Ancillary #9

For this final paper, I am proposing to dive into the child malnutrition epidemic of Afghanistan. More specifically, I aim to look at the effects the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan had specifically to the sky rocketing child waste rates. In 2021, when President Biden took office, he expressed his skepticism about US troop levels in Afghanistan, making it known throughout his election campaign that he was never a supporter of keeping troops overseas. In April of 2021, President Biden announced that the US would begin its final military withdraw on May 1st and would be completed by September 11th 2021. But by July 8th most NATO and other US partners had withdrawn their forces by that time and Biden officially announced the United States’ military mission in Afghanistan would conclude by August 31st. By August 15th the Taliban had entered Kabul and effectively completed their takeover of the country, sparking extreme violence across the nation and resulting in thousands of civilians being killed at the hands of the Taliban. Once the Taliban took over, internally the country began to fall apart.

The biggest reason why I am interested in exploring it further is because before seeing an article pop up in my news feed I had virtually no knowledge of this issue. The child malnutrition epidemic is no small issue and it greatly surprised me that it has not been covered more nor has it been brought to the public’s attention. Granted, I’m aware that in lieu of COVID not a lot of stories or other problems have seen the light of day, but as the world begins to recover from the pandemic, I think it’s important to start thinking about issues like these that COVID also had a role in making abundantly worse. Additionally, the suffering of young children is not only heart breaking but something that could be fixed if approached properly and with care. I think that while there is no simple solution to child malnutrition, there could be simple steps the world could take to helping ease the problem and give the help these children so desperately need.

Moving forward, I think I would need to get a better understanding of why the US decided to withdraw from Afghanistan and why the removal of our country caused so much chaos and destruction within the country.