The cost of USAID cuts to women in Afghanistan

美国国际开发署对阿富汗女性的削减费用

The Global Story

2025-10-23

26 分钟
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Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the US has contributed billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan for food and medical care – a lifeline in a country ravaged by two decades of war. But earlier this year, following deep cuts to USAID under the Trump administration, more than 400 USAID-backed medical clinics have closed, and for pregnant women in desperate need of care, the impacts are devastating. The BBC’s South Asia and Afghanistan correspondent, Yogita Limaye, tells us about the families she met on her recent reporting trip, and the lives lost because women did not get the care they needed. Producer: Hannah Moore Mix: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins Picture: Taliban bans female medical education, Afghan female doctors and midwives face setback, Kabul, Afghanistan, 24 Dec 2024. Samiullah Popal/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
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  • Since 2021, when U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban quickly regained control,

  • it's the women of Afghanistan who have borne the worst costs.

  • The Taliban tightly controls where they can go,

  • what they can wear, and even how loudly they can speak.

  • Teenage girls are not allowed to go to school,

  • let alone university, and women can't take on most jobs.

  • For pregnant women in a country where maternal mortality rates are already high,

  • before an aid has been a lifeline.

  • The U.S. alone has sent more than $3 billion to Afghanistan in the past four years.

  • That is, until earlier this year, when the Trump administration cut nearly all of that aid.

  • From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid, and today on The Global Story,