Civilian survival under sanctions in Afghanistan

Sanctions are often described in terms of geopolitics and leverage. But in Afghanistan, what people are living through doesn’t quite fit the classic model. It’s closer to a global withdrawal of cooperation after the Taliban takeover. However you label it, the effects are felt at the kitchen table. They decide who eats, who works, and which child leaves school to keep the household afloat. Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, economic restrictions have not just punished the people; they have re-engineered civilian survival, quietly dismantling livelihoods while forcing families into choices that trade education, health, and dignity for short-term endurance.

Since the Taliban took over in August 2021, Afghanistan hasn’t just been isolated. It’s been slowly squeezed. Not in one dramatic collapse, but through a series of quiet economic shocks that have reshaped how ordinary people survive. Jobs vanished. Cash dried up. Aid shrank. What’s left is an economy that technically still runs, but only just, and only for some.

Afghanistan didn’t fall off a cliff. It slid downhill. First came the freezing of around $10 billion in state assets held abroad. Then the panic around banks, when people couldn’t access their own money. And finally, the biggest hit of all: aid drying up in a country that had come to rely on it for everything from salaries to healthcare. Dr Mobariz, a Professor of Economics at the University of West Georgia specialising in the economic effects of NATO/US military withdrawal in Afghanistan, describes it as a ‘low equilibrium trap’. Wages stay low. Jobs don’t come back. And once you’re stuck there, it’s very hard to climb out.

To stop the currency from completely crashing. To stop the currency from collapsing entirely, the United States began sending around $40 million a week in cash to Afghanistan through the UN system. That helped keep the Afghani stable. But a stable exchange rate doesn’t mean a stable life. Prices are still high. Incomes are not. Today, between 15 and 24 million Afghans live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3 a day. That is nearly half the population.

Hunger has become normalised. More than 14 million people face acute food insecurity, and nearly 23 million need humanitarian assistance of some kind. In practical terms, this means families cutting meals, selling household goods, or pulling children out of school to earn small amounts of money. In rural areas, drought and rising food prices make survival even harder.

The labour market has been hollowed out. Public sector jobs disappeared almost overnight. NGOs downsized or closed. The middle class, teachers, health workers, administrators, was effectively erased. Dr Mobariz notes that many people with university degrees have been forced out of formal work entirely, turning to informal labour, street trade, or migration to neighbouring countries. This is not a skills shortage. It is a skills waste.

Families have adjusted the only way they can. Kids leave school early. Boys go looking for work or try to cross borders. Girls are blocked from education entirely. Parents take on extra jobs, usually informal and badly paid. Health problems are ignored until they become emergencies. These aren’t bad decisions. They’re survival decisions.

Healthcare has taken a similar hit. When aid was cut, clinics closed, especially in rural areas. Mobile health teams stopped operating. Vaccination programmes stalled. Malnutrition spread fast. Nearly 3.7 million children aged 6 to 59 months are suffering or expected to suffer acute malnutrition between January 2025 and December 2026. During this same period, an estimated 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women will also suffer acute malnutrition. These are not abstract numbers. Malnutrition at this scale permanently damages physical and cognitive development.

Women have been pushed further into the shadows. Political restrictions pushed them out of public work. Economic collapse wiped out what little paid employment remained. Many now rely on home-based work or unpaid labour just to keep households functioning. Dr Mobariz warns that the long-term cost is enormous: fewer trained women in healthcare, no female teachers, and an entire generation growing up without female professionals at all.

Sanctions are often defended by saying they target leaders, not people. In Afghanistan, that line doesn’t hold up. Banks still operate. Trade still happens. But when aid disappears from an aid-dependent economy, the shock spreads everywhere. First jobs go. Then services. Then demand. Small businesses close. Casual workers lose income. Hunger follows.

What’s most worrying isn’t just how bad things are now. It’s how normal this is becoming. Families are adapting in ways that keep them alive today but quietly erase tomorrow. Education is lost. Skills fade. Health declines. And once those things are gone, they’re hard to rebuild.

That’s the reality of sanctions in Afghanistan. Not theory. Not geopolitics. Just millions of people trying to get through the week.

Further information and opportunities to engage with organisations working in this area are listed below:
https://www.afghanaid.org.uk/
https://womenforafghanwomen.org/
https://www.aryanaaid.org.uk/

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