Life Waiting for Help; Unprecedented Increase in Dependency in Afghanistan

Yasamin Tue May 2026 4 months ago 560

This dependence is not a matter of choice, but the direct result of the collapse of economic structures, sweeping restrictions on work and education, and the systematic exclusion of women from society.


According to assessments by international organizations, more than half of Afghanistan's population relies on foreign aid for daily survival; but behind these dry statistics lie real lives and bitter narratives—narratives that reveal how the Taliban's policies have pushed people toward chronic poverty and forced dependency.


Maryam, a pseudonym, 35 years old and a resident of Kabul, worked as an employee of an educational institution before the Taliban's return to power. She is now the sole breadwinner for a family of five; but she is no longer permitted to work.


In an interview with Exile, she says: "When the Taliban came, the first thing they took from us was our work and our dignity. Now every month we wait for food packages. This isn't living; it's just surviving."


Maryam adds that dependence on aid has not only eroded human dignity but also fostered a profound sense of powerlessness among women.


Shakila, 42 years old and a mother of four children, lost all her sources of income after the job market closed to women. She now survives solely on limited food aid.


She says: "Every time I go to collect aid, I feel like I have no value left. We used to work; now we're forced to beg. The

Taliban have brought us to this state."


Shakila says the aid is insufficient and that her family often gets by on very little food for many days.


Gulchehreh, 19 years old (pseudonym), in Mazar-i-Sharif, has been deprived of continuing her education after the ban on girls' schooling. She says her family is now entirely dependent on humanitarian aid.


She says: "We have no future; no school, no work. We just wait for the aid to arrive. This isn't living; it's a forced standstill."


Gulchehreh believes the Taliban's policies deliberately keep people in a state of dependency to prevent any form of economic or intellectual independence from emerging.


Analysts say that the growing reliance on humanitarian aid is not merely an economic consequence but has, in a sense, become a tool of social control. By restricting job opportunities, especially for women, and creating barriers to independent activities, the Taliban have effectively driven society toward dependency.


This comes as many aid organizations also face severe restrictions from the Taliban, which have made the distribution of aid more difficult and less transparent.


The stories of Maryam, Shakila, and Gulchehreh are just three examples among millions of similar tales in Afghanistan—a country whose people have become dependent on foreign aid not because of war, but because of restrictive and repressive policies. In the absence of fundamental changes in governing policies, this dependency will not only fail to diminish but will become a permanent condition, and the cost of it will be borne, above all, by women and the younger generation.

Five years after the Taliban's return to power, Afghanistan remains mired in one of its deepest economic and humanitarian crises—a crisis that has driven people's dependence on humanitarian aid to unprecedented levels and, in particular, placed women in a state of widespread deprivation and isolation.

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