More than 90% of the people killed by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Afghanistan were women and children, who were more likely than men to be in their homes at the time of the earthquakes.
More than 90% of the people killed by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Afghanistan were women and children, U.N. officials reported
Taliban officials said the earthquake killed more than 2,000 people of all ages and genders across Herat province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, where 1,294 people died, 1,688 were injured and every home was destroyed, according to U.N. figures.
Women and children were more likely to have been at home when the quake struck in the morning, said Siddig Ibrahim, the chief of the UNICEF field office in Herat. “When the first earthquake hit, people thought it was an explosion, and they ran into their homes,” he said.
A gender dimension
The Afghanistan representative for the United Nations Population Fund, Jaime Nadal, said there would have been no “gender dimension” to the death toll if the quake had happened at night.
“At that time of the day, men were out in the field,” Nadal told The Associated Press. “Many men migrate to Iran for work. The women were at home doing the chores and looking after the children. They found themselves trapped under the rubble. There was clearly a gender dimension.”
“In Afghanistan, where women’s rights including their freedom to move has been so significantly curtailed, this has created a perfect storm with devastating impacts”, said Alison Davidian, UN Women’s Representative in Afghanistan.
“The majority of persons killed, injured, or missing as a result of the Herat earthquakes were women – trapped inside their homes as a result of increasing restrictions”, she added, noting that research shows that women and girls are disproportionately exposed to risk during disasters and their aftermath, including increased loss of livelihoods, security, and even their lives.
“I have lost everything”
The earthquakes are also expected to worsen the mental health crisis afflicting Afghan women. Even before the quakes, 89 per cent of women from western Afghanistan said their mental health had worsened between April and July 2023.
Such is the case for now-widowed Sima, who shares: “In an instant, I have lost everything. And there is no protection for me. Now, I have two children, aged two months and one and a half years, and a world of despair with the images of the earthquake burned into my memory.”
Sources: ABC News, UN Women