Afghanistan: The Living Hell Where Girls Are Erased and Women Left to Die

Afghanistan: The Living Hell Where Girls Are Erased and Women Left to Die

ANJAN SARMA

I have just witnessed a press briefing that shattered my soul.

Andrew Saberton, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has returned from Afghanistan.

What he brought back were not merely statistics or mission reports — but raw, soul-searing testimonies from a nation where women and girls are not just oppressed, but systematically erased.

The Afghanistan he described is not just in crisis — it is a moral abyss, a silent slaughter of dignity, freedom, and life itself.

A Fourth Grader in Labor
In a hospital in Kabul, a 10-year-old girl lies in recovery. She is not there for a childhood illness or injury. She has just given birth.

A fourth grader — a child whose hands should be clutching crayons, not infants — is now a mother. Her body torn, her soul traumatized, her childhood buried under the weight of forced maternity. This is not a tragic accident. It is a horrifying consequence of systemic abuse under the Taliban’s brutal rule.

In the same hospital, Saberton met a teenage fistula patient. She was cast out by her family because of an injury from childbirth. She was made to eat with the animals — deemed less than human. “We’re giving them back their dignity,” Saberton said. But dignity should never need to be restored. It should never be stolen in the first place.

These are not isolated cases. They are the predictable, widespread outcomes of policies designed to extinguish the light of girlhood and silence the voices of women.

A Nation Where Hope Is Illegal

Across clinics in Afghanistan, doctors now see not just physical wounds but emotional devastation. Clinics are filled with teenage girls suffering from acute depression — not because of mental illness, but because their dreams have been denied. Girls who once aspired to become teachers, doctors, scientists, or leaders have been forced into marriage, motherhood, and despair. Some as young as nine.

One young girl, her eyes vacant, told Saberton: “For women and girls here, hope is a luxury we can’t afford.”

Every two hours, a mother in Afghanistan dies from preventable causes. In remote areas, women walk for days in labor, some crossing treacherous mountains on foot or by donkey, only to find no care waiting for them. Where midwives do exist, they are often teenage girls trained in secret. Even then, they are sometimes unable to help — not because of skill, but because of the absence of basic supplies.

The Final Betrayal: A World That Turns Away

As this horror unfolds in real time, the world is not just standing by — it is actively retreating. The UNFPA faces a staggering $102 million funding shortfall, and as a result, over half its clinics in Afghanistan are expected to close by 2026. That means six million women and girls will lose access to critical maternal and reproductive health services. Thousands of midwives — the only lifeline for many — will be laid off. Lifesaving supplies will run dry.

As Saberton noted, “There are no birth plans in Afghanistan. Only survival plans.”

This is more than negligence. It is betrayal. Betrayal by governments who pledged to stand for women’s rights. Betrayal by a global community that vowed “never again.” Betrayal by a world that turns its back just as Afghan women and girls cry for help.

Gender Apartheid in Real Time

Afghanistan under Taliban rule is a dystopia of gender apartheid. Schools for girls are shuttered. Universities are off-limits. Women are banned from most jobs. Even walking alone without a male guardian is considered a crime. The erasure is absolute.

This isn’t just political repression. It’s genocide of identity — a cultural and psychological extermination of women’s existence in public life. And it is happening with chilling efficiency.

Girls’ classrooms stand locked and silent, while boys’ education continues uninterrupted. Pregnant women bleed to death because male doctors are barred from treating them, and there are no female doctors left. Women cannot travel, work, or seek care without male permission. An entire gender is being deleted — one law, one death, one closed clinic at a time.

A Glimpse Inside Hell: UNFPA’s Desperate Mission

Saberton’s full account offers a rare and unfiltered glimpse into this collapsing world.

From the capital Kabul to the remote mountains of Bamyan Province and the desolate crossings at the Torkham border, he saw desperation etched in every face. At a basic health facility near the border, he witnessed traumatized, pregnant women arriving on foot after walking for days. They were exhausted, starving, and terrified. Many were returning from refugee camps or deported from neighboring countries with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

In the Amari camp, UNFPA’s emergency maternity tents offer the last thread of care. There, babies are delivered in makeshift shelters. Psychologists offer trauma counseling to rape survivors. Dignity kits containing soap, menstrual pads, and clean underwear are distributed — tiny tokens of humanity in a world where everything else has been stripped away.

In Bamyan, midwives trained by UNFPA — many of them locals — now deliver babies 24/7 in areas that once saw countless mothers die in childbirth at home. One midwife told Saberton, “More babies are now born in our clinic than in homes. We are saving lives every day.” But even these fragile gains are on the brink of collapse.

The Numbers Behind the Horror

Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

A mother dies every two hours from preventable pregnancy complications.

6.3 million people — 80% of them women and girls — depend on UNFPA’s services.

By 2026, the number of operational UNFPA clinics will shrink from 982 to 418 if funding is not restored.

Thousands of midwives and health workers will lose their jobs.

Countless babies will be born into a world with no one to catch them.

Saberton said it clearly: “Funding cuts in Afghanistan will result in lives lost. And countless more lives not lost, but less lived.”

A Moral Reckoning for the World

This is not just Afghanistan’s tragedy — it is humanity’s shame.

The silence, the apathy, the budget cuts — these are not passive acts. They are complicity.

When history asks what we did while Afghan girls were forced into marriage, while women bled out during childbirth, while an entire gender disappeared — what will we say?

We cannot claim ignorance. The facts are here. The stories are being told. And the screams, though distant, are real.

We either act now, or we are no different from those who light the match.

The Choice Is Ours

If this article makes you uncomfortable — it should.

Now let that discomfort become a call to action. Share this story. Talk about it. Demand accountability. Push governments to restore UNFPA funding. Support organizations still operating inside Afghanistan. Amplify Afghan women’s voices before they are extinguished forever.

Every moment we delay, another girl becomes a statistic. Another woman disappears into silence.

The living hell that is Afghanistan today doesn’t need more sympathy. It needs justice. It needs action. And it needs it now.

#AfghanistanHellOnEarth

#LetTheGirlsLive

#RestoreHope

18-05-2025

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