Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Kabul discusses the deepening economic crisis. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our Correspondent’s name. The text has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.
The International Rescue Committee has urged the United States and Europe to address Afghanistan’s economic crisis as soon as possible so that people can meet their basic needs.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the country has faced economic, social, and political challenges. Since then, thousands of international and domestic companies have left the country and others were forced to close-out. During the past six months almost 23 million people out of roughly 35 million are unable to meet their basic needs.
Food prices in Afghanistan have risen dramatically since August, the banking sector is on the verge of collapse, and the United States has frozen some $9 billion in Afghan funds and assets that remained with the Federal Reserve Bank after senior officials, including the president and central bank acting governor fled Afghanistan. Recently, President Biden announced that these assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan would be used to finance the needs of the country facing a humanitarian disaster and to compensate 9/11 victims. This news prompted a big reaction by Afghans around the globe, as well as by the Taliban-led Central Bank. The Central Bank said in a statement that the frozen assets are the property of Afghans and they would not allow the US to use it for any other purpose.
Additionally, money services providers protested in most of the country’s provinces following the allocation of half of Afghanistan’s frozen money to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. They say the 9/11 attacks have nothing to do with the Afghan people. None of the attackers were Afghans and no Afghan was in the team when Al-Qaeda were planning the attacks. However, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the Taliban had/have close ties with the Al-Qaeda network back in the 1990s and even now.
The situation on the ground remains more uncertain than ever. Europe and the US have primarily aimed their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan on the basis of the Taliban’s actions improving human rights. However, it seems that the Taliban-led government has not even tried to bother itself improving human rights and convince the US and Europe to send more economic aid. This has only deepened the economic crisis.
