Afghanistan faces mounting challenges five years after the Taliban returned to power, with restrictions on women’s rights, growing humanitarian needs and economic fragility threatening the country’s stability, a senior UN official warned Friday.
“Last August marks five years since the Taliban have returned to power, and during this period, the de facto authority regime continued to consolidate its control and its grip over Afghanistan, but its restrictive governance policy and tightening and sweeping restriction over, particularly over the rights, fundamental rights of women and girls, have resulted in continued international isolation.
“By and large, the country remains at a difficult crossroad,” Bruno Lemarquis, UN deputy special representative and resident coordinator in Afghanistan, told reporters.
Lemarquis said the restrictions had contributed to Afghanistan’s continued international isolation, leaving the country struggling with economic vulnerabilities and significant humanitarian challenges despite a degree of security and stability.
He highlighted four major concerns facing Afghanistan: restrictions on women and girls, the exclusion of girls from secondary education, the growing number of returning Afghans and the deteriorating humanitarian situation.
He said restrictions had severely limited women’s access to essential services, livelihoods, education, employment and participation in public life.
On education, Lemarquis described Afghan girls’ exclusion from secondary schooling as “one of the world’s most sensitive and constrained education challenges,” noting that more than 2.6 million girls have been denied access to secondary education.
The humanitarian situation remains “acute,” he said, adding that insufficient international support could deepen poverty, weaken essential services and undermine efforts to reintegrate returnees.
“The stakes are high, but not keeping Afghanistan on the international radar will have impact in terms of deeper poverty, weaker services, maybe failed reintegration of returnees, and there is a saying in Afghanistan that is ‘what is happening in Afghanistan is not staying in Afghanistan.’ It will go elsewhere, which means the consequences could go beyond the Afghanistan border, potentially affecting regional security and regional stability,” he said.
He urged the international community to maintain its engagement with the country, warning against allowing Afghanistan to disappear from the global agenda.
“Now is not the time for the international community to turn its back on Afghanistan,” he said.