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It’s been about one year since the Taliban occupied the Afghanistan government and two months since the 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Nearly half of Afghanistan’s population are without food, girls cannot attend school, and women are being restricted from work. 

And Canadian humanitarian organizations are struggling to find ways to intervene.

On the ground, one of CARE Afghanistan’s women and girls empowerment projects focused on job creation. They supported women’s businesses selling things like shampoo and embroidery, and being trained as a beautician. 

Last week, Melissa Cornet, CARE Afghanistan’s humanitarian advocacy advisor travelled to Kandahar, a city in south Afghanistan sitting on the Arghandab River, and visited some women who completed the program.

Cornet learned that due to Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, their business sees one or two clients a week. 

“No one has money,” says Cornet. “It’s great that she has the skills and she has the support, but the demand is just not here anymore, unfortunately.” 

Meanwhile, a coalition of over 18 humanitarian organizations have organized a petition for Canadians to sign and email their MPs urging them to create solutions to provide aid to Afghanistan. 

Some of these organizations include Islamic Relief Canada, CARE, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, CanWaCH and the Canadian Red Cross. Future of Good spoke to each organization to learn more about Afghans’ pressing needs and the consequences of them going unmet. 

According to Reyhana Patel, Islamic Relief Canada’s director of communications, the coalition analyzed the projects between their organizations and estimated that $84.5 million worth of humanitarian projects are being delayed. 

This is because Canada’s Criminal Code has anti-terrorism regulations that prevents people and organizations from financing known terrorist entities. Humanitarian aid’s property, funding, and taxes on import resources, rent, or salaries could directly or indirectly contribute to the Taliban’s regime. Since the Taliban is a registered terrorist group occupying the Afghanistan government, Canadian humanitarian organizations cannot provide aid.

Meanwhile, families are considering desperate measures to provide money for their families.

Cornet says CARE Afghanistan interviewed 345 households and learned that 40 of them had to marry off daughters under 18 years old because they were facing such extreme cases of food insecurity.

Patel also says Islamic Relief Canada’s partners on the ground shared stories of mothers debating between selling their 12- or 13-year-old daughters into marriage or letting their families starve.

“It definitely has a huge psychological impact on women because they expect it to get worse and worse,” says Cornet.
 

Women and girls’ immediate and long-term suffering with the crisis 

While food insecurity, healthcare challenges, and fewer work opportunities affect everyone in Afghanistan, women and girls will be dealing uniquely with the long-term consequences of this crisis.

Consider single women or mothers. It is harder for them to access healthcare and food in areas where they must be accompanied by a man. Without being able to work, they may also struggle with transportation costs and medication fees – if it even arrives in the first place.

The Canadian Red Cross has a shipment of medicine for Afghanistan that has been on hold for a year, according to Amy Avis, general counsel, and Sharonya Sekhar, senior policy advisor of international relations at the Canadian Red Cross. 

Cornet, meanwhile, says this is why CARE Afghanistan has a mobile team that moves through different “white areas” – what they call places without available health services.

“You need women aid workers to access women,” says Cornet. “You could never have a man, whether he’s a national or [foreign] to talk to an Afghan woman that he’s not related to in most rural areas.”

There are fewer female doctors and nurses since the Taliban took hold, and women patients can only be taken care of by a woman, adding another layer of difficulty to their care.

Women were also forced to leave leadership positions in the civil services. In most provinces, girls cannot attend school.

“If we look at the very long term, the current education ban is dramatic because it means that in five years time, we are going to miss an entire year of graduation of women teachers, doctors and nurses,” says Cornet. “And we still don’t know whether the school is going to reopen.”

Cornet says that though CARE Afghanistan and other organizations have job creation programs, the crisis in Afghanistan is so urgent that people cannot afford to spend money outside basic needs.

“They’re very happy to have businesses of their own, but the economic crisis is so tough that the economy’s just completely stopped,” says Cornet.
 

Working around the Criminal Code to provide aid 

Islamic Relief Canada, CARE, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and CanWaCH say they had various consultations with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Department of Justice, Department of Public Safety, and Global Affairs Canada about short- and long-term solutions to providing aid to a country occupied by a registered terrorist group.

“That’s part of the challenge,” says Paul Hagerman, Canada Foodgrains Bank’s director of public policy. “There isn’t a single minister or ministry that has responsibility here, but it crosses over. The portfolio is in four different cabinet ministers.”

Hagerman says the Criminal Code needs to be changed so humanitarian work is exempt from anti-terror legislation, but such changes cannot happen overnight. 

As for short-term solutions, organizations have asked if the federal government can provide them with something in writing that says they will not be prosecuted under the Criminal Code if they work or deliver aid in Afghanistan. Hagerman says the government refused to do so.

Canadian organizations that are part of global humanitarian organizations rely on the organization and its other national partners to provide aid. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross is providing aid to Afghanistan because they are not bound by the Criminal Code, but the Canadian Red Cross cannot.

Some Canadian organizations have to rely on working through local organizations to provide aid. These partners who are not subject to the Criminal Code can pay import taxes on the ground as a short-term solution.

What can Canada do for Afghanistan?

In 2021, the UN’s Security Council Resolution 2615 acknowledged Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis and decided that providing assistance did not violate UN sanctions placed on the country. Funds, financial assets, economic resources, and goods and services to deliver aid are permitted. In 2022, Resolution 2626 renewed this exemption as the crisis continued.

The UN recommended other countries implement this resolution, which the US, UK, and Australia have done. Because of Canada’s Criminal Code, its humanitarian organizations cannot.

Despite this, Canada has committed $143 million to Afghanistan in aid in 2022 – the largest contribution to the country to date. This is channelled through the UN agencies, International Committee of the Red Cross, and other NGOs, according to Genviéve Tremblay, Global Affairs Canada’s international development spokesperson, who wrote to Future of Good in an email.

According to Tremblay, working with multilateral organizations offers more flexibility because Canada is not sending money directly to Afghanistan. These humanitarian organizations have the ability to use other sources of funds to pay taxes or other fees that may benefit the Taliban without violating Canada’s Criminal Code. 

“The Government of Canada is actively engaged with these organizations to ensure Canadian programming dollars do not provide any direct or indirect benefits to terrorist groups,” writes Tremblay. “These measures may, depending on the circumstances, include contractual provisions, other forms of assurances, and operational arrangements. All of these are intended to reduce any possibility that Canadian funds benefit the Taliban.” 

Hagerman says humanitarian organizations should still be allowed to work in Afghanistan.

The Canadian government is reaching some people through UN agencies, but they’re not able to reach all the people in need. 

“There’s never enough humanitarian assistance to meet the needs,” says Hagerman. “If we, as Canadian NGOs, were able to operate, we’d be able to reach more of those people.”

According to CanWaCH, more than 75 percent of Afghans in need of humanitarian assistance are women and children.

Julia Anderson, CanWach’s CEO says that an entire generation of children will be impacted by the destroyed healthcare systems, food shortages, and education restrictions – especially if the child is a girl.

“The government has been stretched by two and a half years of perpetual crises. This is a heavy lift. This is a legislative matter that involves multiple departments and multiple ministers to get to a resolution,” says Anderson. “This is something that Canada needs to be on the right side of and it needs to start to hustle to get there because it’s not looking good.”

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