The Daily Hustle: Going on a picnic with your family, if you’re a girl 

July 24, 2024

AAN Team • Roxanna Shapour

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Going on a picnic and spending time with your family, enjoying Afghanistan’s natural beauty, is a favourite pastime for Afghan families, especially in springtime. However, since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has imposed many restrictions on women and older girls, public parks in the country have largely become no-go areas for them. AAN has been hearing from one girl about the hoops she had to jump through to get permission from her father to go on a family picnic and how the simple pleasures of life, like spending the day with your family in northern Afghanistan’s lush green hills, are not so simple anymore. 

 

We used to go on outings several times a year, especially during Nawruz,[1] but that was before. In those days, women in our family would go to parks by themselves, but nowadays people are uneasy about being stopped and questioned by the Taleban. So, we stopped going. But this year, for the first time in two years, we did go on a picnic.

I’m 18 years old and I’d just finished grade 11 when the Emirate stopped girls going to high school. I used to study English at a private institute, but those courses are also no longer open to girls. Before the Emirate came to power, I was taking a public speaking course at an institute near my house, but the Emirate closed the institute down. So, I enrolled in another one, but after a few months that institute closed too.

I come from a big family – three brothers and five sisters. I live with my parents, three brothers and my younger sister in Mazar-e Sharif. My brother’s wife and my niece also live with us. When my father lost his job, he set up a food stall outside our house. My eldest brother is a motorcycle mechanic and is the only person in my family who has a job, but he doesn’t live with us.

I recently joined a carpet-weaving course, but I don’t think I’ll keep going. There are too many girls working in the same room, so it’s very stuffy. It’s hard to breathe with all the wool dust floating around in that poorly ventilated space. Plus, the heat is just overwhelming and I worry it’s not good for my health.

That’s why I was really excited about heading outdoors for an outing this year. It had been ages since my family enjoyed a picnic and I’d been craving a change of pace and some fresh air.

Longing for a day out 

We’ve managed just two outings since the Taleban came to power. The last time was a picnic in Tang-e Marmul, which is a lush green valley just an hour’s drive south of Mazar-e Sharif. We went with three other families, each with at least three men. But we couldn’t walk around because there were groups of men there who were picnicking, grilling kebabs and playing cards. The armed Talebs who were patrolling the area didn’t say anything to them, even though playing cards is not allowed. We chose a place well away from them to eat our food and then quickly left the area.

All last winter, I’d been dropping hints to my father about going on a picnic for Sizda be Dar, when most families in Mazar-e Sharif go picnicking in the green areas. But we couldn’t go because it was during Ramadan and we also had family staying with us. Later, in spring, my amma (paternal aunt) announced that she and her family planned to go on a day’s outing to spend some time in nature now that everything had turned green and the weather was good. I asked my father if he’d allow us to join them. But my father didn’t think the situation was good and said he didn’t want to risk us having any trouble while we were out.

Getting permission to go on a family outing 

This is how things are not just in my family but in most families. People don’t want any trouble and are reluctant to go on outings. I don’t know how other families decide to go, but in my family, it’s my father who makes the final call. He said we couldn’t go because he was busy with renovations to our house and couldn’t join us, but this was just an excuse. My father’s never been very keen on picnics. In fact, I don’t remember a single time when he joined us on one.

It took the extended family around three weeks to get everything sorted for their visit to Dasht-e Shadian in Tang-e Owlia. It’s a delightful picnic spot just an hour from Mazar-e Sharif and easily accessible with a good road. My aunt and other family members kept calling my father, hoping to change his mind, but he was firm in his decision, with an unwavering resolve.

I was very upset. I cried every time someone mentioned the outing and took to locking myself in my room. Finally, he relented and said we could go.

The morning of the outing, I woke up early to help prepare things for our day out. I offered my namaz (prayers) and took a quick nap afterwards before going to help my sister-in-law cook for the picnic. But when I got to the kitchen, she looked crestfallen. She told me my father had changed his mind and we wouldn’t be allowed to go after all.

I called my aunt, my older sister and two of my cousins to let them know that my father had decided that we couldn’t go after all. Then my aunt called my brother and asked him to intercede with my father, but my father was firm in his decision. Since my father is the elder in our family, no one can oppose his decision, but they told me they would do their best to persuade him to relent. All morning, there were phone calls to my father and hushed conversations between him and my older brother. Finally, around 11 o’ clock, my sister-in-law told me to start getting ready to leave for the picnic. He wasn’t happy about it, but my father had finally agreed to let us go.

It was too late to cook anything to take with us, so we told my aunt we’d pay for half of the food and beverages she’d bought. We also bought four big bottles of pomegranate juice and some bread.

There are many reasons why families don’t go on outings. Some, like many of our neighbours, can’t afford to. Other families, like mine, are conservative and have strict fathers. Then, there are the lucky, open-minded families who go on outings regularly. I don’t know why my father was so against letting us go this time; he’d allowed us to go with extended family in large groups before. Maybe it was because he was preoccupied with the house renovations, or concerned about the costs, or worried about potential dangers related to the Taleban.

We are going on a picnic 

We went in one of the two motar-e barbari-e kalan (large lorries) that my cousin owns because our group was large and some of our relatives don’t have a car. This way we could travel together in the same vehicle and share the cost of the petrol. We laid a carpet down on the back and sat together in the open air, enjoying the fresh breeze and the luxuriantly green scenery.

Some of the relatives had gone ahead of us in another lorry and our little group – my sister-in-law and me, as well as my little brother, who’d come along in case we were asked about a mahram – joined my aunt and her three sons, their wives and children in the second lorry. My mother was in Kabul and couldn’t join us. My aunt’s son-in-law and some of his relatives also came along. Altogether, we were about 40 to 50 people.

As we expected, we passed many checkpoints. There was even one at the entrance to Dasht-e Shadian and Taleban foot patrols everywhere. But they mostly searched vehicles with lots of male passengers and weren’t very inquisitive about vehicles with many female passengers. So, they didn’t stop us or ask any questions.

When we left the city behind, we’d started clapping with excitement. It was a joyful ride. There was no music, but there was the sound of our clapping and the wind in our hair as it gently loosened our headscarves. Whenever we neared a checkpoint, our cousins would remind us to fix our hijabs and we’d stop clapping and tighten our headscarves. But we’d resume our cheerful clapping again as soon as we cleared it. Originally, we’d planned to bring something to play music on, set on a low volume, but the male family members vetoed the idea, worried about attracting the Taleban’s attention. Women like to play music, clap and enjoy themselves, but men don’t allow them to do it. So, we satisfied ourselves with clapping and lively chatter.

Making the best of a day out in nature 

It was gone one o’ clock in the afternoon by the time we reached Dashte-e Shadian. The picnic area was teaming with people. There were many single men and some families as well. There were boys selling dayras (a type of tambourine). They were making a racket pounding on the dayras to attract customers, but without much luck. I only saw one boy buying a dayra. Most people looked on but didn’t buy. They were probably too afraid of getting into trouble with the Taleban because music is not allowed.

We found a quiet spot away from the bustling crowd to set up our blankets and start a fire for my sister-in-law to cook, even though it was getting late. Some of the girls who weren’t busy with preparing lunch decided to take a walk around a nearby field, where we saw kids flying kites, playing football and selling energy drinks and toys. A man was offering horses for rent and we noticed a few boys who’d fallen and were injured. There were women dressed in lovely outfits and wearing makeup. They’d briefly remove their headscarves to take a photo and then quickly put them back on. For myself, I had a shorter dress on beneath my abaya (long overcoat).

Every family brought food they’d prepared in advance for the picnic – manto (dumplings), qabuli palaw (rice with carrots and raisins), qurma (meat stew), vegetables, fruit and beverages. After we finished eating lunch, the main part of our outing started. We took pictures and went for walks in nature chaperoned by some of the men in our group.

The last time we went on an outing, we’d gone to a beautiful spot covered with vibrant red flowers. This time, we decided to visit Dasht-e-Shadian, as it’s closer to the city and has better security. But to our surprise, the ground was full of holes spaced just a few meters apart. Also, there were only a few trees and the greenery was sparse except on the top of the hill. There were gardens and houses, but they were privately owned and off-limits to visitors. Unfortunately, the area was littered with cans, tablecloths, and bottles – remnants of previous picnics where people had failed to clean up after themselves.

A disappointing outing is better than no outing

Going on the outing refreshed my mind. It was great to catch up with relatives and fascinating to people-watch and see how other people interacted with each other in public. I admired what some of the other girls were wearing and made a mental note to sew similar dresses for myself.

But I didn’t enjoy this outing as much as the ones we’d had in previous years.

In the past, my sister, who works in Kabul, would join us, along with my mother and all of my siblings. Those were truly family affairs and were always so much fun. Time used to fly by without us even realising it. This time, it was just me and three of my close family members, so the experience wasn’t as great. It was scorching hot and the picnic area wasn’t so pleasant. Some of our female relatives fell ill with heatstroke because we couldn’t wear the kind of light clothing that’s appropriate for that kind of weather. We had to wear long black abayas and our headscarves tight on our heads.

The women didn’t walk around much. If we wanted to go anywhere, we had to ask one of the men in our group to chaperone us. Some of the men wandered around and explored the hills, played football and cricket and flew kites. But they, too, felt uneasy because the morality police were walking around and surveying the crowd. We heard some gunfire – we couldn’t tell where it was coming from – but the sound scared people.

In the past, when we went on outings, all the boys and girls in the family could play football and take part in other pastimes. The girls were allowed to fly kites if they wanted to, or just sit around and talk, or take pictures or just walk around in nature. It was disheartening to watch all the boys in the family running around and having fun and not be able to join their games. I asked the girls in our group to play football with me but they refused. They said they didn’t want to risk the men in the family getting into trouble with the Taleban because of our behaviour.

In the past, women were free to go out without a mahram, but nowadays, even the city parks have rules about when and how we can visit. We can only go on specific days of the week and must be accompanied by a mahram who waits outside. We can’t visit the Roza-e Sharif (Mazar-e Sharif shrine) at all anymore. Back then, my family didn’t pay much mind to what my sisters and I wore, or if we put on makeup or if some of our hair was showing, but now they admonish us, telling us to wear our scarves neatly, avoid makeup and put on the abaya. It’s all about safeguarding our namus(dignity and honour), they say.

That day, whiling the time away with my family, I was happy to be out in nature, exploring the countryside. There is a famous hill called Tepa Allah there that I was very keen to climb. We girls didn’t eat well because we couldn’t wait to go up Tepa Allah and after lunch, four girls and four men from our family went for a look. It was difficult to climb to the top and we didn’t stay there long because there were lots of men around. The male members of our family insisted we leave since there were so few women there. It was starting to get dark, they told us, and we should head back to the city.

As we piled into the lorry to make our way back to Mazar-e Sharif, I thought about all the trouble everyone had gone through just to make this day possible. It didn’t turn out to be the great adventure I’d imagined it was going to be. Still, a disappointing outing is better than no outing at all.

Edited by Kate Clark

References
↑1 Nawruz marks the start of the Afghan year and coincides with the vernal equinox on 21 March, the first day of spring. The holiday is celebrated for 13 days, and families traditionally go on picnics on Sizda be Dar, the 13th day of the new year, to deflect the bad omen associated with the number 13 and celebrate the arrival of spring.

 

The Daily Hustle: Going on a picnic with your family, if you’re a girl 
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‘Hollywoodgate’ Review: Inside the Taliban

July 24, 2024

The New York Times

Hollywoodgate
Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at
Documentary, War
Not Rated
1h 32m
A man with a red scarf stands next to a barrier that reads "Hollywood Gate 4." Mountains are in the distance.

The risks required to make “Hollywoodgate” also highlight its limitations.Credit…Fourth Act Film

Nash’at, an Egyptian journalist based in Berlin, traveled to Afghanistan in 2021 shortly after American troops had left. He negotiated a tenuous arrangement with Mawlawi Mansour, the new commander of the country’s air force, to film him and a lieutenant named M.J. Mukhtar.

In a voice-over at the outset, Nash’at explains the terms. He has been forbidden to film anyone who is not Taliban, he says, and he is under constant surveillance. In return for access, he adds, “I must show the world the image of the Taliban that they want me to see.” But he hopes simply to show what he saw.

Nash’at, who handled his own camera and sound, is, to his credit, transparent about some gaps. When going to inspect a group of aircraft, Mansour doesn’t want the filmmaker to show them. (Nash’at nevertheless zooms in toward a few planes across the tarmac.) During a nighttime operation in which Mukhtar apparently hopes to root out people hostile to the Taliban, Nash’at is instructed, “The cameraman stays here.”

What remains are Mansour and Mukhtar presenting themselves with varying degrees of self-consciousness (it is amusing when Mansour, after trying out a treadmill at a former American gym, asks that one be sent to his home so he can lose belly fat), and the Taliban’s public pageantry. Nash’at notes at the end that he was kept from filming the daily suffering of regular Afghans. The frustration of “Hollywoodgate” is that it could only ever feel incomplete.

Hollywoodgate
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters.

‘Hollywoodgate’ Review: Inside the Taliban
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What’s Next for the U.N.’s Doha Process on Afghanistan?

July 17, 2024
BY: Andrew Watkins
United States Institute of Peace

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Taliban attendance and Afghan civil society’s exclusion at Doha 3 meeting was heavily criticized.
  • Western states want Taliban to uphold human rights, but regional powers are more focused on Afghanistan stabilizing.
  • Still, Doha 3 made progress toward more coordinated international engagement.
At the end of June, envoys and representatives from more than 25 countries and international organizations gathered in Doha, Qatar, along with representatives from the Taliban under an U.N.-facilitated framework. This meeting was the third of its kind, widely referred to as “Doha 3,” and part of a process to establish a more coordinated and coherent global approach to Afghanistan’s challenges and the Taliban’s rule.
It did not produce decisive outcomes, other than the commitment of all countries to continue such meetings — still a significant agreement in the current geopolitical climate. Meanwhile, Western donor states and human rights defenders strongly criticized the latest gathering for the U.N.’s inclusion of the Taliban, and perceived concessions to the group.The first meeting took place in May 2023, and the second was held this February. The first two meetings were chaired by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who delegated this third meeting to Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo. These meetings were oriented around the U.N. Security Council’s call for an independent assessment of international engagement with Afghanistan, mandated last spring and delivered to the Council last November. The Security Council accepted the assessment’s recommendations in late December, though with Russia and China abstaining — and the Taliban protesting strongly against a few key provisions.

Western donor states and human rights defenders strongly criticized the latest gathering for the U.N.’s inclusion of the Taliban.

The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, where Guterres worked to identify global common ground on how to engage the Taliban. In February, the Taliban rejected the U.N.’s invitation to attend the second meeting, objecting to the appointment of a U.N. special envoy, protesting the U.N.’s invitations for Afghan civil society to attend, and complaining of matters of protocol. In short, the Taliban demanded to be treated, at least de facto, as the government of Afghanistan.In preparations for the third gathering, the U.N. took pains to persuade the Taliban that attending was in their best interests. DiCarlo visited Kabul and met with Taliban leaders beforehand, as did a number of Western and regional diplomats. In these consultations, the Taliban made demands that largely reiterated their position on Doha 2.Notably, the U.N. offered an agenda that seemed tailored to the Taliban’s interest — as well as the key interests of neighboring states and regional powers like China and Russia. The U.N. proposed three topics, two of which were ultimately selected: (1) economic issues, especially the question of support to the Afghan private sector, and (2) counternarcotics.

Significant Criticism

The focus on securing the Taliban’s attendance for Doha 3 prompted a groundswell of criticism from Afghan civil society and human rights defenders. In the weeks leading up to Doha 3, officials from a number of donor states expressed frustration, and several even pondered the possibility of downgrading or cancelling their attendance.

The criticism was leveled on two different planes. Publicly, much of the backlash against the U.N.’s planning focused on the lack of civil society representation at the main event, highlighting the absence of Afghan women. The lack of women’s rights on the public version of the meeting’s agenda was seen as a further, unnecessary concession to the Taliban.

It is worth noting that states discussed women’s rights extensively with the Taliban at Doha 3, and the U.N. always planned on this.

It is worth noting that states discussed women’s rights extensively with the Taliban at Doha 3, and the U.N. always planned on this — keeping the topic off the public agenda was an attempt at compromise. Moreover, at the previous two meetings, Afghan civil society did not participate in the main events (at Doha 2 in February, a voluntary side meeting took place with six Afghans involved in activism, journalism and development). But faced with the prospect of the Taliban sitting down with the international community under the U.N.’s banner, many insisted that Afghan women must also have a seat at the table. A campaign of advocacy and journalistic coverage swamped Doha 3 preparations with negative publicity, and complicated the positions of participating Western states.Some nations disagreed with details of the U.N.’s approach but were willing to give the U.N. room to maneuver, at least in principle. Their complaint was structural: Frustration with a lack of U.N. coordination or even communication of goals and strategy. In weeks leading up to the meeting, more than one donor state official privately expressed doubt as to whether U.N. leadership had a strategic direction for this meeting format and the process it was meant to support.

Reactions and Reasoning

Less than two weeks before Doha 3, a group of major donors, including the United States, drafted a collective communique to the U.N. The letter, not made public but leaked widely, was a sternly worded rebuke on both the substance and planning process for the impending meeting.

The signatories emphasized the importance of not marginalizing Afghan civil society and noted domestic political demands to hold the Taliban accountable on human rights. One Western official described the signatories’ perception that regional countries’ interests seemed to carry more weight in the U.N.’s decision making than those of the largest donors supporting aid and development in Afghanistan.

This letter implicitly threatened that donor states (including signatories such as Canada, the U.K. and France) might scale down their participation in the gathering. In particular, the signatories insisted on engagement with civil society in some form. The U.N. accommodated this demand — some U.N. officials privately noted that it had always been their intent to involve civil society, at the same level as they had been during Doha 2, and it was simply a matter of careful negotiation with the Taliban to ensure they would not pull out. But the U.N. also preserved the originally proposed agenda, and largely stuck to its approach.

Some donors went further: Canada published a reprimand of the U.N.’s approach to the conference — though they also ultimately attended.

In the end, on the second day of Doha 3, a side event was held with five Afghan women and two men, most of them residing inside Afghanistan — similar in scope to the inclusion of civil society at Doha 2.

Speaking to the press from Doha, DiCarlo hinted at the logic underlying U.N.’s approach, saying the brief was to bring the Taliban together with the world’s envoys in these meetings. This was an intriguing, almost misleading representation of the Security Council’s resolution in December 2023. Yes, the U.N. was encouraged to continue facilitating the envoy meeting format, but with very little detail specified. Where did this brief, which seemed to privilege the Taliban, come from?

The U.N. was compelled to find a balance between the agendas of Western states, many of which demand to see the Taliban adhere to international standards on human rights before proceeding any further with development assistance or economic normalization, and those of regional powers, eager to see nearby Afghanistan stabilize. Sources suggest that key regional states — including permanent Security Council members Russia and China — saw little reason to continue engaging in a U.N. process that did not include the Taliban. In other words, while Western frustrations over the U.N.’s direction spilled into public view, regional states may have been even closer to abandoning the meeting format.

There was a basic theory of change underpinning Doha 3 preparations: the U.N. assessment, and all of its recommendations, were intended to break free from the deadlock that had overtaken international relations with the Taliban. To move past this deadlock, U.N. officials have said the most difficult demands should be set aside until later in this engagement process. For now, they assert, discussion should focus on overlapping interests. Only after much more trust has been built between the suspicious Taliban and a host of doubtful states, do these officials feel it makes sense to bring the most contentious issues to the table.

The counterargument is that such sequencing awards the Taliban legitimacy and emboldens their repressive policy agenda. The rebuttal to this view, however, is that waiting for the Taliban to meet demands before expanding assistance, knowing the Taliban are unlikely to budge, is a decision to cut off 40 million Afghans from the rest of the world. These arguments on how to approach engaging with such a difficult regime are not new — they remain much the same as before the U.N. assessment proposed a roadmap to move past them.

Now What?

Undersecretary-general DiCarlo and other U.N. leaders have stressed that Doha 3 is but one meeting in a long-term process. But privately, officials have made clear that DiCarlo and other U.N. leaders do not have the bandwidth to continue managing the Doha meeting format, much less any broader process it might spur. The negative reactions and public controversy around Doha 3 have only lessened the U.N.’s enthusiasm to occupy center stage as host and facilitator.

The most efficient solution is one that has been mired in Security Council politics from the beginning. Last year’s assessment recommended appointing a U.N. official for Afghanistan, an envoy or coordinator in addition to Special Representative Roza Atunbayeva who manages U.N. presence in the country, to carry out the obviously full-time job of organizing an international engagement process. However, the Taliban’s objections to such an appointment, along with the lack of Russian and Chinese enthusiasm, may prove to be insurmountable.

In spite of the controversy beforehand and the difficult path ahead, Doha 3 did make concrete progress toward more coordinated international engagement. Attending nations tentatively agreed to establish technical-level working groups on the chief agenda items: private-sector economic issues and counternarcotics. More work remains before the concept can be finalized, and so this outcome was not formally announced from Doha. But such working groups will open new channels of dialogue between donors, regional states and technocrats from Taliban-run ministries — with the aim of streamlining and improving assistance to the Afghan people.

The Taliban have thus far kept mum about the conference, other than claiming that the world heard and accepted their messaging. Their chief spokesman, who led the delegation to Doha, declined to commit to participation in future meetings, saying that each time, Taliban leadership would determine if the engagement would be beneficial.

The controversy surrounding Doha 3 revealed that, while most countries (and the Taliban) are willing to entertain discussion about a difficult roadmap forward, many are also still insistent: the other side must give something first. Neither Western donor states nor the Taliban’s leadership are likely to bend when it comes to the group’s draconian domestic policies, at least not in the foreseeable future.

These high levels of mistrust require a delicately managed process, in which all sides cautiously inch forward, testing each other, assured that all sides will benefit if they continue to move forward together. Doha 3 illustrated how badly such a process requires an empowered, dedicated individual or office to keep all sides incentivized to do so.

The U.N. is uniquely positioned to provide this sort of leadership; with a growing gap between the approach of donors and regional states, there is no alternative. But is the U.N. itself, as a vulnerable institution increasingly underfunded and under siege, sufficiently incentivized to try and provide that sort of leadership, while under constant criticism?

U.S. national interests are best served through careful, principled engagement with the Taliban.

For its part, Washington should encourage the U.N. to not let the Doha meeting format wither on the vine. In spite of flaws in planning and execution, and the controversy these have drawn, the international coordination these meetings seek to build remains vital. U.S. national interests are best served through careful, principled engagement with the Taliban: the counterterrorism threat in the region remains critical and cannot be wished away, and the Afghan people’s dire economic conditions and food insecurity threaten regional stability (even Europe, through transnational migration).Doha 3 made clear that the current meeting format, and how it is facilitated, requires some structural change. Change would ideally come in the form of the U.N. appointing a dedicated official to manage this complex process, but as noted above, the Taliban are fiercely opposed to the idea, deeming it a downgrading measure meant for conflict-riddled countries. If such an appointment proves impossible, creative solutions — such as empowering the U.N. mission based in Afghanistan to facilitate some of this process, and more robust coordination between donors seeking to transition from emergency aid to sustainable development — should be pursued.
What’s Next for the U.N.’s Doha Process on Afghanistan?
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The Fate of the Village Councils: The Emirate’s effort to institute hegemony over rural Afghanistan

June 28, 2024

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team

Afghanistan Analysts Network

Afghanistan’s Community Development Councils (CDCs), which were established under the Islamic Republic by the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) and its successor Citizen’s Charter, have been abolished by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Government bodies have been told to coordinate economic projects with ulema councils instead. Afghanistan, however, has a longstanding tradition of grassroots, collective, decision-making and problem-solving bodies called shuras or village councils that long predate the CDCs. These shuras have played a crucial role in village life, praised, for example, by the late anthropologist Louis Dupree, for carrying “the country safely over its post-1933 internal power crises.” AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and the AAN team interviewed villagers across Afghanistan between November 2022 and June 2024 to learn how their shuras had fared under IEA rule. Many interviewees reported that even before the ban, their shuras had become non or barely functional, ignored by a government which prefers to work with village heads, often ones it has handpicked.

A Community Development Council (CDC) meeting in Herat province. Source: National Solidarity Programme/Flickr, 15 November 2010

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or on the download button below.

The picture that emerged from our research was of the slow demise of village councils/CDCs (interviewees tended to use the terms interchangeably) since the Islamic Emirate returned to power. It has preferred to work with individuals or groups, either head men (maleks or arbabs) or ulema councils, which, in general, it had appointed or at least approved.

Even before Amir Hibatullah Akhundzada’s May 2024 abolishment of the CDCs, the Emirate’s intentions had been discernible in the way it had diminished and marginalised the councils, in many cases, rendering them inactive. In addition, very few shuras had managed to keep their female members -–both the NSP and Citizens Charter programmes had mandated the equal participation of women in the CDCs. However, more than half of our interviewees rued this loss, if only for practical reasons, such as the shura’s inability to ascertain and address issues concerning women in the community.

The letter abolishing CDCs also indicated that future delivery of aid would have to be coordinated with ulema councils. NGOs, the World Bank and United Nations agencies, which have premised their work on working with CDCs, may now face problems. The relationship between the Emirate and the aid industry was already fraught. Navigating this latest blow to what many aid actors had considered a mechanism for ensuring equitable, local aid distribution will take some careful footwork.

Over the past century, shuras have undergone many changes, but one thing has remained a constant– they have always been a bridge between the community and external players – shielding, negotiating and trying to get resources. The Emirate’s move to abolish the shuras in favour of state-appointed or approved head men or ulema councils points to a redrawing of local-level power dynamics.

Whether this is a final nail in the coffin of Afghanistan’s village councils does, however, seem unlikely. In rural Afghanistan, shuras have survived the test of time because of their centrality to village life. They did not begin with the Soviet occupation or the Islamic Republic and it is highly questionable whether they will cease to exist with the IEA’s order to abolish them.

Whatever the future brings, if history is any indication, shuras will re-emerge as an integral part of Afghanistan’s social fabric as key local self-organised and self-governing structures. Once the initial jolt of the Amir’s ban has faded, we may see village shuras, as before, reinventing themselves under a new banner and perhaps with redefined horizons.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark 

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the download button below.

2024-Village-councils-FinalDownload

 

The Fate of the Village Councils: The Emirate’s effort to institute hegemony over rural Afghanistan
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Let Afghan women join the UN talks next week. It’s what the Taliban fear most

June 28, 2024

The Guardian

Since it became clear that the Taliban will be the only Afghan voices at the table and women’s rights will not officially be on the agenda at the UN meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, I have received thousands of messages from women inside and outside the country expressing their deep despair, shock and disappointment.

There is increasing concern about the tone that the international community – especially the UN mission in Afghanistan, Unama – have adopted to normalise the human rights violations in Afghanistan in an effort to secure the Taliban’s participation in the Doha talks.

The agenda for next week’s meeting will focus on counter-narcotics and the private sector, two peripheral issues chosen to ensure Taliban participation by putting nothing more contentious on the table.

This means the conference will ignore the fundamental issues of holding the Taliban accountable for their unprecedented violations of the basic rights of Afghan women and girls to have education, employment and active participation in society.

On Wednesday, in response to the outpouring of criticism, UN undersecretary-general Rosemary DiCarlo said that Afghan women’s rights, among other key issues, will be raised in every meeting with the Taliban. She conveniently ignored the fact that the whole world, including Islamic scholars, have been raising the same issues with the Taliban for more than three years to no avail, while the the group continues to impose more bans and restrictions on the women of Afghanistan with impunity.

The agenda also clearly contradicts the UN’s own charter and the security council resolutions 1325 and 2721, which call on the UN secretary general to appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan and to ensure participation of all sides, especially Afghan women’s groups.

It also disregards the lack of a legal framework and an inclusive and accountable governing system that ensures participation of all sides. Without a resolution to these two key issues, Afghanistan will never cease to be the centre of narcotics production and drug trafficking, nor will the country’s private sector develop without full participation of women – the two items on the UN’s agenda. According to the UN’s own assessment, the Taliban bar on women’s employment is costing the Afghan economy more than $1bn a year.

If Unama and others in the international community see the Taliban as the only reality for Afghanistan, they need to look at our history. Millions of Afghans risked life and limb to cast their votes in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections, despite threats, fraud and irregularities. They believed in the democratic values and principles which the international community propagated to them for more than 20 years.

Yet Afghans today are bewildered that the same international community which championed free elections and women’s rights is willing to compromise its own moral values to cave in to an extremist ideological group. A group that represents a ruling armed clerical regime which has established gender-apartheid in Afghanistan and directed the subjugation of more than 20 million women and girls into an abyss of hopelessness.

Given the moral collapse of the international community when it comes to upholding their own values for human rights, women’s rights, and equality for all, most Afghans feel there is no chance of a fair and transparent intervention by global bodies such as the UN to seek a reasonable and durable solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.

They question the international community’s commitment to women’s rights when their own fundamental rights were so easily bartered in exchange for geopolitical convenience during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Two rows of bearded men sit at a conference table.
Shutting Afghan women out of key UN conference to appease Taliban ‘a betrayal’

Taliban members, who came to power with guns, can hold on to power through violence but will never subdue the will of a nation which has never been colonised. Our people, men and women, need education, employment and the prospect of liberty for achieving their dreams in order to realise their full potential. And if the Taliban hope that by sticking to their gender-apartheid vision and forcing the morally compromised internationally community to grant them some level of recognition, will help them achieve their aims they are also wrong.

It is the Taliban who launched their war on the women of our country. Women are half of our population, and the country cannot move forward without full participation of Afghan women, incorporation of the magnificent diversity of our country, and the incredible talent and potential of our youth who are now fleeing Afghanistan because they do not see any future under Taliban rule.

The Taliban have silenced women’s voices inside the country using violence and torture. And by excluding women’s participation at the Doha meeting, the UN and others in the international community have enabled the Taliban to try to silence our voices outside Afghanistan, too.

If the international community and the UN want to be useful, let the women of Afghanistan directly talk to the Taliban. This is something that the leaders of the gender-apartheid regime fear the most.

  • Fawzia Koofi is a politician and women’s rights activist who was the first woman vice-president of the Afghan parliament and chair of its women’s affairs and human rights commission.

Let Afghan women join the UN talks next week. It’s what the Taliban fear most
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Women’s rights will be raised at the UN meeting being attended by Taliban, UN official says

June 28, 2024

By Richard Bennett

Mr. Bennett is the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.

The New York Times

June 28, 2024

In May 2022, nine months after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, I visited a girls’ secondary school that was still open in the north in spite of a ban on education for girls above sixth grade. Communities in the area, which has a long history of valuing education, had refused to comply. I met with a group of 11th-grade math students who told me about their hopes for the future. “I don’t want to end up trapped at home and condemned to a domestic life,” one female student told me. “I want to finish school and become a teacher so that I can help my family and others.”

I ended that visit to Afghanistan with hope that perhaps the situation would not become as dire as I — and many Afghans — feared. But when I returned a year later, everything had changed. The school was closed. Instead of attending lessons, the student and her classmates were forced to stay at home, their teachers transferred to a primary school. Now, among the many other challenges facing girls and women under the Taliban’s rule, a mental health crisis has gripped the country. Girls report anxiety, depression and hopelessness, and there have been reports showing an alarming surge in suicides.

It is against this backdrop that the United Nations will convene a third meeting of international special envoys in Doha, Qatar, next week to discuss a political path forward for Afghanistan. The Taliban have accepted the U.N.’s invitation to join. (They declined to attend February’s meeting.) After discussions with the Taliban, the meeting’s agenda will focus on fighting narcotics and helping the private sector — and does not include human rights or women’s issues, and neither women nor Afghan civil society representatives will be included.

If these exclusions are the price of the Taliban’s presence in Doha, the cost is too high.

When the Taliban retook power in August 2021, its leaders initially said that education for girls above the sixth grade would be suspended until conditions were suitable under Islamic rules. Now, more than 1,000 days later, school remains off limits for girls older than 12, and restrictions on education have expanded to universities. The Taliban now say education is “an internal matter,” and it remains unclear when — or if — schools will reopen to girls.

Denial of education is just one of many Taliban decrees against women. Female civil servants were instructed not to report to work when the Taliban retook power. Women are now barred from working at nongovernmental organizations and humanitarian agencies, including the United Nations. Some female-owned businesses, like beauty salons, have been shuttered. Women and girls need to be accompanied by a male relative to travel.

The net result is that today, women and girls have been virtually erased from public life, deprived of their most basic rights. Afghan women began describing the Taliban’s policies as gender apartheid in the 1990s, and they and many others, including me, want such policies to be criminalized under international law.

The Taliban’s institutionalized oppression is devastating not only for the current generation of Afghan women and girls. If left unchecked, it will inflict irreparable harm on future generations of Afghans as well. Boys, raised in a system that legitimizes the dehumanization of women and girls, may follow their leaders’ example and continue to treat women badly, and they are vulnerable to radicalization, sowing seeds for security concerns that extend beyond Afghanistan’s borders. The crippling gender policies and their violent enforcement are also severely depriving L.G.B.T.Q. people of their fundamental rights.

Despite all of this, Afghan women and girls are pushing back. Some have protested in the streets to demand the restoration of their rights, risking arrest, detention and violence. In the face of shuttered schools, girls with access to the internet, who are a minority, are taking classes in English, math and science, and female entrepreneurs are moving online, finding creative ways to circumvent restrictions on their movement. “We did not create the Taliban, but we are the ones who have to live with them in control,” one woman told me. “There is no other choice than to find ways to survive and learn.”

It would be easy to leave these women to carry on their struggle alone, citing the excuse that the international community has done enough damage in Afghanistan and should stay out of the nation’s affairs. But that would be a grave disservice both to those women and girls showing defiance and to many others who do not have the economic capacity to fight back. We have an obligation to meet their bravery with increased protection, support and solidarity.

The focus on politically neutral topics at the upcoming meeting in Doha was designed to entice the Taliban to the table. A formal discussion of human rights will be missing, despite the fact that Afghans who disagree with the Taliban’s ideology have made clear that respect for human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, must be a prerequisite for any engagement with the Taliban. This is happening despite the fact that an independent assessment requested by the Security Council last year advised any road map for Afghanistan’s reintegration into the international community should include measurable improvements in human rights.

Afghanistan has suffered more than four decades of conflict and had a questionable human rights record during the 20 years of the Islamic republic. But since retaking power, the Taliban has not only attacked the rights of women and girls; they have been responsible for wide-ranging violations and abuses — including killings, disappearances and arbitrary detentions — as well as a campaign of retaliation against former enemies, despite their claim of an amnesty. People from minority communities are especially at risk.

Also conspicuously absent at the main Doha meeting will be any representation of non-Taliban Afghans. Though some civil society and women’s groups will be included in meetings on the sidelines, this representation appears to have come only after significant external pressure, but it should have been baked in from the beginning. This is not the first time non-Taliban Afghans have been sidelined from political discussions, though history has repeatedly shown that failure to include all Afghans in political processes undermines their credibility and sustainability.

The Taliban are not recognized by the United Nations as a government and should not be treated as such. They must not be allowed to use the threat of backing out of the talks to dictate the terms of this conference or any future international process. It is a mistake to measure the success of this meeting by whether the Taliban show up.

The bravery, dignity and perseverance of millions of Afghans in the face of such gross injustice must be matched by strong, principled and effective international leadership. Afghan women and girls have often said to me that their greatest fear used to be that the Taliban would return to power. Now they say that they fear the Taliban will be recognized simply because of their power, in disregard of their cruel policies and practices.

The international community must insist on reversing the restriction of Afghan women’s and girls’ rights, on women’s meaningful participation in decision making and on accountability. Having these issues explicitly on the agenda in Doha would still be an important first step.

Richard Bennett was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council as special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan in April 2022. He was the head of the human rights component of the U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan and a long-term adviser to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission beginning in 2003.

Women’s rights will be raised at the UN meeting being attended by Taliban, UN official says
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How to Support Female Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan

June 26, 2024
BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Afsana Rahimi
United States Institute of Peace

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Potential areas of cooperation between the Taliban and the international community, such as private sector development and alternative livelihoods to now-banned opium poppy cultivation, will be on the agenda at a meeting of international envoys for Afghanistan hosted by the United Nations in Doha from June 30 to July 1. Discussions on women’s rights are not included, as the Taliban consider it an internal matter. This is ironic, given that the private sector is one area where the Taliban allow limited women’s participation.
As envoys discuss normalizing relations with the Taliban while respecting human rights, it’s important to consider if women benefit from private sector development and how it can empower them. Despite claimed support for women in the private sector, the Taliban’s approach lacks essential elements for genuine economic empowerment.

Exclusion of Women a Drain on Afghanistan’s Economy

Excluding women from education, public spaces and employment severely hampers the Afghan economy. Sustainable prosperity is unattainable without the contributions of half the population. Banning women from education beyond sixth grade cuts the qualified labor force by half, and further restrictions on educated women limit the country’s productive capacity even more.

Studies have shown that gender inequality in the workforce can have a substantial negative impact on a nation’s gross domestic product. The World Bank estimates that gender inequality in earnings alone costs the global economy $160 trillion. A 2024 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report concluded that restrictions on women’s rights and employment are significantly hampering economic recovery in Afghanistan. The report notes women’s participation in the workforce dropped dramatically — from 11% in 2022 to just 6% in 2023 — as a consequence of restrictions placed on them by the Taliban.

While the Taliban ostensibly support women working in the private sector, the gender segregation enforced by the Taliban poses a significant obstacle to women’s businesses and their employment in the private sector. Female entrepreneurs are encountering significant obstacles in acquiring or renewing their business licenses under the Taliban’s rule. Moreover, a significant number of established, professional and trained female entrepreneurs have left the country due to the Taliban’s restrictive policies and the ban on education.

In Afghanistan, women have historically played an important role in running businesses and creating jobs for both women and men.

In Afghanistan, women have historically played an important role in running businesses and creating jobs for both women and men. As more and more men took up arms after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, women were compelled to become the primary breadwinners for their families. More women started entering the workforce and pursuing educational opportunities. Many women in both urban and rural communities turned to income-generating activities, establishing micro and small businesses. Women in rural areas have long been involved in dairy production, the clothing industry, embroidery, food processing and handicrafts. In these communities, education and professional expertise in entrepreneurship were not necessarily prerequisites for success, as marketing and the financial aspects of the businesses were handled by male family members.In a survey conducted in 2020, the Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industries (AWCCI) identified 2,471 formal businesses owned by women across 32 provinces, excluding Nuristan and Paktika. Formal businesses are defined as those that have acquired a license from the Ministry of Commerce and Industries. Additionally, there were 56,000 informal women-owned businesses. The survey found that all together these businesses had created over 130,000 jobs.

The AWCCI’s initiatives have played a crucial role in empowering female entrepreneurs and supporting inclusive job creation, demonstrating the substantial impact of targeted investment in women’s economic activities. In 2017, the year the AWCCI was established, the total amount of investment by businesswomen was estimated at $87 million. The chamber connected Afghan women to regional and global platforms. By 2020, the investment by businesswomen had increased to $90 million.

Prior to the Taliban taking power in 2021, women-owned businesses included a diverse range of products and services, from carpet weaving to construction, as well as nontraditional businesses such as media outlets, technology, agribusinesses and import and export. With technical and financial support from donor agencies and land provided by the government, women-only markets were constructed in 13 provinces. Women-owned kiosks and fast-food restaurants in parks were also dedicated to women and families.

Afghan women participated in domestic trade fairs across multiple provinces. They successfully entered the global market, showcasing their products at regional and international trade fairs in countries such as India, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates, expanding their market reach and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Life for Women under the Taliban

Since 2021, the Taliban have issued decrees severely restricting women’s employment opportunities, undermining genuine economic empowerment. The UNDP’s April 2024 report highlights significant barriers for female entrepreneurs and employees, including limited market access, reduced mobility, regulatory restrictions and discrimination. Many women-owned businesses face challenges such as reduced customers and logistical issues.

The Taliban’s restrictions disrupt social networks, increase isolation and stress and erode women’s sense of identity and purpose.

These restrictions disrupt social networks, increase isolation and stress and erode women’s sense of identity and purpose. They cause profound emotional and psychological impacts, including feelings of hopelessness, diminished self-esteem, anxiety and depression among women. The ban on girls’ education above sixth grade limits educational opportunities and stifles aspirations, leading to long-term detrimental effects on women’s mental health, confidence and overall well-being.A female entrepreneur in western Afghanistan who owns a small business told us her monthly income dropped from $2,000 to zero. Another business owner noted the country’s rapid decline into poverty and famine. “The situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly,” said this person, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Intellectuals [are] fleeing and the economy collapsing. The authorities are exacerbating the crisis by imposing excessive taxes and coercing people to contribute more, even going as far as shutting down some businesses and enterprises.”

Despite the Taliban’s apparent support for trade fairs, female entrepreneurs face significant challenges. Restrictions on attendance to women who lack the financial means to purchase goods reduce the fairs’ profitability for female entrepreneurs. Some women have turned to online businesses or WhatsApp groups to promote their products, but these efforts are limited compared to men’s access to investors and buyers. This glaring disparity highlights women’s ongoing challenges in accessing markets and financial support.

Additionally, female laborers in the private sector face severe restrictions. In December 2023, for example, the Taliban ordered pine nut processing factories in Paktia province to terminate the jobs of female laborers, affecting several hundred women. In January, a similar order in Nangarhar province led to the dismissal of around 300 women from a pine nut processing factory. These policies target and undermine women’s workforce participation, exacerbating economic hardships and impeding their ability to sustain livelihoods.

Exodus of Female Entrepreneurs Impacts Economic Stability and Growth

A significant number of established, professional and trained female entrepreneurs have left Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s restrictive policies, especially the ban on education for women. They have been forced to seek refuge or migrate to other countries to secure educational opportunities for their daughters. This exodus has caused a brain drain, depriving the nation of skilled female entrepreneurs and leaving those who remain without the necessary resources and support to run successful businesses. The restrictive environment further stifles innovation and growth, leading to a decline in the quality and sustainability of women-owned businesses.

“For 15 years, I proudly owned and operated a successful business, offering employment opportunities to over 100 women and men,” said a former business owner who was forced to leave Afghanistan in search of better opportunities. “I now find myself displaced in a foreign land, grappling with the challenges of starting anew. I chose to leave everything behind so that my daughters could pursue their education,” she added. Her story highlights the broader issue of economic resilience and potential being diminished by the loss of entrepreneurial leaders.

The lack of role models and mentors discourages new female entrepreneurs, undermining economic diversity and stability and reversing progress in women’s economic empowerment.

Conclusion and Recommendations

A stronger economy is a shared interest among the Taliban, the Afghan people and the international community, but it is also a battleground for gender discrimination against women, a critical aspect that needs full consideration in the Doha discussions. Women have historically participated in the economy, providing practical benefits. Despite the Taliban’s claims of supporting women in economic roles, their actions contradict this by restricting opportunities in both public and private sectors. These include bans on public sector employment, wage reductions and restrictions on hair salons, gyms and public baths, as well as licensing and capital requirements. Indirect social constraints like mahram rules and potential future education bans further limit women’s economic prospects. The international community must ensure that development aid does not discriminate against women or become inefficient due to their exclusion.

The international community must ensure that development aid does not discriminate against women or become inefficient due to their exclusion.

In Doha, meeting participants will discuss ways to implement the recommendations of the U.N. special coordinator of the independent assessment mandated by United Nations Security Resolution 2679 (2023) in January. The report noted: “adherence to principles of non-discrimination and inclusion, respect for women’s rights and efforts towards their meaningful participation and respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of all Afghans should be ensured and advanced.” In Doha, participants should also consider the following recommendations:

  • Ensure Afghan women have unrestricted access to domestic and global markets: The Taliban must allow Afghan women full access to both domestic and international markets by lifting all existing restrictions. This will enable women to participate freely in economic activities, helping Afghanistan to utilize its full workforce potential, stimulate economic growth and improve societal well-being.
  • Provide safe spaces and opportunities for capacity building for female entrepreneurs: Capacity building for female entrepreneurs is impossible without safe environments. The Taliban must stop intruding on and disrupting training efforts, ensuring that women can develop their skills and businesses without fear. Creating secure spaces for learning and growth is essential for empowering women and fostering economic development. Empowerment activities should focus on enhancing skills related to entrepreneurship, leadership, financial literacy and technology.
  • Establish comprehensive benchmarks to measure contributions of female entrepreneurs: Donor communities should establish comprehensive benchmarks to evaluate the economic growth and contributions of female entrepreneurs. This involves setting clear metrics and conducting regular evaluations to monitor progress. By systematically tracking the performance of women-led businesses, donor communities can identify areas for improvement and provide targeted support.
  • Ensure women’s participation and empowerment in humanitarian aid and private sector development: Donor communities should benchmark humanitarian assistance to ensure it promotes both the rights of women to participate in the assisted sectors and tangible increases in women’s actual participation in the private sector. This involves setting clear criteria for evaluating how well aid initiatives support women’s inclusion and empowerment. By systematically measuring and tracking women’s engagement in these sectors, donors can ensure their assistance is reaching women.
  • Empower women by giving them comprehensive access to macro-finance and global markets: Institutions like the World Bank, alongside Islamic microfinance initiatives, must ensure Afghan women have access to macro-finance and global markets. This goal demands robust, long-term strategies and unwavering political commitment. Without such measures, current support systems will only address women’s immediate needs, falling short of fostering sustainable economic independence and growth.

Afsana Rahimi is the chairperson of the Afghanistan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the vice chairperson of the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce. She is also the co-founder of Global Afghan Women Trade Caravan and senior vice president of the Afghanistan Business Council–USA.

How to Support Female Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan
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As Taliban Poppy Ban Continues, Afghan Poverty Deepens

June 24, 2024
BY: William Byrd, Ph.D.
United States Institute of Peace

Thursday, June 20, 2024

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The ban on opium cultivation is working but failing to curb exports as landowners liquidate inventories.
  • The ban is unsustainable and could trigger political tensions, even armed conflict.
  • U.S. and other donors must be clear-eyed, tailoring responses and programs to on-ground realities.

Afghanistan, historically the leading source of the world’s illegal opium, is on-track for an unprecedented second year of dramatically reduced poppy cultivation, reflecting the Taliban regime’s continuing prohibition against growing the raw material for opiates. The crackdown has won plaudits in international circles, but its full implications call for clear-eyed analysis and well considered responses by the U.S. and others. The ban has deepened the poverty of millions of rural Afghans who depended on the crop for their livelihoods, yet done nothing to diminish opiate exports, as wealthier landowners sell off inventories. The unfortunate reality is that any aid mobilized to offset harm from the ban will be grossly insufficient and ultimately wasted unless it fosters broad-based rural and agricultural development that benefits the most affected poorer households.

The U.S. and other governments and agencies, who will be discussing counter-narcotics and livelihoods at the U.N.-hosted international meeting in Doha at the end of this month, must face the facts about the ban:

  • It is not sustainable. There is no sign of a shift to cash crops, horticulture, livestock and non-farm activities that could replace opium, and the Afghan economy is too weak to generate significant numbers of other jobs.
  • Enforcement will prove increasingly difficult as landed interests start to suffer from the ban and pressures intensify to resume cultivation.
  • Political tensions with local interests and possibly within the Taliban are likely to grow, perhaps leading to violent conflict beyond what the protests already seen.
  •  So-called alternative livelihoods projects have not worked in the past and will be of little help in mitigating the adverse effects of the poppy ban, let alone creating a sustainable path away from dependence on opium production.

International actors need to ensure that their policy recommendations, and in particular proposed financial support, if any, do not feed into harmful, unsustainable Taliban approaches. They must be sure to avoid inadvertently supporting better-off rural core constituencies of the Taliban, or fueling unrealistic narratives about the success and longer-term prospects of a ban as pressures to resume more poppy cultivation intensify. On the positive side, there may be scope for cooperation with the Taliban on expanding and improving treatment programs for Afghanistan’s numerous drug addicts, and it may be worth exploring the potential for a confluence of interests in strengthening interdiction efforts to curb opiate processing and exports.

An Unprecedented Second Year of Success Against Poppy Cultivation

The Taliban’s comprehensive ban against opium cultivation, production, processing and trade, announced by their emir in April 2022, achieved a more than 85 percent reduction in the total national area of poppy cultivation in the 2022-2023 growing season, predominantly by deterring farmers from planting the crop. All in all, households with an estimate of almost 7 million people were prevented from cultivating opium poppy in that season.

International actors need to ensure that their policy recommendations, and in particular proposed financial support, do not feed into harmful, unsustainable Taliban approaches.

Vigorous enforcement of the ban has continued in the 2023-2024 growing season. The national picture will not be complete until satellite imagery for Badakhshan province and other higher-altitude, late-harvesting areas becomes available, but all indications point to an unprecedented second year of very low opium poppy cultivation. Indeed, the national figure quite possibly could be below last year’s level of 31,000 hectares — the most accurate estimate of the 2023 poppy harvest based on an analysis of satellite imagery for all agricultural land in the country by the geospatial firm Alcis. This compares with national cultivation typically exceeding 200,000 hectares during the previous decade.As in past successful Afghan poppy bans at regional and national levels, these massive reductions were achieved predominantly by discouraging farmers from planting opium poppy through pressure and threats reinforced by small amounts of eradication, as well as occasional action by law enforcement against poppy farmers. The general pattern in 2023-2024 is no different, characterized by special efforts to deter planting in areas where some cultivation had remained in 2022-2023, for example remote areas of Nangarhar that had resisted the ban in the previous year.

The glaring exception again appears to be Badakhshan province, which had largely escaped the ban and saw a significant increase in poppy cultivation in 2022-2023. Large-scale planting has occurred in Badakhshan in 2023-2024 despite some efforts to deter it. Eradication activities appear to have been limited and sparked open resistance, including violent protests by farmers and perhaps an IED attack on a Taliban convoy traveling to an eradication site. But even if there is a second year of expanding poppy cultivation in Badakhshan, this would not detract from the low overall national cultivation.

Unlike the first Taliban opium ban in the year 2000 which applied only to poppy cultivation, the current ban encompasses all stages of illicit narcotics production including trade, processing and exports. Earlier there were some signs that the Taliban might be serious about seeking to curtail the trade beyond the cultivation stage. However, available evidence suggests that trade, processing and exports are continuing at high levels, fueled by landowners and others selling off their accumulated inventories of opium cultivated in the past.

Analysis by David Mansfield indicates that such inventories, left over from bumper harvests in 2022, 2021 and earlier, can support the overall trade in opiates for several years when combined with ongoing opium production in Badakhshan. Indeed, high prices triggered by the ban mean that landowners and others holding opium inventories have accrued large capital gains and can comfortably support pre-ban income levels with gradual sales. Concentrated in the south and southwest, these landowners are happy with the ban (as long as their inventories last) and comprise a core constituency of the Taliban.

But the Ban is Harmful for Large Numbers of Poor Afghans, and Unsustainable

The story for poorer rural households is very different. With no or limited land, they depended on opium to make ends meet — through sharecropping, tenancy and wage labor — and benefited from the buoyant rural economy engendered by high levels of poppy cultivation and its demand for workers.

This large segment of the rural population has been suffering greatly from the ban and is bitterly opposed to it, a sentiment which often spills over into negative views toward the Taliban more generally. Given Afghanistan’s economic weakness and limited prospects for recovery let alone robust growth, the poppy cultivation ban is akin to an additional humanitarian shock from an approximately $1 billion loss of income annually for this part of the population.

These households are trying to cope with the shock the opium ban has dealt their incomes and livelihoods, but unfortunately have to do so in counterproductive short- and long-term ways. Like poor households generally, common coping mechanisms include selling off remaining assets such as livestock, eating less and lower-quality food, foregoing healthcare and pulling children out of secondary school. Moreover, outmigration by family members to seek work abroad (ultimately in Europe) and send back remittances becomes an increasingly attractive option for those who can afford the cost, despite the associated risks.

While outmigration and remittances are good for the involved households and the Afghan economy, they give rise to tensions with neighboring countries and potentially European ones. Overall, the medium-term economic prospects for previously opium-dependent poor rural households are dim in the face of the general weakness of the Afghan economy and its limited growth potential. As long as the ban continues, their few remaining assets and coping mechanisms will be increasingly exhausted, making a recovery later all the more difficult.

Big-picture, replacing poppy cultivation with wheat — the common pattern in the past — is not a sustainable way forward. In the 2022-2023 growing season, for example, satellite imagery for Helmand — by far Afghanistan’s largest poppy cultivating province pre-ban — shows that virtually all of the massive 99 percent decline in poppy cultivation was replaced by sharply higher wheat growing as well as more land apparently left fallow. Primary reliance on wheat, a relatively low-value, low-labor and water-intensive crop, cannot support the country’s large rural population.

The well-known sustainable path away from dependence on opium involves high-value cash crops, labor-intensive horticulture, livestock and buoyant non-farm activities.

The well-known sustainable path away from dependence on opium involves high-value cash crops, labor-intensive horticulture, livestock and buoyant non-farm activities in rural areas, with wheat part of the picture but by no means dominant as it is now. If the predominance of wheat continues in 2024, it will further underscore the lack of sustainability of the poppy ban, though one advantage of wheat for cultivators is that it is easy to shift back to poppy at some point in the future.

What Donors Can and Should (and Should Not) Do

The U.S. and other foreign governments and agencies must be clear-eyed about the ban:

  • First, it is not sustainable over the longer term, there being no sign of a shift to the activities that could replace opium in rural livelihoods, and with the Afghan economy too weak to generate large numbers of jobs in other sectors. The prognosis, therefore, is for continuing, indeed deepening rural poverty and deprivation as the ban continues to unfold.
  • Second, it will prove increasingly difficult to fully enforce the ban as landed interests deplete their inventories and start to suffer, increasing pressures to resume cultivation, particularly if the anomaly of substantial poppy cultivation in Badakhshan continues. Thus, a return to significant levels of poppy growing seems likely in the next couple of years.
  • Third, it is likely to give rise to intensifying political tensions between the Taliban leadership and local interests, as well as possibly within the Taliban, potentially even leading to violent conflict. Small examples of this have already been seen in Badakhshan and Nangarhar provinces.
  • Fourth, “alternative livelihoods projects” — the default donor response in the past — have not worked and will be of little help in mitigating the adverse effects of the poppy ban let alone forging a sustainable path away from dependence on opium production. What is needed instead is broad-based rural development and robust economic growth, the prospects for which are dim in the near future.

Facing this reality, expectations must be kept modest for how much U.S. and other foreign donors can mitigate the effects of the poppy ban through their interventions and financial support. Offsetting the humanitarian shock caused by the ban would require well over a billion dollars a year given administrative overhead and other extra costs, a figure no one could possibly expect would be met, and in any case that would provide only a temporary band-aid. Even hundreds of millions of dollars of well-targeted development aid would not offset the headwinds facing Afghanistan’s rural economy, let alone reverse the economic damage from the opium ban. So, any financial support that donors may consider will at best have only a marginal impact.

Moreover, it would be only too easy to squander limited aid funds on alternative livelihoods projects that will not make a difference or even worse, would be counterproductive.

For example, distributing agricultural inputs, especially for staples like wheat, to farmers according to their landholdings would not help the poorer households that have suffered the most from the ban, and would foster unsustainable cropping patterns that easily could be reversed if poppy cultivation is resumed. And if aid is targeted at the provinces that have reduced poppy cultivation the most (notably Helmand and other nearby provinces in the southwest), and furthermore is distributed to landowners, it would end up supporting a core constituency of the Taliban that has already benefitted greatly from the ban as a result of capital gains on their opium inventories.

Any aid mobilized should foster broad-based rural and agricultural development and should be targeted at activities that will benefit the poorer rural households.

Any aid mobilized in response to the Taliban’s opium ban should foster broad-based rural and agricultural development and should be targeted at activities that will benefit the poorer rural households most affected by the ban. Examples include small livestock, horticulture and labor-intensive non-agricultural activities. But it must be recognized that realistic levels of rural development aid will only have a marginal effect and will not come anywhere near to offsetting the impact of the poppy ban.On a more positive note, there may be a confluence of interests with the Taliban on expanding and improving treatment programs for the numerous problem drug users in Afghanistan, representing a serious public health problem the authorities are well aware of and are trying to do something about. It may also be worth exploring possible common interests in stronger interdiction efforts against processing and exports of opiates, in cooperation with neighboring countries. But going after the opium inventories held by landowners and other elites — probably the most effective way of cracking down on post-cultivation stages of the trade — most likely would be a nonstarter from the Taliban perspective since it would directly harm the interests of a core constituency of theirs in rural areas of south and southwest Afghanistan.

As Taliban Poppy Ban Continues, Afghan Poverty Deepens
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The Daily Hustle: Eid-e Qurban, a time to reflect and be grateful

June 17, 2024

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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Today is Eid-e Qurban, also known as Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, which marks the most important religious holiday in Islam. On this day, Afghans, across the country will sacrifice cows or sheep in remembrance of the Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael in submission to God’s command and of the lamb which God provided as a substitute sacrifice. However in the current economy, the cost of honouring this important religious tradition is more than some cash-strapped Afghan families can bear. In this Daily Hustle, AAN’s Ali Mohammad Sabawoon spoke to one Afghan man who is unable to afford the ritual sacrifice for the third year running, but is, nevertheless, mindful of the Eid’s true meaning – reflecting on the life you have and thanking God for the bounties he has given you.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network wishes a joyful Eid-e Qurban to all its friends and readers and to all the people of Afghanistan.

A tradition dating back to Abraham

In the old days, I used to buy a sheep to sacrifice for Eid-e Qurban every year. Those days now seem like a lifetime ago, even though it’s only been three years since my fortunes changed.

I used to have a good government job with a good salary. Back then, my family and I shared the house we inherited from our father with my brothers and their families. I didn’t have rent to pay and my salary was enough to provide for my family. There was money for new clothes for all the Eids, new school bags and uniforms at the start of the school year, new clothes and chaplaqs (sandals) for the summer and winter coats.

Every year, a few days before Eid, my eldest son and I would go to the livestock market on the outskirts of the city to buy a sheep to sacrifice for Eid. It was our special outing. On the drive there, I would tell him the story of Ibrahim and how, in his dreams, he received a command from God to sacrifice his son Ismael to demonstrate his obedience. And how Iblis (the devil) tried to tempt him to disobey and how Ibrahim kept true to his faith and to God. And how, finally, God stopped Ibrahim in the end and sent him a lamb to sacrifice instead of his son. It’s important to me that my children know about our religion, where our traditions come from and what they mean. I knew that when we got home, my son, in turn, would tell the story of Ibrahim and the lamb to my other children as they gathered around the sheep we’d brought home.

On the day of Eid, we’d sacrifice the sheep and distribute the meat – some to the needy, some to our neighbours and some for the family to eat with guests who usually call to bring Eid tidings.

Life changes suddenly

after the fall of the Republic, everything changed. Many of us who had government jobs were afraid of what might happen to us now the Taleban had taken over the country. I stopped going to work and moved with my family to a neighbourhood where no one knew us. I rented a small house for my family, which cost 3,000 afghanis (USD 40) a month, and we started living off our savings. When the money ran out, I sold my share of the family home to my brothers for 170,000 afghanis (USD 2,300). It gave us enough funds to survive for a few more months. But money was tight and we had to be careful. No more new clothes or sandals for the summer. In fact, the only way we were able to manage is because my wife is so good with money. She knows how to economise and make the little money we have stretch to meet our basic needs. I was also looking for a job, but so was everybody else and finding work was more difficult than finding bird’s milk. [The full phrase is shir-e morgh wa jan-e adamizad, which translates as ‘bird’s milk and human life’, and signifies how precious or scarce something is).

A lifeline in the nick of time

I wasn’t having much luck finding work and we’d used up nearly all the money we had. Finally, one day, I answered a call from a number that wasn’t saved on my phone. I’d been receiving quite a few calls from that number but I never answered them because I was worried about who might be calling me. Finally, I decided to answer the phone and see what the caller wanted. It was my old boss. He said I should go back to the ministry, that my bast [grade] had been approved and that I was free to take up my old job again. It was like a miracle. God had heard my prayers and sent me a lifeline just in the nick of time.

So, a few days ago, I went back to the ministry. I was anxious and unsure about what I might find there. But when I arrived and saw so many of my colleagues were also back and working, all the anxiety I felt slipped away and was replaced by a feeling of homecoming. I called my boss and told him I’d arrived, and he instructed me to go to his office. He welcomed me with open arms and told me how happy he was that I was coming back to work. He introduced me to the new colleagues who had joined the department since the start of the Islamic Emirate and took me to Human Resources to sort out my paperwork.

The people at Human Resources said I could start working immediately, but they said that new government had reduced everyone’s salaries and mine would also be reduced by 30 per cent— from 10,000 afghanis (USD 133) to 7,000 (USD 93). Still, I was happy to have a job and a regular income.

Eid, a time to reflect and be grateful

There won’t be enough money for extras. After we pay the rent, there’s only 5,000 afghanis (USD 66) left over for our living expenses. It’s not enough for a family of five. But I know my wife can make it work so we can have a roof over our heads and food on the table. And at least I have a job. I’m better off than most.

So, there’s not going to be a sheep to sacrifice this year. We don’t have enough money for it. A couple of months ago, I had the idea of buying a young lamb to raise for Eid, but it seems everyone had the same idea. The price of lambs had soared to 13,000 afghanis (USD 173) each, almost as much as you’d pay for a full-grown sheep.

This will be the third year we haven’t been able to sacrifice a sheep and the fact that we haven’t been able to fulfil this important religious rite is heavy on my mind. I also worry about the example it sets for our children and also troubled that our traditions might be fading from our lives. My youngest is too young to remember the last time we sacrificed a sheep and celebrated Eid.

This year, there’s no money for the things we need to have on hand to receive guests, if anyone comes calling. No money for dry fruit or sweets and no money for new clothes or presents for the children.

Still, Eid is about more than sacrificing sheep, or buying new clothes or receiving guests. It’s about reflecting on the life you have and thanking God for the bounties he’s given you – the love of your family, good health and a job.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour

The Daily Hustle: Eid-e Qurban, a time to reflect and be grateful
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Khalida Popal: ‘I was accused of wanting to brainwash women to play football’

June 10, 2024

Founder of Afghanistan women’s national team on fearing assassination and fleeing country then aiding 500 players and their families evacuate when the Taliban returned

Guardian
Sat 8 Jun 2024 03.00 EDT

“They tried to silence me,” Khalida Popal says with unflinching clarity as she remembers the moment when, in 2011, she knew she had to leave Afghanistan for ever. As the co-founder of the national women’s football team, and their first captain who had since become the unlikely head of finance at the otherwise all-male Afghanistan federation, Popal’s outspoken defiance made her a target for assassination.

“I faced many challenges, like death threats,” she continues on a mild afternoon in London. “I was always followed and threatened. There was a moment where I saw a gunman coming towards the car I was in so I am thankful for the traffic in Kabul. Usually I was frustrated by the traffic, but that time it saved my life as I managed to jump out of the car and run as fast as I could and hide myself.

“I was lucky I survived. The situation got worse and the police wanted to arrest me. There was so much danger towards me and my family. I put them in a really horrible situation because it’s so dangerous provoking people in an Islamic country. It won’t take long to be stoned or shot. I was accused of being against Islam and wanting to brainwash women to play football.”

Popal was forced into exile and, after a desolate time in refugee centres, she is now a stateless citizen who lives in Denmark. Her gripping and moving new book, written with Suzanne Wrack of the Guardian, also shows how Popal exposed systemic sexual abuse of women in the national team and eventually helped more than 500 people to escape the Taliban and find refuge in different countries. She continues to support many young female Afghan footballers while lambasting Fifa’s failure to offer them recognition or support.

Popal is often described as being fearless in standing up to repression, but she shakes her head. “I was scared,” she says. “I was in shock most of the time. I would receive a phone call from a man saying: ‘I will rape you.’ I was looking around, feeling someone is just behind me, and most of the time I could not tell my parents because I was too scared that their love and protection will stop my work. I was lonely, frustrated, sad and broken. Most nights I was crying into the pillow until I fell asleep.”

Unlike her teammates, Popal was bolstered by parents who encouraged her to speak out and be her true self. “There are many stories of the cost our players paid for playing football,” she says. “One of our teammates was a goalkeeper who had great talent. She was beautiful, amazing, very athletic, and grew up as a refugee in Italy where she learnt football. She came home to Afghanistan and her family was strict. She was playing with us secretly. When the family found out they stopped her.

“Then they took the right away from our friend to go to school and play football. She was imprisoned at home and lost her freedom because her only happiness was school and football. She was forced to get married and so she set herself on fire and burned [to death].”

Despite the trauma, Popal intensified her efforts and a few years later she led the first national women’s team from Afghanistan at a tournament in Pakistan. “That’s one of the most beautiful, amazing moments in our lives,” Popal says, her eyes shining. “When everybody says you’re not worth anything, and you will fail, there is so much pressure. After all our struggles as women, when the national anthem played that’s the most beautiful thing that happened to us. Representing our country when we were told we belonged to the kitchen, that we are whores, was a great achievement. I never played in a World Cup but, to me, that moment felt like winning the World Cup.”

Popal eventually found herself in a position of limited power, developing women’s football, in the national federation. But Keramuudin Karim, the president of the federation, tried to control Popal. Years later she worked with Wrack and the Guardian to reveal how much sexual abuse of players on the national team occurred under Karim’s watch.

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021 and Popal was thrust into even darker terrain. She looks stricken again. “The return of the Taliban came as a shock. I don’t know if we were naive but we trusted the western world which said it will not let the women of Afghanistan face the dark time again. That was the wrong trust.”

Popal was besieged by messages from desperate women begging her to help them escape Afghanistan. “It was never our job, as individuals, to evacuate people. But when the Taliban took over the first thing that came in my mind was: ‘What will happen to our girls? The enemy is out there and they have no protection.’ I was so stressed about the men in the neighbourhood who were against our players’ activism. There was a great risk they will expose to the Taliban what’s happened in the past.

“I remember sitting on the floor of the apartment in Denmark thinking: ‘I have no power.’ And I felt again the guilt because I was the reason they all came to football. And this is how it will finish. They will all get killed. But I’m happy that every time I was about to give up a voice inside said: ‘I do have power as an individual. I can still raise my voice.’ I reached out to people, wrote to them and then groups came together to lobby governments and in a week we managed to get the team out.

“It is now more than 500 [people that Popal has helped to escape Afghanistan]. The first group was 80-something and included the senior women’s national team that is now supported by the government of Australia – where they got evacuated. The youth teams have come to the UK and other European countries, and some went to the US and Canada. Then the families continued coming.”

Popal and her supporters were accused of making “false” claims in the initial evacuation. The BBC alleged that 13 of the female evacuees were not involved with the national or regional teams listed in the documentation. She grimaces now in response: “What was so painful for me was the way a news agency would put my role as someone who played God and said I was the one to pick and choose – ‘You deserve to be alive and you deserve to die.’ I never had that role. I could have just written a post saying: ‘I feel sorry for the women of my country.’ But I went beyond that, even if it’s so risky to do something you have never trained to do. I’ve never trained to evacuate. I’ve never trained how to talk on the phone with a young woman about to kill herself.”

Popal looks at me intently. “I did that during the evacuation because one of our players was too scared. She got a panic attack. When she phoned me on a video call, she had the gun in her hand and I could see it. It was so scary. I couldn’t breathe, seeing what she is trying to do. She said: ‘I’m just sitting by the window and looking outside. The minute the Taliban is on our street, searching houses, I will take my life before they take mine.’

“How do you support someone [in this situation]? I am not a psychologist. I’ve never been trained to tell someone: ‘Don’t do it, don’t give up.’ I don’t care if they played for the national team or what titles they had. All I wanted to do was to get as many women out of the country as possible.”

Did that particular woman escape Afghanistan? “Yes,” Popal exclaims in delight. “Nilab [Mohammadi] is in Australia. She is scoring goals as a top footballer and she is also studying. We have had many conversation because I travel back and forward to Australia. I’m mentoring, supporting through my resources to get them in football, education and work – not only the national team but also our players in Europe and the UK.”

What is Fifa doing to help female footballers from Afghanistan? Popal shrugs. “We are very disappointed. I keep calling on Fifa but they kept ignoring us. They kept silencing us in so many ways. Fifa could do one thing best and that would be recognising this team in diaspora. But they are playing the ball towards the Afghanistan Football Federation, a federation controlled by the Taliban that do not allow women to go to school or get out of their house unaccompanied by a male family member. Where is this hope Fifa has that the Taliban will allow a [women’s] team to represent Afghanistan?”

A Fifa spokesperson said: “The selection of players and teams representing a member association is considered as an internal affair of the member association. Therefore, Fifa does not have the right to officially recognise any team unless it is first recognised by the concerned member association.

“However, ensuring access to football for both female and male players without discrimination and in safety is a key priority for Fifa. Fifa is therefore continuing to monitor the situation very closely and remains in close contact with the Afghan Football Federation and other stakeholders with the aim to promote access to football in Afghanistan. Fifa has also been supporting the evacuation of over 150 Afghan sports persons and human rights defenders at risk in November 2021 and continues its support for this group.”

Has Gianni Infantino, Fifa’s president, given any indication he might meet Popal or her colleagues? “Unfortunately not,” Popal says. “We have sent emails, complaints. I actually filled the form and complained that the Afghan women’s whole football department is vanished, which is against the statutes of Fifa. But our report was not answered. All the players in our men’s national team are not coming from Afghanistan. But they travel and represent Afghanistan. But with our women footballers Fifa is saying to the Taliban: ‘You can do whatever. We’ll support you.’ By staying silent, you support, right?”

Fifa disputes that its leadership ignored the allegations. In 2019 a Fifa spokeswoman told the Guardian: “In early 2018 Fifa was made aware of sexual abuse allegations and immediately began to investigate these serious matters in a way that would ensure, first and foremost, the safety and security of the victims and their families.”

The 37-year-old Popal feels “relief” that her story has finally been told in full in her book. “I always had a fear, like: ‘What if I get shot and my story will be untold?’”

Does she still feel in danger? “There is always risk because I am from Afghanistan and I speak out loud and criticise, and support many young women and girls. Of course there are people who are not happy and want to silence me.”

Popal’s smile is tangled as she admits: “One thing I am very bad at is taking care of myself. But I have found that what makes me happy is being around my girls. Now they are all flourishing in new societies. I’ve never been a mum but, honestly, I feel so good when I meet them in Australia, the UK and Germany. I see them fluently speaking new languages, passing exams, getting their driving licences. This is beautiful.”

 My Beautiful Sisters by Khalida Popal is published on 20 June (John Murray Press, £20). 

Khalida Popal: ‘I was accused of wanting to brainwash women to play football’
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