Afghanistan must turn to tested development partners: Analysis

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Afghanistan under the Taliban’s fundamentalism is on a rapid path to financial crisis and humanitarian crisis and amid this, the country cannot rely on Pakistan’s politically motivated token gestures or on China’s debt diplomacy which has wreaked economic havoc in Sri Lanka. Instead, the Taliban must negotiate financial assistance from its tested development partners, according to foreign policy analysts.

Afghanistan is itself struggling financially and politically. Under these already dire circumstances, Islamabad cannot salvage its own problems, reported Afghan Diaspora.

China is also a bad choice for Afghanistan to seek help as Beijing’s history of debt-diplomacy is too well known. Neighbour China does not have a record so far to salvage any country from crisis including Pakistan. And China most recently has left Sri Lanka sinking amid an economic crisis. Beijing is mainly driven by its own strategic interests.

Even the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) has also expressed severe concerns over the Taliban’s retrogression to fundamentalism. So the sole option which the Taliban is left with is to turn toward its time-tested partners.

The sorry state of affairs of Afghanistan’s human rights and its economy is not hidden. If the Taliban desires to save its people it must avoid its regression to fundamentalism. Ever since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, there are a series of diktats that blatantly violates human rights, especially in regard to women’s rights.

In December 2021, Deputy Education Minister of Afghanistan Abdul Habim Hemat said in an interview with an international broadcasting agency that girls would not be allowed to attend secondary school until a new education policy was approved.

The Taliban officials insisted on creating a “safe learning environment” for girls in the new education policy but failed to offer any detail in this regard. They have so far not shown any signs to permit girls to go to school.

In May 2022 Taliban rulers announced another order requiring all-female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on air. The Information and Culture Ministry insisted the policy was “final and non-negotiable”.

The political space for women under the Taliban regime has also been curtailed. Soon after the Taliban came to power in August 2021, it dissolved the Afghan Ministry of Women Affairs and replaced it with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which will oversee the implementation of hard-line Islamic rules in the country.

Taliban also directed, in September 2021, all-female government employees to stay at home until Sharia-related procedures are put in place to ensure their safety. Millions of women had voted in the last elections and 89 of 352 members of parliament were female.

Contrary to this, when the Taliban unveiled a 53-member cabinet in September 2021, it did not include any women. In the previous government, there were 13 women ministers and deputy ministers, as per the media portal. (ANI)