MSF fears it is “virtually impossible” for women to receive medical care in Afghanistan

Dec. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the Taliban’s decision to prevent women from working for NGOs and international agencies, in an escalation of repression that could make it “practically impossible” for half the population to receive health care.

MSF is keeping its activities unchanged for now, to the extent that the women continue to work in the health centers managed by the NGO and by the Ministry of Health. Currently, more than 51 percent of medical workers are women.

“We are talking about almost 900 doctors, nurses and other professionals who strive every day to give thousands of Afghans the best possible care. MSF operations could not exist without them,” warned the organization’s representative in Afghanistan, Filipe Ribeiro.

In his opinion, the latest labor veto is nothing more than “another step in a systematic attempt to erase the presence of women from the public domain”, in a context in which the majority of the population needs humanitarian aid and where assistance is It is often restricted based on the gender of the person who requests it.

If women cannot work in health centers and women can only be cared for by women, all assistance is limited, he added. MSF recalled that more than 90 percent of its staff at the Jost maternity hospital, where some 1,800 babies are born per month, are women and today “it is difficult to fill all the necessary positions.”

“We need more doctors, not less,” Ribeiro claimed.