4.4.6. Access to healthcare and basic services

Table of contents

4.4.6. Access to healthcare and basic services

Women’s access to healthcare has been reduced by ‘significant barriers’, including restrictions on their movement, gender segregation, poverty, the financial cost of treatment, and a lack of female doctors.1395 UNAMA reported that women’s already limited healthcare access has worsened under the Morality law, with inspectors regularly visiting facilities to enforce compliance, for example regarding hijab, segregation and mahram rules.1396 The requirement for women to be accompanied by a mahram when travelling has impacted both women seeking1397 and providing care.1398 In some areas, women without a mahram have been prevented from accessing health facilities or denied service.1399 In various instances, PVPV inspectors have given instructions that female patients without a mahram should not be treated.1400 In some cases, female health workers were required to have a mahram at work1401, and since May 2025 in Kandahar Province, these mahrams reportedly needed an official identification card.1402

Sources noted that general restrictions on women’s access to education1403 and the ban on women to attend medical classes from December 20241404 are likely to exacerbate the existing shortage in women medical staff.1405 This has an adverse impact on the health outcome for women, given that ‘cultural norms limit the treatment of women by male doctors’1406 and that these norms restrict health-care providers in seeing patients of the opposite sex.1407 Cuts in international funding of aid have also negatively impacted women’s access to healthcare.1408 The bans on women from working for NGOs and the UN,1409 the restrictions on female aid workers1410 and on women in general, have moreover negatively impacted the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance to women.1411

Women in poor and rural areas and women with disabilities are disproportionately affected.1412 The AAN reported that women in rural areas are confronted with several barriers in accessing healthcare, inter alia the lack of clinics in their vicinity, financial hardship, restrictions on their movement, as well as damaged or non-existent roads and insufficient means of transport.1413 Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate was already among the highest in the world, and reportedly the situation is getting worse.1414 According to research for RWI, many women and girls have no access to essential maternal health services.1415

The policies of the de facto authorities have contributed to a the mental health crisis among women and girls.1416 The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan stated that he has been receiving alarming reports of stress, anxiety, depression, suicide and suicidal ideation, especially among young women and girls.1417 A survey by UN Women in 2025 noted that 75 % of the surveyed women described their mental health as bad or very bad.1418 Suicides among women and girls have moreover reportedly increased,1419 and AW reported on suicides being connected to education, domestic violence, forced marriage, rape and detention.1420 There are only limited mental health and psychosocial support services (see section 3.5. Healthcare),1421 and only a handful facilities are dedicated to women’s mental health, as noted by BBC News.1422

  • 1395

    Bjelica J. and AAN-Team, Rural Women’s Access to Health in Afghanistan: “Most of the time, we just don’t go”, AAN, 18 March 2025, url; UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, paras. 17-23

  • 1396

    UNAMA, Report on the Implementation, Enforcement and Impact of the Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan, 10 April 2025, url, p. 9, 10, 13; UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: July-September 2025, 28 October 2025, url, p. 3

  • 1397

    UNAMA, De Facto Authorities’ Moral Oversight in Afghanistan: Impacts on Human Rights, July 2024, url, p. 3;

  • 1398

    HRW,“A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future”, Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis, 12 February 2024, url; UNAMA, Report on the Implementation, Enforcement and Impact of the Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan, 10 April 2025, url, p. 3

  • 1399

    UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: October- December 2024, 28 January 2025, url, p. 3; UN Human Rights Council, The phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation,

  • 1400

    UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: October-December 2024, 28 January 2025, url, p. 3; UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: April-June 2025, 10 August 2025, url, p. 2

  • 1401

    HRW,“A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future”, Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis, 12 February 2024, url; Rawadari, Afghanistan Mid-Year Human Rights Situation Report: January-June 30, 2025, August 2025, url, p. 41; Zan Times, When working requires a man and a mahram card, 25 June, 2025, url

  • 1402

    UN Security Council, The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, 5 September 2025, url, para. 32; UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: April-June 2025, 10 August 2025, url, p. 3

  • 1403

    Human Rights Watch, “A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future” Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis, 12 February 2024, url

  • 1404

    Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan’s Taliban Ban Medical Training for Women, 3 December 2024, url; UNAMA, Update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan: October-December 2024, 28 January 2025, url, p. 2

  • 1405

    MSF, Excluding women from medical institutes threatens the future of healthcare in Afghanistan, 6 December 2024, url

  • 1406

    UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, paras. 17-18

  • 1407

    UN Human Rights Council, The phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls, 13 May 2024, url, p. 40; Medscape, How Women in Afghanistan Struggle for Life and Health, 10 October 2025, url

  • 1408

    New Humanitarian (The), Three years on, the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate is full of contradictions, 15 August 2024, url; International Crisis Group, After the Aid Axe: Charting a Path to Self-reliance in Afghanistan, 2 October 2025, url

  • 1409

    International Crisis Group, Taliban Restrictions on Women’s Rights Deepen Afghanistan’s Crisis, 23 February 2023, url; UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 11 September 2023, url, para. 11

  • 1410

    UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, para. 98; AP Giha WG, UN Women, UN Women, Women and Girls in Crisis: 2024 Gender Analysis of Humanitarian Sectors in Afghanistan, 27 April 2025, url, pp.12-13

  • 1411

    AP Giha WG, UN Women, UN Women, Women and Girls in Crisis: 2024 Gender Analysis of Humanitarian Sectors in Afghanistan, 27 April 2025, url, pp.12-13

  • 1412

    HRW,“A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future”, Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis, 12 February 2024, url; UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, para. 21

  • 1413

    Bjelica J. and AAN-Team, Rural Women’s Access to Health in Afghanistan: “Most of the time, we just don’t go”, AAN, url, 18 March 2025, p. 7

  • 1414

    RFE/RL, Every Two Hours A Woman Dies During Childbirth In Afghanistan, 15 March 2025, url; Bjelica J. and AAN-Team, Is maternal mortality on the rise in Afghanistan? No official data, but much cause for concern, AAN, 28 September 2025, url

  • 1415

    Alavi L.J., Intersectionality and Human Rights: Ensuring Access to Maternal Health in Afghanistan, url, p. 48

  • 1416

    UNHCR, Counselling offers Afghan women a safe space to share their mental health struggles, 10 October 2024, url; UN Women Australia, FAQs: What it’s like to be a woman in Afghanistan in 2025, 7 August 2025, url

  • 1417

    UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, para. 22

  • 1418

    UN Women, Gender alert: Four years of Taliban rule: Afghan women resist as restrictions tighten, 29 August 2025, url, p. 7

  • 1419

    UN News, Afghanistan: Taliban rule has erased women from public life, sparked mental health crisis, 13 August

  • 1420

    AW, Surge in female suicides linked to forced marriages, Taliban violence, and arrests, 26 February 2024, url

  • 1421

    UN Human Rights Council, Situation of human rights in Afghanistan, 20 February 2025, url, para. 22; UNHCR, Counselling offers Afghan women a safe space to share their mental health struggles, 10 October 2024, url; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025: Afghanistan, Events of 2024, 16 January 2025, url

  • 1422

    BBC, 'No-one comes for us': The women trapped in Afghanistan's mental health system, 19 August 2025, url