Afghan women told to ‘go home’ after de facto ban on male doctors treating them

Farida, 37, returned to Herat, western Afghanistan, earlier this year after migrating from Iran. She hoped to rebuild her life, but the pain from severely damaged molars forced her to seek dental treatment in early July. The clinic prepared a treatment plan requiring multiple visits and full payment in advance. During the third session, when implants were to be fitted, she was abruptly told to go home.

Farida was informed that an order had come from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice stating that male dentists are no longer allowed to treat female patients. The clinic said if the situation changed, they would call her. Three months later, Farida’s treatment remains unfinished, and she struggles to eat or sleep.

While there is no publicly announced restriction, media reports and interviews indicate the ban has spread across the country. Dentists report that Taliban security forces are enforcing the rule through raids and warnings that male practitioners will be imprisoned if female patients are found in their clinics.

Doctors barred from examining women

In most provinces, male doctors have received directives instructing them not to examine female patients. They are not allowed to provide emergency care, except under specific conditions such as the presence of a female patient’s male guardian (mahram) or having certain procedures performed by female nurses.

The restrictions have reached absurd new heights. In Balkh province, officials reportedly ordered hospitals, private practices, and clinics to use the word "Bibi" instead of women’s actual names on prescriptions and records.

Rahima from Kunar province says her elderly relative had to travel hundreds of miles to Kandahar city for dental treatment because her son runs a clinic there. The woman’s husband told her that all doctors in Kunar knew him, and it would be a source of shame for her to visit a male dentist.

Female doctors also restricted

The Taliban crackdown on women’s medical access coincides with the removal of their rights to become doctors. Since December 2024, women have lost the right to study at medical institutes, and hospitals have confirmed they are barred from hiring female staff.

The remaining practising female doctors are required to have a mahram. One patient was forced to wait to see a male doctor in a practice without female staff despite arriving with her father. She was told the doctor needed another female patient with a mahram to arrive so that if any problem arose, the woman could help her, as the doctor would not be permitted to touch a female patient.

Female doctors are in short supply in Afghanistan. Patients face a stark choice: risk themselves, the doctors, and the clinics by receiving treatment, use unqualified female health providers, or live with their ailments.

Officials contradict own statements

The testimonies gathered run counter to Taliban declarations that doctors treating female patients would be exempt from the prohibitions. In February this year, Hamdullah Nomani, the Taliban’s communications minister, said male doctors would be considered mahram when treating female patients.

Nargis, an assistant at a dental clinic in Jalalabad city, says some doctors have someone outside their clinic to look out for Taliban officials when they are treating a female patient. She reports that her male doctor sometimes jokes: "Let’s keep a chadari [the full Afghan burqa] inside the office so that when they come, I can put it on so they won’t recognise that I am a male doctor."