A United Nations human rights specialist is raising alarm about Taliban policies that are putting Afghan women and children in life-threatening situations by blocking their access to emergency medical care.
Richard Bennett, who serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, revealed Friday that the Taliban’s healthcare rules force women seeking medical attention to follow strict dress requirements, bring a male escort, and receive treatment only from male healthcare providers.
According to Bennett, women are routinely refused ambulance transportation when they don’t have a male guardian with them.
Bennett’s report to the UN Human Rights Council this week detailed disturbing cases, including a woman who had to deliver her baby alone outside a hospital entrance because she arrived without a male companion. In another tragic incident, a mother watched her four-year-old son die because she couldn’t make the trip to the hospital by herself.
“The Taliban’s restrictions must be reversed, otherwise they will be killing people,” Bennett stated during a Geneva press conference.
“These policies are not isolated measures. They form an institutionalised system of gender discrimination that denies women and girls autonomy over their own bodies, health, and futures,” he added.
Bennett revealed that Taliban officials ignored his attempts to get their response to his findings. The Taliban maintains that their policies honor women’s rights according to their understanding of Islamic teachings.
Since regaining control in 2021, the Taliban has implemented sweeping restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and banned girls from attending school beyond elementary levels through various moral conduct laws that also restrict personal expression and job opportunities.
Data from last year shows women made up roughly 25% of Afghanistan’s healthcare workforce. However, Bennett warned that the prohibition on medical education for women is eliminating the future supply of female healthcare workers needed to treat women patients under the gender separation requirements.
“It’s a completely unjustifiable policy. It puts the entire health system in jeopardy, and unless reversed, it will lead to unnecessary suffering, illness and death,” Bennett emphasized.
Suraya Dalil, Afghanistan’s former health minister, spoke at the same briefing about her growing concerns regarding increasing maternal deaths during childbirth.
“Unfortunately, we expect higher mortality – maternal mortality (and) infant mortality – in the coming years because of the fact that the health workforce are systematically restricted,” Dalil warned.
