The United Nations warned Thursday that the Taliban's decision to prohibit female students from pursuing medical training is expected to worsen Afghanistan's already dire humanitarian crisis, which the U.N. undersecretary-general says is the second-worst in the world after Sudan's.
Tom Fletcher, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told a quarterly Security Council meeting that the proposed restriction could potentially inflict "serious and lasting damage" on health care for Afghan women and girls.
Earlier this month, Taliban health authorities ordered public and private medical institutions across the country to halt enrollment of female students and the completion of their end-of-semester examinations. However, the abrupt directive gave 10 days to medical institutions to allow female students to take their semester exams.
"This was the last remaining sector in which Afghan women could pursue higher-level learning, following the ban on girls' higher education," Fletcher said.
"It would prevent more than 36,000 midwives and 2,800 nurses from entering the workforce in the next few years, and rates of antenatal, neonatal and maternal mortality could dramatically increase," he said.
The ban on female medical education comes as the Taliban have barred male doctors in several Afghan provinces from treating female patients.
Fletcher noted that one-third of women in Afghanistan already give birth without professional medical assistance, and preventable maternal complications claim the life of a woman every two hours in the country.
The female medical education ban is the latest in a series of edicts that radical Taliban leaders have enforced in the country since sweeping back to power in August 2021. Previously they banned secondary school education for girls and excluded Afghan women from most workplaces except those in health and a few other sectors.
The restrictions are part of what is known as the "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" law, or PVPV law, which the Taliban have promulgated in line with their stringent interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah.
During a virtual address to Thursday's Security Council meeting, Roza Otunbayeva, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said she had strongly urged the Taliban to reconsider their ban on female medical education.
However, Otunbayeva said, de facto Afghan authorities have persistently pursued their vision of an Islamic system "characterized by unprecedented" restrictions on women and girls.
"It is now approaching nearly 1,200 days without girls having access to formal education beyond sixth grade, with women and girls facing a progressive erasure from almost all walks of life," she said.
She lamented that the enforcement of the PVPV law has impacted women's already constrained freedom of movement and access to public services, with the Taliban morality police inspectors preventing women who are unaccompanied by a male guardian from traveling in vehicles, even for short distances from their homes, and from accessing health care facilities.
"There has been a notable expansion of de facto PVPV inspectors' enforcement of the requirements regarding men's beards and Western-style haircuts through visits to mosques and other public places to advise on the requirements of the law, arrests of barbers and men identified as having shaved their beards and forcing barbershops to close," she said.
Her mission, she said, has been engaging with the Taliban to establish a "constructive dialogue" in support of Afghan peace and stability.
"The objective is an Afghanistan reintegrated into the international community and upholding its international obligations," she said.
Responding to those criticizing her engagement with the Taliban despite their bans on women, the UNAMA chief emphasized that isolation is not a solution.
"Some say that engagement has not worked because these decisions keep coming despite international condemnation," Otunbayeva said. "But pressure and condemnation do not seem to be working, and if pursued without forward-leaning principled engagement, it will lead to Afghanistan's isolation."
Otunbayeva told the Security Council meeting that her office had documented a "widening pattern of restrictions" on the media, noting that the "space for public debate, including on key issues such as the rights of women and girls, continues to shrink" in Afghanistan.
The Taliban government, which is neither officially recognized by any country nor allowed to represent Afghanistan at the U.N, did not immediately respond to Thursday's criticism of its policies.
Nonetheless, de facto Afghan authorities have persistently ignored international objections to their governance, saying their rules are aligned with Sharia and local culture.
'Sick' and 'heartless'
In her address to Thursday's meeting, the head of the United States mission to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, condemned the Taliban for restricting the education, employment and overall well-being of women and girls. She decried as "sick and heartless" the restriction on female medical education, calling it "a death sentence" for Afghan women in need of potentially lifesaving medical treatment.
"How will women's health care needs be met in the future if there are no qualified women doctors, nurses, dentists and midwives? And male doctors are not allowed to treat women," Thomas-Greenfield said.
"This is not cultural, and it's not religious. It is unfathomable. It is sick. It is heartless. It means these men — Taliban — are sentencing their mothers who birthed them, their sisters, their wives, their own daughters, to die before their eyes if they become ill," she said.
The U.S. envoy emphasized that any engagement with the Taliban must be linked with a broader dialogue on human rights and a political road map in line with the U.N. resolutions.
