I’m glad there are still a few reporters hanging out in Afghanistan these days instead of everyone being shipped off to Ukraine. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know what the Taliban is up to. It’s clear that they seem to be trying to take advantage of the fact that the world is distracted by the Russian invasion. This week they dissolved five departments from the previous government that were “not deemed necessary” and were unaffordable. One of them was the Human Rights Council, established under the American-backed government. And since we’re talking about the Taliban here, you can almost see the logic in this move, right? I mean, if there are no longer any assurances of human rights, why waste time having a council to monitor the situation? (The Guardian)

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan dissolved five key departments of the former US-backed government, including the country’s human rights commission, deeming them unnecessary in the face of a financial crunch, an official said.

Afghanistan faced a budget deficit of 44bn Afghanis ($501m) this financial year, Taliban authorities said as they announced their first annual national budget since taking over last August.

“Because these departments were not deemed necessary and were not included in the budget, they have been dissolved,” said Innamullah Samangani, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesperson.

They also ditched the former council assigned to facilitate national reconciliation. That was an equally obvious choice. The Taliban are the absolute rulers now, so any talk of reconciling the various groups inside the country would be a waste of time.

For good measure, they got rid of the commission that was overseeing the implementation of the Afghan constitution. The proposed constitution is now little more than cheap wallpaper, so that was also a waste of their quickly diminishing funds.

At the same time, reports are emerging showing that women have increasingly disappeared from the workforce. Initially, the Taliban was still allowing women to work in healthcare and some teaching positions, at least in and around Kabul. In the outer provinces, they were banned from all work almost immediately. But now, even in Kabul, women working as doctors and nurses have been told to stay home. Some are still being paid reduced salaries occasionally, but they can’t return to their offices.

All women are now required to cover themselves completely, even in the capital. And they are not supposed to leave their homes without a husband or male relative. Some younger women who grew up under the rule of the American-backed government and who tried to speak out against the crackdown simply disappeared.

And yet the Taliban is still seeking a place at the United Nations, international recognition as the legitimate government, and more foreign aid. I seem to recall the west insisting that recognition of women’s rights was a requirement for any of that to happen. But now we’re all busy with Russia and Ukraine, so I suppose that’s all going down the memory hole. Twenty years of war and aside from some of the other terrorists being dead, nothing has really changed at all. Perhaps this was always how it was destined to end.