Afghan women faces a worsening mental health crisis and ‘pandemic of suicidal thoughts’ amid a clampdown on women’s freedoms and rights. “When you read the news, you read about the hunger crisis, but no-one talks about mental health. It’s like people are being slowly poisoned. Day by day, they’re losing hope.”
“When you read the news, you read about the hunger crisis, but no-one talks about mental health. It’s like people are being slowly poisoned. Day by day, they’re losing hope.”
In a society deeply entrenched in patriarchal norms and exhausted by four decades of warfare, approximately half of Afghanistan’s population, predominantly women, already experienced psychological distress even prior to the Taliban’s assumption of power in 2021, according to the UN’s estimations.
However, experts have informed the BBC that the situation has deteriorated significantly due to the Taliban regime’s suppression of women’s rights and the ensuing economic crisis in the nation.
It’s extremely hard to get people to talk about suicide, but six families have agreed to tell BBC their stories.
Nadir is one of them. He said his daughter took her own life on the first day of the new school term in March this year.
“Until that day, she had believed that schools would eventually reopen for girls. She had been sure of it. But when that didn’t happen, she couldn’t cope and took her own life,” he says. “She loved school. She was smart, thoughtful and wanted to study and serve our country. When they closed schools, she became extremely distressed and would cry a lot.”
“Our life has been destroyed. Nothing means anything to me anymore. I’m at the lowest I’ve ever been. My wife is very disturbed. She can’t bear to be in our home where our daughter died.”
The father of a woman in her early twenties told BBC what he believes was the reason behind his daughter’s suicide. “She wanted to become a doctor. When schools were closed, she was distressed and upset,” he says.
“But it was after she wasn’t allowed to sit for the university entrance exam, that’s when she lost all hope. It’s an unbearable loss,” he adds, then pauses abruptly and begins to cry.
“The situation is catastrophic and critical“
Meher, who is a teacher, and she tried to take her own life twice.
“The Taliban closed universities for women, so I lost my job. I used to be the breadwinner of my family. And now I can’t bear the expenses. That really affected me,” she says. “Because I was forced to stay at home, I was being pressured to get married. All the plans I had for my future were shattered. I felt totally disoriented, with no goals or hope, and that’s why I tried to end my life.”
“The situation is catastrophic and critical. But we are not allowed to record or access suicide statistics. I can definitely say though that you can barely find someone who is not suffering from a mental illness,” says Dr Shaan, a psychiatrist who works at a public hospital in Afghanistan.
A study done in Herat province by the Afghanistan Centre for Epidemiological Studies, released in March this year, has shown that two-thirds of Afghan adolescents reported symptoms of depression. The UN has raised an alarm over “widespread mental health issues and escalating accounts of suicides”.
Source: BBC