An Afghan refugee girl peers through a torn curtain at the entrance of her home at Kababayan Refugee Camp in Peshawar, Pakistan (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
Since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan nearly four years ago, thousands of Afghans who fled the country have been given protection by the United States. For Afghan men who fought alongside our own troops, life in America has meant safety from Taliban soldiers intent on seeking retribution. For Afghan women and girls, life in America has meant the opportunity to pursue an education, to work, and to move about freely, rights that the Taliban has stripped away from them in their home country. In essence, it has given them the chance to realize their dream of a better, brighter future.
Last week’s decision by the U.S. government to withdraw protected status for thousands of Afghans currently residing in the U.S. has transformed those dreams into a nightmare. Without protected status, they risk deportation back to Afghanistan where they face, at best, a life of poverty, brutal oppression, and hopelessness, and at worst, persecution, torture, even death.
In the four years of Taliban rule, the situation in Afghanistan has spiraled from bad to worse. Poverty and malnutrition rates have soared, girls have been prohibited from attending school beyond 6th Grade, and women have been barred from most jobs. The country was recently ranked next to last (above only Yemen) on the list of the worst countries to be a woman.
Making matters worse, shortly before deciding that conditions in Afghanistan no longer merited US protection, the U.S. government refused to reinstate food aid and other lifesaving assistance to Afghanistan, a decision which, no doubt, will result in even higher rates of severe malnutrition among children and women. Since the Taliban, an authoritarian government that is both bankrupt and inept, believes their people’s suffering is the will of God, these policies will, unfortunately, fall on deaf ears since there is no incentive to change. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are also being forced home now that the Pakistan government no longer wants to bear the burden of supporting them.
Over the two decades Central Asia Institute has worked in Afghanistan, we’ve relied on the generous support of thousands of donors who care deeply not only about helping those in need, but also about providing them with an education so that they can help both themselves and their countries. When Afghanistan fell, our supporters stood by Afghan women and children, knowing them to be the least responsible but worst affected. And they stand by us today, unwavering, as CAI continues to provide education to thousands of students, primarily girls, doing what we can under the current restrictions.
We urge you to join them by voicing your opposition to U.S. policies that would condemn innocent Afghans to a life of suffering and deny food aid to starving children. This is not a zero-sum game. Turning our backs on the same Afghans that America made promises to, acknowledging that the danger we put them in was, in part, the result of our own missteps, will do little to nothing to remedy the domestic hardships the United States now faces. These policies do not make America safer or Afghanistan more stable and they do not reflect American values.
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