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America can not afford to neglect the extraordinary struggling and exploitation of the inhabitants of Afghanistan for the reason that Taliban seized the state over two years in the past.
The Taliban’s extremism, misogyny, and brutality are actively undermining Afghanistan’s prospects for peace and stability. Elementary to this vicious pursuit of energy is the strategic use of corruption and kleptocracy to cement loyalty among the many Taliban’s ranks, punish Afghans who refuse to conform, and, most particularly, line leaders’ personal pockets.
Though worldwide leverage has modified, the USA and the worldwide neighborhood should take a extra definitive position in confronting the Taliban’s atrocities. The income streams the Taliban use to reward themselves symbolize the most important untapped stress level that the USA and the worldwide neighborhood can goal, because the George W. Bush Institute said in a letter to the Home Overseas Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Center East, North Africa, and Central Asia final week.
The Bush Institute stays steadfast in our solidarity with and assist for the Afghan folks, particularly ladies and kids, and we urge Congress and the administration to work collectively to carry the Taliban accountable.
For 20 years, courageous Afghans partnered with the USA and our allies within the pursuit of peace and stability for all. Like folks around the globe, Afghans merely need to stay in freedom and create a brighter future for his or her households and communities.
Corruption has featured prominently all through Afghanistan’s historical past and was a vital contributing issue to the fast collapse of democracy in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the Taliban ought to be measured in opposition to their very own claims that they might remove corruption.
Since retaking energy, the Taliban have leveraged their takeover of the state paperwork to increase the safety equipment, award authorities licenses and jobs to Taliban members and their households, and extort taxes, bribes, and beneficial companies from the Afghan inhabitants and the non-public sector. They’ve manipulated and siphoned the distribution of humanitarian help and exploited their management over the nation’s assets to their very own profit.
The Taliban proceed to revenue from the trafficking of medication, weapons, and army tools, in addition to from human trafficking, pressured marriage, and little one labor, upending harmless lives.
Educators, artists, musicians, college students, journalists, and activists have been detained, tortured, and sometimes silenced. Former authorities officers, safety forces, advocates, and ethnic and non secular minorities have been hunted, imprisoned, and killed by the Taliban and different extremists with few if any repercussions.
Almost 60 p.c of the Afghan inhabitants is in want of lifesaving humanitarian help, in line with USAID, and the financial system is getting ready to collapse.
Nobody has paid a better value for the Taliban’s greed and unrelenting pursuit of energy and management than Afghan ladies and kids.
Barred from secondary and better training, employment, and freedom of motion, Afghan ladies’s well-being has been suffocated underneath the Taliban’s brutal enforcement of gender apartheid; ladies are denied company over their lives.
Taliban officers and their loyalists have deliberately ignored, manipulated, and eroded crucial infrastructure, together with faculties, hospitals, clinics, and different important companies.
Consequently, households face what the United Nations has described as “unparalleled” ranges of malnutrition and meals insecurity. This consists of an estimated 4 million youngsters underneath 5 and breastfeeding and pregnant ladies who want lifesaving diet assist.
Preventable and curable sicknesses have surged, tragically claiming the lives of no less than 167 Afghan youngsters each day, in line with UNICEF and the World Well being Group.
On the similar time, sanctioned Taliban leaders have utilized for and been granted journey ban and asset freeze exemptions by the U.N. Safety Council for medical remedy in international locations like Turkey as a result of ample care isn’t obtainable in Afghanistan. Extremely, the USA voted in favor of granting these and different journey ban exemptions to sanctioned Taliban leaders.
Entry to justice for girls and ladies fleeing violence and abuse has been ferociously dismantled in favor of an archaic interpretation of Shariah legislation that always rewards and incentivizes abusers. Ladies are subjugated, victimized, and revictimized throughout each side of the Taliban’s imaginative and prescient for Afghanistan.
Lots of those that have escaped the horrors of the Taliban’s autocracy face further challenges as visa pathways and everlasting resettlement choices stay out of attain, regardless of vital danger of persecution based mostly on each their gender and their prior work in assist of a free and democratic future in Afghanistan.
It doesn’t should be this fashion.
America and its allies ought to increase anti-corruption sanctions; use the World Magnitsky Act on Taliban management; and designate the Taliban as a Overseas Terrorist Group and Afghanistan as a Main Cash Laundering Concern underneath the USA Patriot Act, Part 311. These designations would have essential cascading results limiting the flexibility of corrupt Taliban officers to revenue from enterprise offers or maneuver looted funds to complement themselves or to fund extremist actions.
U.S. authorities representatives should embody and advocate for participation by a wider vary of Afghan stakeholders in all convenings, hearings, and negotiations specializing in the way forward for Afghanistan. They need to additionally frequently seek the advice of with ladies, ethnic and non secular minorities, civil society leaders, and members of the Afghan diaspora, prioritizing intergenerational, regional, and socioeconomic variety.
America also needs to assist organizations and initiatives that acquire knowledge and amplify the views of Afghan ladies and different marginalized communities whereas shedding mild on the Taliban’s conduct and expenditures.
American management stays crucial to reining within the Taliban’s atrocities. Congress and the president ought to act right this moment.
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