KABUL Just a couple of months ago, a 32-year-old mother of four Raihana Motahari was full of hope, as were many of his fellow students.
After years of waiting, he had started studying for the university entrance exams at a private institute in Kabul. The plans included a career as a doctor.
Now he sits alone in the middle of a deserted classroom, holding his head in his hands.
– I can’t see the future, Motahari says and sighs heavily.
In December 2022, the Taliban movement ruling Afghanistan closed universities to women, and right after, also private education centers to girls over sixth grade. Now women are not even allowed to participate in university entrance exams.
This means that, at least in the near future, Afghan universities will no longer graduate new female doctors.
It will have serious consequences for the health care of Afghan women.
An old culture may prevent women from accessing a doctor
When Motahari was a small child, he lost his mother to complications during childbirth. At that time, the family lived far from the city in the countryside, and there was no female doctor available.
Due to old gender concepts, going to a male doctor is not always advisable.
– My father didn’t let my mother go to a male doctor. Then my mother died. That day I decided that I had to become a doctor so that I could save other women, says Motahari.
However, realizing the dream was difficult. Motahari got married young. Time passed. He didn’t have time to study for the entrance exams.
– I have four children. It took a lot of work, he says.
Shortly before the Taliban’s rise to power in 2021, Motahar’s children were finally old enough for him to begin preparations to take the entrance exams. The woman enrolled in courses at a private education center.
At the same time, Taliban forces poured into the cities. Soon the extremist Islamic movement was firmly in power again. The future of girls and women seemed uncertain despite the assurances of the Taliban.
The Taliban broke their promise
Shortly after coming to power, the Taliban allowed only boys and girls under sixth grade to return to school. Older girls and women had to stay at home.
However, this did not affect Motahar’s studies in the private sector. In February 2022, the Taliban opened the universities again. That’s why the new study ban imposed on women in December 2022 came as such a huge disappointment.
Motahari says he has lost hope. The woman’s eyes fill with angry tears.
– Today they won’t let us study. I think tomorrow they will close the hospitals to us too. Living will also be forbidden.
Motahari bursts into bitter tears. He says that he is depressed and sleeps all day.
There was already a shortage of women in healthcare
According to the Taliban, the university ban on women is temporary. Still, even a temporary ban will have irreversible effects.
There are only two public maternity hospitals in Afghanistan. Another one of them is the Malalai Hospital in the center of Kabul.
Almost the entire staff of the hospital consists of women – including the manager Malalai Rahim Faizi is a woman. The manager and the hospital coincidentally have the same name.
Faiz’s study upstairs is bright. A white Taliban flag is placed on his sturdy desk.
According to him, there has been a shortage of female healthcare professionals in Afghanistan for a long time.
– This shortage affects the whole country, not just certain regions, Faizi says.
According to him, there are not enough female doctors even in Kabul. According to Faiz, the only solution to the situation would be for more women to be trained in the field.
He sees the Taliban’s university ban on women having extremely negative effects in his own hospital as well.
– Over time, older healthcare professionals retire, die or move out of the country, Faizi says.
According to him, as they get older, doctors may not be able to work as long shifts.
– It is unrealistic to expect people in their 50s or 60s to be able to work all night, Faizi says.
Economic difficulties increase the pressure on healthcare
Even now, the staff at Malalai Hospital are struggling under ever-increasing pressure.
Women dressed in burkas, which cover their faces and bodies, wander the corridors of the hospital. Some of them are carrying babies wrapped in blankets in their arms.
At the same time, scarf-wearing doctors rush from one department to another. One of them is the chief doctor of Malalai Hospital Zakia Aziz.
– There are not enough doctors and midwives, because too many patients come here. People are facing financial difficulties and they don’t go to private hospitals anymore, Aziz explains.
The doctor makes a quick round of the department for women who have just given birth. Several women are lying in one bed – there is not enough space.
The old culture is also a part of the reason for the overloading of the Malalai Hospital.
– We are Muslims. I know no one lets the women in their families go to a male doctor. They want a female doctor to examine them, Aziz says.
That is why people come to Kabul from further away in the countryside.
During the previous Taliban regime in the 1990s, women were allowed to continue working in healthcare precisely for reasons related to the old culture.
The Taliban lacks a clear line on women’s studies
The Taliban Ministry of Health is located right in the center of Kabul, near the former US embassy. At the end of the ministry’s labyrinthine corridors, a spokesperson who speaks fluent English is waiting Sharafat Zaman Amar.
According to him, the share of women in the public health care staff is now about 28 percent.
– We are doing our best to extend the services to the whole country, for women and men, he says.
According to Amari, women still study at institutes operating under the Ministry of Health, where they can graduate as health nurses and midwives, for example.
In the future, it will not be easy for women to study at these educational institutions either, because middle schools and high schools are closed.
Inside the Taliban is disagreements (you switch to another service)regarding women’s education and work. Many in the administration hope that girls’ schools will open again. According to experts, the opposition comes from the extremist leadership of the Taliban based in Kandahar.
Amari does not have a clear answer to how women could become doctors in the future.
– It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Higher Education. I hope that the universities will reopen soon, says the spokesperson.