Taliban prohibit women in Afghanistan from training in medicine: “Lives are at serious risk”

From her private hospital in Afghanistan’s capital, Dr Najmussama Shefajo predicts an increase in maternal mortality rates “within three or four years”, following the latest restrictions on women’s education imposed by the Taliban.

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According to reports, The supreme leader of the Taliban is behind the ban on women studying midwifery and nursing in training institutes across the countrywhich are already among the worst in the world in terms of deaths in childbirth.

“We may not see the impact very quickly, but After three or four years we will see that the maternal mortality rate will increase more and more“Said Shefajo. “Surely people will have more babies at home, but what about the complications? What about operations? “Many procedures cannot be performed at home,” he said.

Since the Taliban government banned women from attending universities two years ago, Shefajo has been providing medical training on the job, including in obstetrics and nursing. But she stated that she does not have the capacity or facilities to serve all the women interested in learning at her hospital, even though there is no shortage of volunteers.

“Obstetrics and nursing are like the two wings of doctors: if the bird doesn’t have wings, it can’t fly,” he added, hiding behind curtains to treat patients.

According to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, Afghanistan already faces a “desperate shortage of trained health workers, especially women.”

The Taliban government has not issued any official notice, but Health Ministry sources and training institute directors said this month that They had been ordered to prevent women from attending classes.

Restricting medical training is the latest move against women’s education since Taliban authorities came to power in 2021, imposing rules that the United Nations has called “gender apartheid.”

“In a country where women and children rely on female health professionals for culturally sensitive care, cutting off the supply of future health care providers would put lives at risk,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement. a statement.

Training institutes had ensured that women continued to learn health skills, such as midwifery and nursing, or laboratory work, pharmacy and dentistry. The ban would affect some 35,000 women studying in medical training centersaccording to a figure from a source from the Ministry of Health.

The new veto, the last in a long list since the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, “will limit women’s already precarious access to health services, since male workers in the sector are prohibited from treating them if a relative of the patient is not present.“said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, in a statement.

The new measure “is deeply discriminatory, shortsighted and puts the lives of women and girls at serious risk” in one of the countries with the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, said the spokesperson for the office headed by High Commissioner Volker Türk.

“It is a new chapter in state discriminatory measures directed against women in the fields of education, work and other sectors, compromising the future of the country,” he added.

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“We are concerned about the consequences for the already fragile health system,” said Achille Despres, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, where the organization provides health services and training.

The international NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which runs some of its busiest maternity hospitals in Afghanistan, also warned of the consequences of the ban, given that the country’s “medical needs are enormous.” “There is no health system without trained health professionals,” said the representative in the country, Mickael Le Paih, in a statement.

Afghanistan and MSF are already facing a shortage of obstetricians and gynecologists in a country with high fertility rates where women often have children from a young age, Le Paih told AFP.

And demand is likely to increase, he added, as nearly half of Afghanistan’s population is under 15 years old, according to a 2022 Ministry of Health report. “We can imagine the impact this will have in a few years, when a large number of women reach fertile age,” he said.

The ban will undoubtedly make access even more difficult for the 70% of the population who live in rural areas.

After news of the ban spread last week, some training centers immediately closed their doors, while others rushed to hold final exams and graduations, and others said they would open normally after the winter break unless received a written order.

Shefajo and others want to offer online lessons, but say a lack of hands-on experience would be detrimental to learning.

Hadiya, 22, recently completed her first year of midwifery studies, after being forced to abandon computer science studies at university and English courses.

“Maybe we have midwives now, but medicine changes every day… and it’s clear that the situation in Afghanistan in the field of child and maternal health is worsening“Hadiya told AFP.

“It’s as if we were in a cage, all of us girls are thinking about finding a way to get out of here to at least be able to continue our studies and achieve our goals,” she said, adding: “When I see the situation in Afghanistan, I think that no child should be born here“.