The Taliban’s action of expelling women from universities and NGOs has caused a great uproar at the international level and has not stopped yet. According to the latest report coming out of Afghanistan, the figures show that the mental health of the country’s people is deteriorating and the number of mentally ill people is increasing sharply.
Naturally, the highly anti-feminist and anti-democratic policies and attitudes of the Taliban regime there directly point to this mental health index.
It is reported that the mental health problems of the people are increasing in Afghanistan in the last few months. The remarkable fact is that 80 percent of the increase in the number of mental patients are women.
Afghan media Tolo News reports that out of 100 people who regularly seek treatment in mental hospitals, 80 of them are women.
According to figures, at least 400 psychiatric patients were admitted to the provincial hospital in Herat last month alone.
Unemployment, family problems, closure of schools and colleges and denial of admission to women, including universities, are the main reasons for the rise in mental health problems, according to the Tolo News report.
The report also cited domestic violence, marital problems and financial problems as contributing factors to mental illness.
Doctors in Herat province warn that if the situation in the country continues like this, the number of mentally ill patients will increase sharply.
Doctors also say that the situation of not being able to go out to get an education or work is seriously affecting the mental health of women in Afghanistan.
“Women make up half of the society. “It will be very good for their mental health if they go back to work and education,” said Dr. Muhammad Shafiq Omar says.
Women are facing serious problems under Taliban rule in the country. After taking over the government of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban implemented extreme anti-women measures. Schools and colleges had separate classrooms for boys and girls.
Women were denied access to parks, recreation centers and gyms, and measures such as salary cuts were taken to drive women out of government jobs.
In recent months, the Taliban have also issued orders to wear a burqa when leaving home and to travel only with a male relative.
More recently, the Taliban government has denied girls access to universities and secondary schools and ordered all local and foreign NGOs in the country to send their female employees back home.
Last December 24, the Taliban issued an order prohibiting women from working in NGOs. The United Nations, various countries and human rights organizations have protested against the ban on university admission and the ban on NGOs.
But the Taliban have not yet felt that these criticisms or the ongoing discussions at the international level have changed their policies and positions. They are even more undemocratic than when they first seized power in Afghanistan in 1996.
Content Highlight: Report says cases of mental illness on rise in Afghanistan, incidence highest among women