Almost All Afghan's Are 'Suffering'

As revealed by a Gallup survey conducted directly around the time of the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, an overwhelming majority of 94 percent of adults rated their lives so poorly as to be categorized as 'suffering'. A further six percent were classed as 'struggling' while zero percent rated life highly enough on the 0-10 scale to cross into the 'thriving' subsection. Those who rate their current lives and anticipated lives in five years as a 4 or lower are classified as suffering.

As this infographic shows, while the 94 percent is a record high for this survey, Gallup points out that "suffering has been on an upward trend since 2017, as Taliban-fueled violence increased and continued to rise in the face of a prolonged Taliban offensive that seized control of more parts of the country." Summarizing, the report reads: "Afghans are experiencing suffering on an unprecedented scale. In no other country since the trend began in 2005 has a larger percentage of the population rated their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering", adding "For Afghan women in particular, the future is bleak without access to education for the country's girls."