BBC: Afghan women in mental health crisis

[Slothtoes]

Extremist religiously-justified patriarchal sexism is predictably having an absolutely devastating effect on women and girls in Afghanistan. Women and girls are in mental health crisis and many have taken their own lives. The Taliban won’t even keep records of that. It’s heartbreaking.

I’m posting this for solidarity but also in case anyone has any suggestions of further ways to help?

BBC report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-65765399

Girls not Brides (anti-child marriage charity) say: Here are three simple but powerful things you can do to support girls and women in Afghanistan:

1. Be an advocate for refugees in your community.
2. Write to your local government representative about your concerns for the rights of Afghan girls and women.
3. Donate to organisations who are supporting girls and women during this crisis.

https://www.girlsnotbrides.org//3-ways-you-can-support-girls-and-women-in-afghanistan/

These seem like sensible approaches and they list some charities for donation on the webpage, although things for women and girls have got even worse since they wrote it.

Thanks, OP. Read that last night and was just overwhelmed with helplessness.

The Linda Norgrove Foundation help Afghan women access education:

https://lindanorgrovefoundation.org/

Thank you for the link and I think it's an important story that suicides are not even being recorded.

However, I'm not sure I like the framing as a 'mental health' crisis. It's not a mental health crisis - women and girls are being denied basic human rights. I'd argue it's not mentally unhealthy to feel totally without hope living under Taliban oppression without human rights - it's quite a rational response.

In that situation, a situation without any hope, without human rights or basic freedoms, of course some women and girls are refusing to live in this situation. They are taking the only action still available to them and under their control. The situation in Afghanistan is a humanitarian disaster and I do think the international community should be doing more.

Framing it as a 'mental health' crisis is missing the main point IMO and is almost suggestive that what's needed is CBT, or therapy or drugs not basic human rights.

I do think one thing that may help women and girls to feel less despairing is if they see there is support for women's rights and people working to help them, so thank you for the links to the charities. Do we know if women and girls from Afghanistan are currently fast tracked for refugee status in the UK? I'd like to know the facts before writing to my MP (because he tends to just provide non-answers).

Dimorphism the UK gov webpage says women and girls ‘at risk’ (I can’t imagine how they would not be at risk) are ‘prioritised’ but I don’t know what that actually means in practice.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/afghan-citizens-resettlement-scheme

Thank you so much for writing to your MP Dimorphism. I will do it even though I have a Tory MP and I feel like the government just want to sidestep these difficult issues. I will never forget how Boris Johnson wouldn’t even return from his holidays when the Americans pulled out of Afghanistan. And nowhere near enough priority is being placed by this current government on the horrific human rights situation specifically for women and girls there.

I think you make a really insightful point about the framing of the effects on women, but I guess the word ‘crisis’ is often used in charity advocacy to mean something intolerable and extremely urgent to address. So in that sense I would say this is a crisis, or an emergency- women and girls at absolute breaking point. I do agree that the solution is human rights based though- the radical notion that women are people.

Thank you for the link Arabella