Afghan women seek rights, unfreezing of funds as starvation risk grows

Dozens of women have protested in Afghanistan's capital, demanding the right to education, jobs, political representation, and unfreezing of billions of dollars in aid and assets.

Although public protests are effectively banned by the Taliban, authorities gave permission for Thursday's march, held in biting cold after the first snowfall of winter in Kabul.

"Food, careers and freedom," participants chanted, while others held placards demanding women get political posts.

Some protesters carried banners echoing Taliban complaints that the international community had frozen billions of dollars in aid and assets.

'Fear is always there'

The Taliban have pledged a softer rule, compared with their first stint in power in the 1990s, but women are still largely excluded from government employment and secondary school education.

Despite being permitted to protest, participants said they remained in fear of the country's new rulers.

At one intersection Taliban fighters cocked and raised their weapons, but the march was allowed to continue.

"Fear is always there, but we cannot live in fear –– we have to fight against our fear," said 28-year-old Shahera Kohistan.

'Avalanche of hunger and destitution'

More than half of Afghanistan's 38 million people face "acute" food shortages, according to the United Nations, with the winter forcing millions to choose between migration and starvation.

Almost all Afghans have been suffering from hunger, and a failing economy could tip the country's increasingly dire situation, the UN has said. 

The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) surveys showed an estimated 98 percent of Afghans are not eating enough.

Seven in 10 families have been resorting to borrowing food, which pushes them deeper into poverty, WFP said in its survey. 

The abrupt withdrawal of foreign aid following the Taliban victory in August has left Afghanistan's fragile economy on the brink of collapse with prices for food, fuel, and other basic staples rising rapidly out of reach for many.

Taliban has warned of a mass refugee exodus from Afghanistan unless the US unfreezes more than $9 billion in Afghan central bank assets and ends other financial sanctions against the country.