Concurrent with the withdrawal of foreign forces
The health of Afghan women is threatened by the increase in violence
Afghan women fear the "Taliban" movement to control the reins of power in the country.
AFP
Afghan women suffer due to lack of care and prevented from accessing health facilities for treatment.
AFP
Biden's commitment to withdraw in late August horrifies Afghan women.
AFP
picture
Wati thinks she's 30, but she looks 25, she's been married to an older man since she was 18, and she's come to a clinic pregnant for the fifth time in four years, including two miscarriages.
In this small maternity clinic in a poor village of Dand district near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, women are fighting for their lives.
"I am afraid of losing my child again," says this young Afghan woman wistfully.
After the withdrawal of US forces, which resulted in increased fighting and the start of depriving the country of international aid, the situation could worsen.
Women wearing a burqa arrive accompanied by a male family member.
Men are forbidden to enter and wait outside.
"I only have permission to go outside to go to the doctor," Wati said, carrying her documents in a plastic bag.
Khurma, for her part, has just learned that she is pregnant again, after giving birth to five children.
She says that she had two miscarriages because she worked "intensively at home".
Well, she is a midwife. "Some families don't pay attention to pregnancy: women give birth at home, they bleed a lot and they are shocked."
She (well) chose to work in the countryside when she learned about the suffering of women.
'If I hadn't come,' she said, 'who would have done it?
Here the (Taliban) movement does not attack midwives, so my fear here is less.”
fatal effect
For many Afghan women, clinics are too far away, roads are dangerous, and transportation is prohibitively expensive.
As a result, in 2017, UNICEF recorded about 7,700 deaths during childbirth, which is twice as high as the number of civilians killed in attacks (3,448), according to the United Nations, and the numbers are worse in the south at the hands of the Taliban, or amid intense fighting.
There the women risk suffering even more as aid dries up after international forces withdraw by August 31, the deadline announced by US President Joe Biden.
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch warned that the dramatic reduction in aid was having a "fatal effect" on Afghan women.
But with the threat of civil war or the Taliban returning to power, donors are refusing to commit to maintaining "the support that is needed more than ever."
To monitor the villagers' health, Najia, a midwife, makes house-to-house visits.
"Some families prevent women from going to the clinic," she says.
Sometimes the men wouldn't let me in.”
In "Qasim Paul", Kela receives her in her yard, wearing a dirty white headscarf.
Her baby rests his head on her knees.
The patient finally realized that she was five months pregnant.
This is her sixth child.
"After that, I want contraception," she said.
I am very poor and cannot take care of all my children.
And my husband agrees.
We don't have enough money to buy soap.”
Desperate mothers
According to a 2018 study by the Kate Institute - 17 years after the arrival of NATO forces in the country - 41 percent of women had given birth to their children at home, and 60 percent had no postpartum follow-up.
For dangerous and remote areas, these numbers are even more alarming.
In the southern province of Helmand, a stronghold of the Taliban, fewer than a fifth of pregnant women received at least one antenatal visit, according to the institute.
In a mobile clinic belonging to the non-governmental organization Action Against Hunger, which was set up in a mud house in Lashkar Gah, the state capital, (Gandhi Gul) receives women displaced by the battles.
"Most of them are sick," says this midwife.
Families don't care about them.
Patients are waiting sitting on the floor with their sick children, and their stories are many and sad.
“My child died because I could not reach a clinic or a midwife,” says Farzana, a 20-year-old who fled Taliban-ruled areas.
Many children are dying.”
As for Shadia, who got married at the age of ten, is 18 years old, has three children, and was residing in the Taliban areas, she had to walk three hours to reach the clinic.
"This is very dangerous, three women died on the road," she said.
At ACF Hospital for undernourished infants, desperate mothers risked their lives to reach.
On their beds, they remain silent with their emaciated children.
Rosia, who arrived from the Taliban areas, looks at her seven-month-old son, Bilal, who was born prematurely and suffers from a cleft lip, pneumonia, and severe malnutrition.
"I was too afraid to fight," said Rosia, who crossed the front line when her son's health worsened.
Nobody knows if he will live.
She lost a premature baby, was taken out by the hospital after delivery due to lack of resources to take care of her, and the baby lived for three days.
Women risk suffering more as aid dries up, after international forces withdraw by August 31, the deadline announced by US President Joe Biden.
According to a 2018 study by the Kate Institute – 17 years after the arrival of NATO forces in Afghanistan – 41% of women had given birth to their children at home, and 60% had no postpartum follow-up.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news