Beyond the Maternity Ward
Preventable maternal complications claim the life of a woman every two hours in Afghanistan; the danger begins long before they enter a maternity ward. It begins with whether they were able to choose the marriage, choose the pregnancy, access contraception, reach a doctor, or even be treated by another woman.
Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, women’s exclusion from education, employment, and public life has become one of the defining features of Afghanistan. Yet behind these highly visible restrictions is another crisis receiving far less attention: the gradual erosion of women’s control over their own reproductive lives.
A woman may technically have a right to healthcare, but what does that right mean if she cannot travel freely to receive it? What does access to contraception mean if she cannot obtain it independently? What happens to maternal healthcare when the women who would become Afghanistan’s next generation of doctors, nurses, and midwives are prevented from completing their education?
These are not separate problems. Education, movement, marriage, healthcare and reproductive choice are becoming increasingly intertwined, leaving Afghan women with fewer opportunities to decide whether, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers.
A choice that is disappearing
Access to contraception in Afghanistan was limited long before the Taliban returned to power. However, the situation has become increasingly precarious.
The World Health Organisation reported in March 2026 that although modern contraceptives technically remain available, shortages, closures of family-planning services and inconsistent funding have severely restricted access. Health workers have also reported being warned against providing family-planning information.
Current UNFPA data similarly shows how limited reproductive choice remains. In 2025, only 18 per cent of Afghan women aged 15-49 were using a modern contraceptive method. Among married women, almost one in four had an unmet need for family planning.
These figures cannot be separated from women’s position within households and society. UNFPA has reported that women can face requirements for their husbands’ permission to use family planning, while inadequate information, limited counselling and cultural barriers further restrict contraceptive use.
The issue is therefore not simply whether contraception physically exists. A reproductive right means very little if a woman lacks the information, freedom or practical ability to exercise it.
When pregnancy itself becomes dangerous
Once pregnant, Afghan women enter a healthcare system under enormous pressure.
The latest UN estimate places Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate at 521 deaths for every 100,000 live births. Around 68 per cent of births are attended by skilled health personnel. Only one in four pregnant women currently receives four or more antenatal appointments.
For women living in rural communities, accessing care can involve travelling significant distances. Poverty, inadequate transport and restrictions on women’s movement can turn that journey into another barrier.
At the same time, Afghanistan’s wider humanitarian crisis is worsening the risks associated with pregnancy. The WHO estimates 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women will experience acute malnutrition in 2026.
This creates a grim combination: women have limited power to prevent or space pregnancies while simultaneously facing a healthcare system increasingly unable to guarantee safe pregnancy and childbirth.
Who will care for Afghanistan’s women?
The longer-term threat to reproductive healthcare may be even more serious. In December 2024, women were barred from studying at medical institutes, including nursing and midwifery programmes. The United Nations warned that restrictions on women’s medical education could prevent approximately 36,000 midwives and 2,800 nurses from entering Afghanistan’s workforce in the following years. This is particularly damaging in Afghanistan, where female healthcare workers are essential to providing care to women.
The contradiction is stark: Afghanistan desperately needs female doctors, nurses, and midwives while simultaneously preventing women from training to become them.
The consequences extend far beyond the women denied an education. If fewer female healthcare professionals are trained, future generations of women may struggle even further to access maternity and reproductive care. Restrictions on women’s education therefore become a public health issue in their own right.
Reproductive rights must be part of Afghanistan’s rehabilitation
Reproductive rights should not be treated as an issue to address only after political integration with ther international community is achieved. A sustainable future also depends on functioning institutions and access to essential services. When restrictions on women’s education and employment weaken Afghanistan’s healthcare system, women’s rights and the country’s wider recovery become inseparable.
Any future political dialogue with the Government of Afghanistan should therefore include protections for women’s access to healthcare and the restoration of medical education for women. At the same time, international donors should protect community-based reproductive services rather than making essential healthcare conditional on political progress.
A future for Afghanistan focused on security while women remain unable to make fundamental decisions about their bodies offers a narrow definition of peace.
For Afghanistan’s women, the question is therefore not simply whether motherhood can be made safer. It is whether motherhood can once again become a choice.
The NCF Secretary General adds: Whilst the only country in the world to grant recognition to Afghanistan is Russia, and whilst Afghanistan is denied representation in the United Nations, the cause of better women’s rights is crippled. Crippled by the other nations of the world. You cannot change a country for the better by COMPLETELY isolating it from the international community.
