WHO Urges Taliban to Lift Post-Earthquake Restrictions on Female Aid Workers

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Taliban authorities to lift restrictions on female Afghan aid workers, allowing them to travel without male guardians and assist women struggling to access healthcare after the devastating earthquake that killed 2,200 people in the east of the country last week.

"The biggest problem right now is the dwindling number of female staff in these places," Dr. Mukta Sharma, WHO deputy representative for Afghanistan, told Reuters on Monday, September 8.

She further estimated that around 90 percent of medical staff in the region are men, and the remaining 10 percent are often midwives and nurses, rather than doctors, who can treat severe injuries.

This hampers care because women feel uncomfortable or afraid to interact with male staff and travel alone to receive treatment.

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake on September 1 and its aftershocks injured more than 3,600 people, leaving thousands homeless in a country already facing severe aid cuts and a series of humanitarian crises since the Taliban took power in 2021, as foreign troops withdrew.

The Afghan Health Ministry and a spokesman for the Taliban government did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The Taliban say they respect women's rights according to their interpretation of Islamic law, and have previously said they will ensure women can receive aid.

Taliban authorities in 2022 ordered female Afghan NGO staff to stop working outside the home. Humanitarian officials say there have been exceptions, particularly in the health and education sectors, but many say these are patchy and insufficient to allow for a surge in female staff, especially in emergency situations that require travel.

That means aid organizations and their female staff face uncertainty, Sharma said, and in some cases cannot afford to take risks.

"The restrictions are enormous, the mahram (male guardian) issue persists, and no official exemptions have been granted by the de facto authorities," he said, adding that his team had raised the issue with authorities last week.

"That's why we felt the need to advocate to (the authorities) to say, 'This is the time we really need more female health workers, let's bring them in, and let's find them elsewhere,'" she explained.

Sharma said she is particularly concerned about the future of women accessing mental health services to cope with trauma, as well as those whose male family members have been killed, leaving them facing restrictions imposed on women without male guardians.

Sharma noted that the number of female doctors in Afghanistan has decreased due to the Taliban's ban on women attending high school and university, meaning the number of available female doctors has not increased.