Kabul - After months of continuous restrictions placed on the women and girls of Afghanistan, including limitations placed on their participation in everyday life, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) strongly condemns the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s erasure of women from social life in the country. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – also known as the Taliban – have limited women and girls’ access to education and, most recently, even the right for women to work for non-governmental organisations.

“More than 51 per cent of our medical staff are women,” says Filipe Ribeiro, MSF Country Representative in Afghanistan, on the most recent ban. “We are talking about nearly 900 doctors, nurses and other professionals who strive every day to give thousands of Afghans the best care possible.”

“MSF operations couldn’t exist without them,” continues Ribeiro. “This newest directive is just another step in a systematic attempt to expunge women’s presence from the public domain, to everyone’s detriment.”

In a country with a population which is confronted with rampant poverty, fuelled by skyrocketing unemployment, and is mostly dependent on humanitarian aid for survival, female workers play a critical role in providing humanitarian assistance and healthcare services. No organisation, however big or small, can deliver assistance to communities in need without women’s participation.  

The consequences of this latest decree will hit vulnerable groups the hardest, such as female patients and children, for whom it will become even more difficult, if not impossible, to see doctors. For the time being, all of our activities have been maintained, as our female colleagues continue to work unhindered in the health facilities managed by MSF and the Ministry of Health. This must not change; prohibiting women from working would effectively prevent them from accessing healthcare.

“Over 90 per cent of our medical staff in Khost maternity hospital are women,” says Ribeiro. “They assist with the delivery of 1,800 babies every month. If this policy is fully implemented, more mothers will face additional, perhaps insurmountable, barriers to prenatal and postnatal services. They’ll have nowhere to go.”     

After the closure of secondary schools in March 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education also announced the decision to bar women from attending private and public universities earlier this month. This will undoubtedly worsen the situation in the long-term.

“The healthcare system in Afghanistan struggles to meet people’s basic needs,” says Ribeiro. “If patients can’t get treatment today, what will happen in the future when half of all potential medical students are not allowed to study?”

“In Khost, we already find it challenging to fill all necessary positions, including for gynaecologists, who are extremely scarce across the region,” Ribeiro continues. “We need more female doctors, not fewer.”     

Excluding women in this way goes against every principle of humanity and medical ethics to which health professionals subscribe.

“If women are prevented from working in health facilities, and if women can only be treated by women, then it will be virtually impossible for them to access healthcare,” says Ribeiro. “As a result, no healthcare provider, including MSF, will be able to deliver medical services in Afghanistan.”

In order for essential services to be available for all genders, they must be delivered by all genders. For that reason, MSF in Afghanistan remains committed to serve all those in need of medical care, by maintaining our current teams as they are.