Working Animals, Livestock, and Welfare Challenges Under Difficult Conditions
Afghanistan presents one of the most challenging contexts for animal welfare in the world. Decades of conflict, extreme poverty, political instability — including the Taliban's return to power in 2021 — and a subsistence-based agricultural economy mean that animal welfare exists at the very margins of policy and social attention. Yet millions of animals in Afghanistan experience significant suffering every day: working donkeys and horses carrying crushing loads, livestock kept under harsh conditions with minimal veterinary care, and a culture of animal fighting that inflicts deliberate harm. Understanding this context — without dismissing the welfare of Afghan animals — is essential for any meaningful engagement.
Since August 2021, Afghanistan has been governed by the Taliban, whose administration has imposed severe restrictions on civil society, women's rights, and media freedom. International NGOs and foreign governments have largely withdrawn or severely curtailed operations. Humanitarian agencies continue to operate under difficult conditions, focused primarily on food security and human health emergencies.
The humanitarian collapse following Taliban takeover has devastating indirect welfare consequences: drought, food insecurity, and economic collapse reduce the capacity of Afghan families to feed and care for their animals, even when they want to. Animal welfare cannot be separated from human welfare in Afghanistan's current crisis.
Donkeys, horses, and mules are the primary working animals in Afghanistan, essential for transport in mountainous terrain where roads are absent or impassable. The Brooke Hospital for Animals — an international organization focused on working equine welfare — operated in Afghanistan for many years, providing veterinary care and owner education before being forced to scale back operations after 2021.
Donkeys are ubiquitous in Afghan villages and cities alike. They carry loads far exceeding safe limits, often with wounds caused by crude wooden pack saddles that cause pressure sores and abscesses. Many donkeys suffer from preventable conditions: harness wounds, foot problems, eye disease, and the cumulative effects of chronic overwork and underfeeding. In drought years, donkeys competing with humans for scarce food face severe malnutrition.
Horses in Afghanistan are associated with the traditional sport of buzkashi — a form of mounted polo using a calf carcass — which is deeply embedded in Afghan culture, particularly in the north. Buzkashi horses are often better cared for than working donkeys because they are high-value assets. However, the sport involves significant risk of injury for horses, and animals at the lower end of buzkashi operations may be overworked without adequate recovery.
Agriculture employs approximately 60% of Afghanistan's population, and livestock — cattle, sheep, goats, and camels — are essential for both subsistence and income. Animal production is overwhelmingly traditional and small-scale, with welfare implications that vary by region and season.
Afghanistan's extreme climate — harsh winters, hot summers, and recurring drought — creates severe seasonal welfare challenges for livestock. Animals kept outdoors through Afghan winters with inadequate shelter suffer cold stress and increased disease burden. During drought years — increasingly frequent with climate change — livestock face prolonged starvation before sale or emergency slaughter.
Veterinary services in Afghanistan were severely underdeveloped even before 2021 and have further deteriorated under Taliban rule. The loss of trained female veterinary workers — banned from working under Taliban gender restrictions — has particularly impacted communities where women traditionally cared for small livestock. Most rural animals live and die without ever receiving veterinary intervention.
Afghanistan has a documented history of dogfighting, cockfighting, and other animal fighting traditions, which were suppressed under the Taliban's first regime (1996–2001) but revived during the period of international presence (2001–2021). Reports from 2022–2025 suggest that dogfighting has continued or expanded under the new Taliban administration, operating largely underground.
Afghanistan's varied terrain — from the Hindu Kush mountains to the Helmand River basin — supports diverse wildlife including snow leopards, Marco Polo sheep, Persian leopards, and Afghan pikas. Decades of conflict have devastated wildlife populations through direct hunting, habitat destruction, and land mine contamination of wildlife habitat.
The Snow Leopard Foundation Afghanistan and international conservation organizations have attempted to maintain monitoring programs, but security conditions have made field research extremely difficult. Poaching for the illegal wildlife trade — particularly for snow leopard skins and live animals — continues with essentially no law enforcement oversight.
During the 2021 Taliban takeover, chaotic evacuation scenes included international military and civilian personnel attempting to evacuate pet dogs and cats alongside human refugees. The Nowzad charity became internationally known for its effort to rescue animals abandoned by departing foreign nationals. This episode illustrated both the attachment humans form with companion animals in conflict zones and the extreme difficulty of animal welfare work in humanitarian emergencies.
In Afghanistan's context, animal welfare cannot be addressed in isolation from human welfare. The welfare of working animals is directly tied to the economic welfare of the families that depend on them — a sick or injured donkey represents an economic catastrophe for a rural household. This alignment of interests — healthy animals benefit human livelihoods — is the primary entry point for welfare improvement in extremely resource-constrained contexts.
Effective welfare work in Afghanistan has historically combined veterinary care with owner education in economic terms: a sound donkey is worth more, works better, and lasts longer than an abused one. This framing has proven more persuasive than abstract welfare ethics in cultures where animal sentience is not a primary cultural value.
The Taliban administration's restrictions on civil society, foreign NGOs, and women working outside the home severely limit welfare intervention options. Key limitations include:
Despite these constraints, some welfare-relevant work continues — primarily through Islamic Relief, the FAO, and local Afghan partners focused on livestock health as a food security intervention. This work addresses welfare indirectly, through disease control and emergency feed distribution, without framing it explicitly as "welfare" work.
Afghanistan's animal welfare crisis is inseparable from its broader humanitarian crisis. Meaningful welfare improvement requires political stabilization, economic recovery, and the restoration of civil society space — conditions that are beyond the reach of welfare advocates alone. In the interim, the most effective approaches combine veterinary care with economic framing, support local Afghan partners, and operate with extreme sensitivity to the political constraints of the operating environment. The millions of Afghan animals — donkeys, horses, livestock, and companion animals — who suffer daily in conditions of conflict and poverty deserve attention even when direct intervention is severely constrained.