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It was September 2011 and the Arab Spring in Libya was in full swing.
Cars lined up outside the apartment complex where I held my clinic as a volunteer physician at International Medical Corp.
A man appeared with his wife. Muhammad, my translator, told me that she was about to give birth; I didn’t know, because her hijab hid her belly. “You need a pass to Misurata.”
The woman stood on the examination table. Muhammad said, “I will wait outside.”
I gestured for the woman to remove her hijab. She stared at me. I tried to lift her robe, but she resisted and opened a slit so I could see her belly. Her fingers were ready to pull down her hijab.
Outside, there was an air of urgency. Rebels were closing checkpoints in Misurata. Frantic male relatives were bringing their pregnant wives to the clinic to ask for passes to travel to conflict-free areas so they could give birth to their babies.
In many areas of the world where there is a rapid transition of power, such as in Afghanistan, or after a period of years of civil war, such as in South Sudanhealth care and Women rights Women have become victims of constant neglect and erosion. After regaining power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, a key body for promoting women’s rights. In its place, the new regime created the infamous Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a public morality watchdog that enforces the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law. This ministry has been systematically eroding Afghan women’s rights.
Recently the Taliban issued a decree Banning women from working in national and international non-governmental organisations. They have already banned girls from attending secondary school and women from attending university, and have banned women from holding public office.
These rulings represent a setback in the progress Afghan women have made over the past two decades, essentially eliminating their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
International Amnesty The ban has reportedly led to service providers supporting survivors of gender-based violence and women’s shelters closing down for fear of retaliation. The ruling denies women seeking medical help from same-sex providers their basic human rights to safe healthcare.
He Asian Foundation In 2015, a study among Afghans found that 22.6% of Afghans nationwide reported that women contributed to their household income, up from 13.6% in 2009. The rate was as high as 49.3% in the central region of the country. There are 19.4 million women in Afghanistan, almost 50% of the population. Banning women from working outside their homes will mean more hungry children and more poverty in Afghanistan. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN WomenShe said banning women from working in NGOs effectively amounts to cutting humanitarian aid to half of the Afghan population, which includes 11.6 million women and girls.
He Working Group on Humanitarian Access A rapid survey was conducted among 87 NGOs and found that 83% had suspended operations. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health said that female NGO workers in the health sector are exempt from the decree, but Afghan women are involved in areas other than the health sector, such as women’s empowerment and girls’ education.
In humanitarian disaster zones, where women and girls often suffer gender-based violence, they need the care of other women. It is inconceivable that they want to be cared for by men, which further aggravates their trauma. How do the Taliban expect Afghan women, who are today covered from head to toe in their hijabs, to be willing to be examined by men, especially if they suffer gender-based violence?
For over a decade, I volunteered as a doctor in various humanitarian organizations in many regions of the world, including Muslim nations. Women always play an important role in the health sector. Even in the United States, three-quarters of the health sector workforce are women. Women employed by NGOs run programs that provide maternal and reproductive health, child nutrition, and vaccination services. These women are midwives, social workers, medical assistants, nurses, and doctors; it will be difficult to fill their positions if women are prohibited from working with NGOs. By preventing women from working in aid organizations that deal with issues that rely heavily on them, the Taliban are using humanitarian aid as a misogynistic weapon.
Progress has been made in eradicating polio in Afghanistan, the report says. Global Polio Eradication InitiativeThe number of wild poliovirus cases decreased from 56 cases in 2020 to four in 2021, representing a 93% decrease. As of October 2022, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Nepalese government had reported only two cases of wild poliovirus. However, the decree will affect eradication efforts, where women play a key role in polio awareness and vaccination programme. Given the success of the GPEI, two days after the edict banning women from working with humanitarian organisations was issued in December 2022, the GPEI went ahead by sending female vaccinators on its campaign in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan.
In 2021, the number of measles cases and deaths in the country were 31,379 and 106, respectively, and these increased to 77,808 with 392 deaths in 2022. The average number of suspected cases of measles For three years, from 2019 to 2021, the incidence was low (about 300 cases per week) compared to 2022, when the number increased to 1,600 cases per week. This was due to many outbreaks, and cases only decreased with the implementation of measles immunization in week 10 of 2022. Afghanistan has a large susceptible population These include children under five with low measles vaccination coverage, high rates of malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency; a large number of internally displaced people; and difficult access to health services in rural areas and during the cold winter. All health workers, men and women alike, will be needed to combat this infection.
Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. The country relies on NGOs for help. Excluding women from working with NGOs, when NGOs rely on them to run many of their programmes to care for other women, would further tie their hands and they might not be able to offer the kind of services that Afghan society needs.
Limiting girls’ and women’s access to education and employment will further increase their illiteracy and economic dependency, causing them to lose control over their lives and destinies. The repercussions will affect their children, their families, their communities and Afghanistan.
In Libya, during the Arab Spring, although many pregnant women came to see me, a doctor, they remained modest and were not willing to remove their hijab to be examined.
Back at the clinic, I handed the travel permit to the pregnant woman and she let her husband take it. They left quickly before the sun set and the curfew began.
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