Concerns for women and the overall state of humanitarian rights in Afghanistan are growing following further legal clampdowns by the Taliban, the UN Security Council heard on Wednesday.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said the country's de facto rulers who have imposed their own interpretation of strict Islamic law have "delivered a period of stability not seen in decades" in Afghanistan, yet the population is at risk of a worsened humanitarian and development crisis as international funding declines.
"The de facto authorities are exacerbating this crisis by policies that focus insufficiently on the real needs of its people and undermine its economic potential," Ms. Otunbayeva said.
Humanitarian response
She noted that the current humanitarian response plan, which requires $3 billion dollars, is only 30 per cent funded.
"There are no indications that significant additional resources will be provided as we approach the final quarter of the year," Ms. Otunbayeva said.
The lack of funding has contributed to the discontinuation of over 200 mobile and static healthcare services this year, and another 171 health facilities are set to close in the next few months.
Furthermore, food rations in communities already experiencing hunger have been cut from 75 to 50 per cent of the required amount and several million vulnerable civilians live in areas where they lack access to safe water.
"The humanitarian crisis will soon become a development crisis, given Afghanistan's quickly growing youth population, an economy that is unable to absorb them and international donors who are reluctant to provide development aid due in large part to restrictions on the movement and activities of half the population," the Special Representative said.
Restrictions on women
Ms. Otunbayeva told Council members Afghanistan is currently ostracised by the international community, noting that the Taliban would not need foreign intervention if they only "unlocked the resourcefulness of their entire population".
In July, at a meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, UN Member States and international organizations met to consider next steps to aid the civilian population in the country.
But, Ms. Otunbayeva told the Council that progress was quickly undermined shortly after the meetings convened as the authorities adopted a "moral oversight law" which placed further restrictions on women.
