Report: Surgeon Who Cares for Burned Afghan Women Forced into Hiding

Thirty-two-year-old Dr. K remembers the first time the Taliban terrorist group took over Afghanistan in 1995, according to NPR.

She was seven years old when girls were banned from attending school.

“Inspired by her mother, who worked as a gynecologist, she enrolled to study medicine after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. By 2016, she had become a surgical resident at the country’s only burn center, in the western province of Herat,” the outlet continued:

In her five years of practice, Dr. K has treated hundreds of women whose husbands set them on fire or thrown acid on them – as well as women suffering from domestic violence who chose to end their lives to escape the abuse, often opting for self-immolation. Now she says her life is in danger because of her work.

Because the Taliban retook power, Dr. K requested she be identified with the initial of her last name.

“She reports that she has been threatened by Taliban commanders acting on the wishes of an ex-husband of one of her jailed patients, now released, as well as men who blame her for their incarceration and divorce,” the report said.

The Taliban’s takeover of the country and its crackdown on women’s freedom also spread to clinics where midwives help bring babies into the world.

The Christian Science Monitor reported:

Midwives occupy a rare nexus that is a conundrum for the jihadis: Modern midwifery requires educated women to perform lifesaving work, which benefits the Taliban’s own wives, mothers, and daughters. But that necessity rubs up against many Taliban rules – applied haphazardly from region to region, so far – that restrict women’s education and movement.

Meanwhile, Afghan families, deprived of humanitarian aid after the Taliban took power, are increasingly selling their young daughters for paltry amounts to older men to keep from starving, multiple recent reports said.

Dr. K has not been able to go back to the hospital because of the reported threats against her, even as patients asked for her treatment.

However, she feels afraid for her own life, according to NPR.

“I’m also mentally stressed. I am a doctor who has become a patient herself,” she commented.