Update: Suicide By Afghan Women Still on the Rise

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/update-suicide-by-afghan-women-still-on-the-rise/



Earlier this year, Canada's Foreign Affairs Department released a report revealing that Afghan women have been attempting suicide in significant numbers.

Now former Deputy Health Minister Faizullah Kakar has presented still grim findings in a new report on the state of Afghan women. An estimated 2,300 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 40 are attempting suicide annually, a "several-fold increase on three decades ago," he claimed at a recent news conference in Kabul. In addition, 1.8 million women and girls, or 28 percent of the population, suffer from severe depression.

Mental illness, domestic abuse and socioeconomic hardship are the main causes being attributed to such results. Kakar also cites social disorder, loss of loved ones, displacement, food insecurity, poverty, illiteracy, drug addiction and lack of access to healthcare services.

The NGO International Assistance Mission (IAM) reports seeing a steady rise of patients seeking treatment at its mental health hospital with an average of 50 a day, although numbers were much higher when it first opened in 2000.

At the same time, many Afghan women are responding to their dire situation by taking action. RAWA, or the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is perhaps the most prominent social justice organization headed by Afghan women. Founded in 1977, it initially focused on mobilizing women to resist Soviet occupation. Currently the organization runs schools and clinics, provides education about women's rights and grants micro-loans for women to start their own businesses. RAWA also extends their work to Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Other groups that fight the uphill battle to advance women's rights include the Afghan Institute of Learning, an education and teacher training organization, as well as Women for Afghan Women, a grassroots advocacy group for women and children's rights.

All of these organizations were founded by Afghan women who recognized the need to empower other women in order to fight for their rights. At the same time, though, the government and male civil society also need to show their support for women's rights in order for women, and Afghan society in general, to thrive. This way, perhaps, Afghanistan will see the number of attempted suicides go down.