Activists sound alarm over surge in suicides among Afghan women
ISTANBUL (AA): There has been a surge in Afghan women committing suicides ever since the Taliban’s imposition of restrictions on their education and work opportunities, NGOs claim.
Although concrete figures are hard to find, rights groups fear the issue may be bigger than is being reported.
A report by local channel Tolo News said there were 250 suicide attempts in the country over the last year – 188 of them were women and 62 men.
Maryam Marof Arwin, who heads a local NGO called Afghanistan Women and Children Strengthen Welfare Organization, said they receive reports of at least nine to 11 suicides by women every month, many of them young girls.
However, the actual number could be higher.
“Most of the suicides are in places such as Takhar, Kunduz, Bamyan, Badghis, Faryab, and Mazar-i-Sharif,” said Arwin.
‘Gender apartheid’
The main reason for the spike in suicides among women is their deteriorating living standards in Afghanistan, according to activists.
Other than restrictions on education and work, forced marriages, domestic violence and the general lack of social life adversely affect the mental health of Afghan women, NGOs claim.
Last year, Fawzia Koofi, the former deputy speaker of Afghanistan’s Parliament, told the UN Human Rights Council that Afghan women were taking their lives out of desperation.
“Every day, there are at least one or two women who commit suicide for the lack of opportunity, for the mental health, for the pressure they receive,” she said.
The interim Taliban administration, however, rejected the claims.
In a statement, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused the “United Nations and some Western institutions and governments” of spreading “propaganda that does not reflect reality.”
The Taliban follow an ultraconservative and deeply patriarchal interpretation of Islam which imposes restrictions on women. Most mainstream Islamic scholars reject any religious basis for such restrictions and advocate equal rights, fundamental human freedoms and protection for Afghan women within the ambit of religious values.
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