Women at risk as Taliban curbs hit Afghan healthcare

Restrictions imposed by the Taliban are jeopardising the lives of women and their children who are sometimes denied emergency treatment, a U.N. human rights expert said on Friday.



Regulations require sick or injured women to adhere to a dress code, be accompanied by a male guardian and be treated by male medics, Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett told a press briefing.



Bennett said women were frequently denied ambulance services without a male guardian.



In one instance described in his report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights council this week, a woman was left to give birth on her own at the hospital gate since ‌she was unaccompanied. Another woman lost her four-year-old son since she could not travel alone with him to a hospital.



"The Taliban's restrictions must be reversed, otherwise they will be killing people," Bennett told a press conference in Geneva.



"These policies are not isolated measures. They form an institutionalised system of gender discrimination that denies women and girls autonomy over their own bodies, health, and futures,” he said.