Latest decree said to ban women from nursing and midwifery
Published December 9, 2024
The Taliban has reportedly banned women in Afghanistan from attending nursing and midwifery classes in yet another blow to women’s rights since the Taliban takeover. The latest directive closes one of the last remaining avenues women had to get an education.
“This devastating decision has crushed the hopes of hundreds of women who aspired to pursue an education and serve their communities,” Manizha Bakhtari, ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan in Austria, told Fox News Digital.
Human Rights Watch noted that the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, issued the decree and it was communicated by the Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health during a meeting with private medical institutions.
The latest decree follows earlier bans from the Taliban on secondary education for girls and universities for women, extinguishing the last glimmer of hope for Afghanistan’s young women.
Ambassador Bakhtari, who is also Afghanistan’s representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said the ban is not only a gross violation of human rights, but is also a grave setback for Afghanistan’s development.
“Preventing women from participating in essential professions will lead to higher maternal and neonatal mortality rates, undermining the country’s health system and progress,” the ambassador said.
Women who were attending courses to study nursing and midwifery were ordered not to attend classes any longer. Nursing and midwifery provided women with one of the last opportunities to have a profession that was exempt from bans the Taliban implemented on women’s employment after taking power in 2021.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett said in a post on X that the “inexplicable and unjustifiable” announcement will have a devastating impact on the entire population if implemented and must be reversed.
Access to health care and a lack of adequate services has left Afghanistan’s population vulnerable to disease and even routine illnesses that could be treated with basic medical services. Preventing women from studying at medical institutions harms Afghanistan’s entire population, which is desperately in need of health care workers.
Rural areas will be the hardest hit by the Taliban’s latest ban, where cultural norms prevent male doctors from treating female patients.
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