The death of medical care for Afghan women | Letter

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Your article on contraception in Afghanistan (Taliban birth control ban: women ‘broken’ by lethal pregnancies and untreated miscarriages, 29 January), while being tragically accurate, omits a few damning facts. First of all, because of spiralling poverty, girls are increasingly married off from the age of 12 or lower for the simple reason that their father receives a dowry in what amounts to a financial transaction: the younger the girl, the higher the sum her father receives.

Second, and this is even more important, the Taliban have forbidden any form of study or work for girls and women after at best paltry primary schooling. This means universities and medical schools only train men. So after the demise of the present generation of female doctors, midwives, surgeons and nurses who are still permitted to work, women will receive no medical aid whatsoever, especially as they are not allowed to consult male practitioners.

Even more than a gender apartheid, we are witnessing the rise of a truly genocidal policy against women, unique in its kind. But the world remains silent.
Dr Carol Mann
President, Femaid, Paris

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