Following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, the United Nations Population Fund, the sexual and reproductive health agency of the UN, appealed for funding last week to address the "urgent needs of Afghan women and girls as a humanitarian catastrophe looms in the country."
The agency said that the political unrest and volatility in the country as well as the suspension of international donor funding is disrupting health care services for women, leading to a life-threatening impact on them. The agency estimated that the situation could lead to an additional 51,000 maternal deaths and 4.8 million unintended pregnancies.
The UNFPA appealed for $29.2 million for reproductive health and protection needs to help 1.6 million women and girls. The agency said that it would use aid to increase the number of service centers, expand provided services and provide hundreds of thousands of women and girls with critical health and hygiene supplies.
“Right now, our priority is the health and protection of the nearly 4 million women and girls who need urgent humanitarian assistance,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem.
“We must stand strong and stand together to save lives and protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of women and girls, including their right to participate fully in all aspects of society."
The UNFPA is working for a world where "every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled," according to the agency.
Reproductive healthcare and family planning in Afghanistan is already lacking with only 37% of women aged 15 to 49 receiving postnatal care within two days of giving birth, according to UNICEF data from 2021.
Only 59% of deliveries are attended by skilled healthcare personnel and the maternal mortality ratio is 638 per 100,000 live births, said UNICEF. This is more than three times the global average rate of 211 measured from 2000 to 2017.
The prevalence of any method of contraceptive among Afghans was just 18.9%, according to the 2020 Human Development Reports.
Afghanistan depends on international donors to fund healthcare, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), who said that support has been falling for years. HRW also predicted that the support would be influenced by the withdrawal of American troops from the country.
The impacts of this decline in funding have already been life-threatening for Afghanistan's women and girls because of the impact on healthcare services, according to HRW.