KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – A report on Monday said that the Biden administration quietly spent $15 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to support the distribution of oral contraceptives and condoms in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
According to a funding notice reviewed by The Washington Free Beacon, the money was earmarked by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in July and transmitted to Afghanistan in August of last year.
The funding is part of a larger effort to promote reproductive health and gender equality in a country where the Taliban has imposed strict limitations on women’s rights, including banning girls from attending secondary school and prohibiting women from many forms of employment.
The funding notice also revealed that USAID acknowledged “some coordination” with the Taliban would be necessary to implement the program, though the agency emphasized that no direct assistance would go to the Taliban itself.
“Although some coordination will be necessary for programmatic purposes, USAID and its partners are clear that there will be no direct assistance to the Taliban,” the notice stated, adding that safeguards would be in place to prevent Taliban interference or misuse of the funds.
The initiative was part of a $100 million package designed to address several issues in Afghanistan, including providing “community resilience and livelihood opportunities” and improving the quality of education at Afghan institutions. However, this funding has drawn renewed scrutiny from lawmakers, particularly in light of recent oversight concerns surrounding U.S. foreign aid spending.
Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has raised concerns about potential waste in U.S. foreign assistance, particularly after the Biden administration’s last-minute spending decisions.
“We will be doing a full State Department reauthorization to ensure that American tax dollars are not spent on frivolous projects abroad,” Mast stated during a recent roundtable discussion.
The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported earlier that efforts by USAID and the State Department have failed to adequately address gender-based violence in Afghanistan. SIGAR noted that plans for U.S. aid did not set specific goals for preventing or responding to such violence, further fueling criticisms of the current approach to rebuilding Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal.
Simone Ledeen, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, criticized the funding as failing to address the immediate and severe repression of women under the Taliban’s rule. “There must be a thorough audit of U.S. taxpayer funding to ensure it aligns with meaningful and accountable objectives,” Ledeen said.
This comes as the new Trump administration has suspended nearly all foreign aid, including its humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, for at least three months to review its efficiency and alignment with his foreign policy.
