Dr Carol Mann, president of the aid organisation Femaid, has warned that Afghan women are facing a 'medical genocide' as the world remains silent. In a letter responding to a recent article on the Taliban's birth control ban, she highlights that girls are increasingly married off from the age of 12 or younger due to spiralling poverty, with younger brides fetching higher dowries for their fathers.
More critically, Dr Mann points out that the Taliban have forbidden education and work for girls and women beyond primary schooling, meaning universities and medical schools now train only men. As a result, once the current generation of female doctors, midwives, surgeons and nurses—still permitted to work—retire or die, women will receive no medical aid at all, especially since they are barred from consulting male practitioners.
Dr Mann describes this as more than 'gender apartheid', calling it a 'truly genocidal policy against women, unique in its kind'. She laments that the world remains silent in the face of this unfolding catastrophe.
