Human Rights Watch: The restrictions imposed by the Taliban group on women and girls have prevented their access to health services.

14 Feb 2024
3 Minutes
Human Rights Watch: The restrictions imposed by the Taliban group on women and girls have prevented their access to health services.

Human Rights Watch has said in a new report that the reduction of international aid has severely damaged Afghanistan’s health system and the restrictions imposed by the Taliban group on women and girls have prevented them from accessing health services.

Today (February 14), Human Rights Watch has addressed the health crisis in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule in a 38-page report entitled “A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future”, which describes the difficult health situation in Afghanistan from February 2023 to January 2024. it shows.

The report states that the excessive reduction of international aid has damaged Afghanistan’s health care system and the restrictions imposed by the Taliban group on women and girls have prevented their access to health services.

This international organization has said that the reduction of these aids has endangered the health of millions of people and caused the aggravation of various diseases including malnutrition in this country.

In this report, Human Rights Watch has said that with the arrival of the Taliban, “serious damage” has been inflicted on Afghanistan’s health infrastructure, and the decision of donor countries to reduce humanitarian aid has made access to health care more difficult and has caused fragility in the economic system and the inability to provide food security. has been

This international organization has said that the policies and methods of the Taliban have intensified the health crisis in Afghanistan and the ban on education for women and girls has made a large amount of training for female health workers impossible, which will cause a severe shortage of female workers in the health sector in the future. will be.

The Human Rights Watch report states: “Despite problems such as the cost of treatment and medicine, the Taliban have severely restricted women from providing or accessing health services.”

This organization says that this report was prepared based on interviews with Taliban officials, international relief organizations, health workers and people in need of health assistance in 16 to 34 provinces of the country.

The human rights watchdog has said that after the fall of the republican system in this country, the economy of Afghanistan has been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and this has caused poverty to spread in the society and the citizens of Afghanistan are not able to pay for healthcare.

The report states: “Many Afghan citizens, including millions of children, are at risk, and almost two-thirds of Afghanistan’s population will need humanitarian assistance by the end of 2023. A reduction in the delivery of international humanitarian aid in 2023 and a prolonged drought threaten citizens’ access to adequate food and have led to the spread of the crisis.

Based on this report, in the past two decades, the republican system relied on international aid to provide basic health services, and the government’s participation in the funding of these services was “negligible”, and this caused the health system to suffer after the aid was cut off. to be

It is said in this report: “After the Taliban took control of the World Bank, countries and aid agencies stopped all development aid in the health sector. Although humanitarian aid increased temporarily in 2021-2022, it faced a decrease in 2023, and this caused a shock to Afghanistan’s economy and health system. This crisis caused many health experts to leave Afghanistan or leave their jobs.

According to the report of Human Rights Watch, with the reduction of aid to Afghanistan’s health system after 2022, donor organizations focused only on immediate measures to prevent the total collapse of this system and the occurrence of a “worse disaster”.

Human Rights Watch has said that female employees in the health sector are forced to have a man with them as a mahram during their travels and to observe the Taliban’s strict hijab-related rules during working hours, and this creates obstacles in providing and receiving health services. Created.

This organization has asked the international community: in the upcoming meeting in Doha, which will be held with the presence of the special representatives of the countries for Afghanistan and hosted by the United Nations, they should put pressure on the Taliban headquarters in order to remove their restrictions on women, so that schools and universities Reopen to a million girls and the health sector in Afghanistan will not be destroyed.

The officials of the Taliban government have not reacted to this report so far; But they always reject the reports of international organizations and say that these reports are prepared without the opinions of Afghan citizens.