Date: 01/03/2025

The Telegraph reported that restrictions imposed by the Taliban are preventing girls in Afghanistan from accessing life-saving medical care, including surgery. Citing new medical data, the report states that more than 80 percent of surgeries conducted at a children’s medical center in Kabul were performed on boys, with girls largely excluded due to gender-based restrictions.

According to interviews with doctors and families, many girls are forced to rely on religious prayers and traditional remedies instead of professional medical treatment, placing their health and lives at risk. The report attributes this to severe limitations on women’s movement and access to healthcare, including requirements for male guardians.

The article includes the testimony of Gul Nessa, a woman from western Afghanistan, who described repeated attempts to take her sick eight-year-old daughter to a doctor. She said Taliban members repeatedly questioned her about her husband’s whereabouts and accused her of lying after she told them he had been killed. As her daughter’s condition worsened, she was eventually forced to seek a male relative to accompany them to medical care. The report concludes that under Taliban rule, families caring for girls face extreme barriers to survival, particularly in accessing health services.

The exclusion of girls from surgical and medical care under Taliban rule demonstrates how gender-based restrictions directly translate into preventable illness and death. By conditioning access to healthcare on male guardianship and restricting women’s movement, the Taliban transform health systems into instruments of gender apartheid. The resulting reliance on prayer or traditional remedies in place of surgery underscores the life-threatening consequences of institutionalized discrimination.