860,000 girls and boys under 5 years old were severely acutely malnourished.

“Severe acute malnutrition is one of the worst cases where children, unfortunately, die regularly,” Kropf said.

Access crisis

A stark difference when comparing Afghanistan to other countries facing food crises is the level of availability.

In Afghanistan, according to WFP, food is available in most parts of the country, even in the smallest remote districts.

The challenge is that families, including, and in most cases, women and girls, cannot access it because they do not have the money to buy it.

“Afghanistan is a crisis where the most vulnerable women and children cannot access the food that is on the market,” Kropf explained.

Restrictions placed on women’s employment have severely affected households where women are the main providers.

Many of them are women and widows who are currently unable to go to work, he said.

Also read: Ban on girls’ education: Afghan humanitarian aid at risk

“They don’t get paid anymore. They can’t find work outside their homes and it’s increasingly difficult for them to buy food, to buy basic needs,” Kropf said.

More children are being admitted to hospitals and clinics for malnutrition, with beds fully occupied in some areas, he added.

She cited testimonies of women who have been denied the opportunity to earn an income or cases where their husbands have moved to neighboring countries for work but are unable to send money to their families.

“Mothers here rely heavily on borrowing food and money, both from shopkeepers and relatives,” the WFP official said.

“They are on the brink and have very little opportunity to take care of themselves and their children.”

Food security and funding cuts

In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.

The food security situation has improved since then, Kropf said, with donor investment and sustained large-scale food aid helping to lift millions of people from the brink.

Last year, the harvest was also a little better, he added.

“It was the first average harvest in several years. So we see a slight improvement in the food security situation, but we risk losing all the gains,” he warned.

“We are now in a situation where we are somewhat stabilized. The economy is in better shape than a lot of people thought two years ago, (but) we’re still not in good shape.”

A major issue is that, in 2023, the WFP had a huge funding shortfall that forced it to turn away around 10 million people from aid programs in Afghanistan.

Read: UN Food Agency cuts rations to 2 million Afghans as funds run out

These included 1.4 million women and children who no longer received any specialized food to prevent and treat malnutrition, Kropf said, adding that the agency was still facing a “major financial crisis”.

It is not a case of “playing off one humanitarian crisis against another”, he argued, but the number of crises around the world has left “many more people in urgent need of food aid”.

“There are, of course, crises that are more in the headlines. So we call on all our partners and all our donors not to forget the Afghan girls, boys, women and men who need help,” he said.

In earlier comments on the aid cuts, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Afghanistan’s economic situation was “normal” but was affected by “40 years of war in the country”.

“Countries that help us should increase their cooperation. We appreciate their help and we want more help from them,” he told local TV station Tolo News.

Effects of climate change

Afghanistan’s food crisis is also exacerbated by the fact that it is “one of the countries most affected by the climate crisis,” Kropf pointed out.

As of 2018, Afghanistan is “in drought or drought conditions,” he said, adding that previous harvests were not sufficient to feed the country.

This winter season was also “very late, very late,” so the lack of snow means “it’s very likely that Afghanistan will enter another year with drought conditions,” Kropf said.

He said erratic weather patterns that fluctuate between droughts and floods have a huge impact on agriculture.

This issue was also raised by an official of the Ministry of Economy in comments to Tolo News.

“Climate change and droughts have affected the agricultural sector and social security to some extent,” said Abdul Rahmad Habib, a ministry spokesman, stressing that “addressing climate change” is a key government priority.

For now, Kropf said people in Afghanistan are in a place where they “can’t prepare, they can’t predict” the weather.

“Just a few weeks ago…hundreds of animals, livestock, sheep, goats, donkeys, cows died in the snow because herders drove them far into the desert to find food, suspecting that winter is over,” he said.

“Suddenly winter came with meters of snow and hundreds of animals perished. So those are the long-term challenges we see in Afghanistan.”