KABUL – UN officials and leading rights experts will hold a press briefing on Tuesday to discuss international aid cuts and Taliban repression four years after the group seized power.
The virtual event, scheduled for August 5, brings together top voices including Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, and senior representatives from Human Rights Watch and Femena.
Panelists will spotlight the growing humanitarian emergency and escalating rights violations, particularly those targeting women and girls. They are expected to discuss on how decisions by the United States and the United Kingdom to significantly reduce aid have had a devastating impact on vulnerable communities, worsening the effects of Taliban-imposed restrictions.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Afghanistan has experienced economic collapse, widespread poverty, and an unprecedented rollback of women’s rights. Women and girls have been banned from secondary and university education, most forms of employment, public parks, gyms, and travel without a male guardian. Thousands of women-led NGOs have been forced to shut down, and the Taliban has dismantled independent media and civil society groups.
Against this backdrop, humanitarian funding from key Western donors has sharply declined. In early 2024, the U.S. Congress passed a budget that included steep cuts to non-military foreign aid due to concerns over the Taliban’s obstruction of humanitarian access and misuse of funds. In March 2025, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned that U.S. funding cuts would deprive nearly nine million Afghan women of access to maternal health services.
The United Kingdom also reduced its aid to Afghanistan in its most recent foreign assistance review, redirecting funds to domestic priorities.
Humanitarian actors say the combined effect of these reductions is being felt acutely across Afghanistan, particularly in nutrition centers treating severely malnourished children, programs providing online education for girls, and the few remaining independent media outlets.
Tuesday’s briefing will be moderated by Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Other speakers include Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, and Zubaida Akbar, Afghanistan program manager at Femena, an organization that supports women’s rights activists in restrictive environments.
