'Bureaucratic hurdles' endanger Afghanistan aid, advocates worry

Ottawa has plans to finally stop blocking Canadian development aid to Afghanistan this year.

But by the time its new system is fully up and running, the Taliban will have been in control of the country for about three years.

Humanitarian organizations say that's an interminable delay for those who need help, especially since other countries moved more quickly to unblock aid flows.

«It's extremely frustrating, if I can put it as nicely as I can,» said Asma Faizi, head of the Afghan Women's Organization.

Her group supports Afghan newcomers to Canada, as well as women living in Afghanistan and in exile in nearby countries. It also runs an all-girls orphanage in Kabul, which has been blocked from Canadian aid since the Taliban takeover.

«Canadian organizations that want to work inside Afghanistan are ready, willing and able to work. But they are prohibited,» said Faizi.

As the law is written, aid workers are vulnerable to criminal prosecution if they pay taxes on labour or goods to Afghanistan's Taliban government.

Doing so would amount to providing financial support to an entity that Canada lists as a terrorist organization.

The United States, Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom all created carve-outs to their own terrorism laws by February 2022 to allow aid to flow — about six months after the Taliban took full control.

In June of that year, a multi-party committee of members of Parliament called on Ottawa to follow suit.

Since then, Afghanistan has faced a deteriorating humanitarian crisis caused by natural disasters, widespread food insecurity and an economic collapse as the international community largely shuns the current government.

The United Nations has determined that 23.7 million people in the country