Decades of war, conflict, and occupation in Afghanistan has resulted in the extreme militarisation of the country. We are analysing its consequences and in this blog, we take a look at the various forms of violence that have resulted from the past twenty years of war in Afghanistan.
Our blogs “Militarism and Afghanistan: Death, Destruction and Other Deliverables” and “Militarism and Afghanistan: Costs and Profits” explored the various forms of violence that have resulted from the past 20 years of war in Afghanistan, and the profits accruing from this violence. This third and final in the series looks at the social destruction that the war and profiteering have created.
In connection with and in addition to the corruption relating to contractors noted in “Militarism and Afghanistan: Costs and Profits” the past 20 years have seen rampant corruption of the Afghan government, military, and police.
The occupation turned Afghanistan into a client state. The US government provided $145 billion over 20 years to rebuild a country that had a gross domestic product of just $19 billion in 2019. As recently as 2018, nearly 80 per cent of Afghan government spending came from Western donors.
The combined effects of the massive flows of aid dollars, funding for combat operations, and the river of narco – dollars created a surreal economic bubble in Afghanistan. A new, Western-style urban professional class sprang up in Kabul. But the money also triggered an epidemic of corruption and insider dealing that thoroughly discredited both the Afghan central government and the United States.
Much of the American money enriched US contractors without ever entering the Afghan economy (see Militarism and Afghanistan: Costs and Profits). Much of it also disappeared into secret bank accounts in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, held by Afghan government officials, warlords, and their families — a phenomenon described in a 2020 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as “the cross-pollination of criminality between Afghanistan and Dubai.” While the Taliban and their sympathisers were excluded from positions of power, the US and NATO occupiers gave support to other warlords who profited politically and economically.
Meanwhile, about 55 per cent of the population of Afghanistan lives below the poverty line and food insecurity is on the rise. In the first half of 2021, insecurity forced the closure of over 920 schools, according to the Afghanistan Education in Emergencies Working Group. Conflict, along with a range of other socioeconomic factors, kept nearly 3.7 million children out of school, 60 per cent of them girls, before the COVID-19 pandemic further impacted enrolments of around 10 million children.
Prior to the rise of the Taliban, half of Afghan university students were women, as were 40 per cent of the country’s doctors, 70 per cent of its teachers, and 30 per cent of its civil servants. While gains have been made, for all the talk of the advancement in women’s rights and education in the country as a result of the US/NATO occupation, today, in half of Afghanistan’s provinces, fewer than 20 per cent of teachers are female (and in many, that number is less than 10 per cent). Only 37 per cent of girls can even read (as opposed to 66 per cent of boys), according to Human Rights Watch.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that the United States “struggled to develop and implement a coherent strategy” in Afghanistan and the overall picture there is “bleak”. It has noted that any gains “in life expectancy, the mortality of children under five, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and literacy rates” during the years-long US mission were not “commensurate with the U.S. investment or sustainable after a U.S. drawdown.”
Addressing the violence and militarism within Afghanistan and within the states that occupied it will require concrete actions. States, international organisations, and others must take responsibility, heal and repair the damage that has been done, and prevent future catastrophes. Disarmament, demilitarisation, and decolonisation are vital aspects of this work.
The following recommendations are not comprehensive but are critical:
There is an abundance of evidence that large-scale businesses and conglomerates are responsible for severe abuses of human rights in their supply chain and business operations. Their behaviour during the pandemic is a clear illustration of that.
These are not all of the measures that should be undertaken, but they are all necessary to disrupt the cycle of war, weaponisation, and violence — within Afghanistan, within the US and other occupying forces, and globally. Peace, justice, and equality cannot be achieved through the barrel of a gun or the dropping of bombs. It can only come from demilitarised and decolonised (i.e. not imposed by foreign military might) approaches to economic justice, social equality, and environmental welfare.
Want to know more about the consequences of the militarisation of Afghanistan? Then continue to our blogs “Militarism and Afghanistan: Costs and Profits” and “Militarism and Afghanistan: Death, Destruction, and Other Deliverables”.
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In our series of blogs about Afghanistan, we are bringing new perspectives and voices to the mainstream narrative told by the media. Read the blog series or visit our webpage dedicated our work on Afghanistan.
Ray Acheson is the Director of WILPF’s Disarmament Programme, which provides analysis, research, and advocacy across a range of disarmament issues from an antimilitarist feminist perspective. Acheson represents WILPF on the steering committees of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and the International Network on Explosive Weapons.
Matt Mahmoudi (he/him) is a lecturer, researcher, and organizer. He’s been leading the “Ban the Scan” campaign, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy efforts on banning facial recognition technologies and exposing their uses against racialized communities, from New York City to the occupied Palestinian territories.
More about Hanne Peterson coming soon.
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Diana María Salcedo López holds a degree in Political Science from the National University of Colombia, a Master’s degree in Women’s, Gender and Citizenship Studies from the University of Barcelona, and a Master’s degree in Human Rights, the Rule of Law and Democratisation from the University of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid. A feminist and anti-militarist, she has a solid track record spanning two decades working as a consultant for non-governmental organisations, international cooperation agencies, the United Nations and state bodies in Colombia.
Her work has focused on safeguarding women’s rights, incorporating a gender and intersectional perspective into public policy, strengthening the social fabric amongst women who are victims of the armed conflict, and consolidating local peace-building processes.
She currently serves as director of the Colombian section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (LIMPAL Colombia), where she leads initiatives on issues such as feminist approaches to the energy transition, the protection of women human rights defenders, the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and advocacy in international forums. She also represents the organisation on the Special Women’s Body for Monitoring the Peace Agreement and on the Intersectoral Commission on Security Guarantees for Women Human Rights Defenders and Women Leaders in Colombia.
Desirée Sterner currently serves as President of the Swedish Section (IKFF), a role she has held since 2023. Her engagement with WILPF began at the grassroots level through the local branch in Lund/Malmö during her university years. Desirée brings a deep substantive understanding of WILPF’s core issues, rooted in academic training in gender, peace and security (LSE), war studies (Swedish Defence University), peace and conflict studies, and human rights (Lund University), combined with several years of practical advocacy, movement-building and organisational leadership work in Swedish civil society.
Sylvie Ndongmo, is a Cameroonian peacebuilder, feminist leader, civil society actor and Women, Peace and Security expert with over 30 years of experience in peacebuilding, mediation, and gender equality advocacy. She serves as International President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and Executive Secretary of Women Peace Initiatives. She coordinates the Women and Youth Early Warning Monitoring Room in Cameroon and was recently appointed to the African Union Advisory Panel on Democratic Elections and Governance in Africa. Her work focuses on advancing women’s leadership, conflict prevention, and sustainable peace through feminist, inclusive, and intergenerational approaches.
In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region.
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WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.
Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.
Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.
WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.
In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.
In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.
