Concerns over increasing suicides among women in Afghanistan; a young girl commits suicide in Islamabad

Bayan News – The Guardian newspaper has reported that over the past year, the rate of suicides among girls and women in Afghanistan has increased.

Several United Nations officials have expressed concerns to the newspaper about the rise in suicides among Afghan women and girls, specifically stating that this challenge has increased among women in the western provinces of Afghanistan (Herat and Nimruz).

Alison Davidian, the head of the Afghanistan section at the United Nations Office, added to The Guardian that the conditions in the country have reached a point where girls prefer death over life.

According to The Guardian’s report, based on statistics collected from hospitals and government clinics, the suicide rate among women has increased in one-third of Afghanistan’s provinces, including Herat and Nimruz, since the summer of 2021.

Meanwhile, it has been reported from Islamabad that a young girl threw herself from the fifth floor of a building in the city of Islamabad on Thursday morning (August 30).

Mohammad Aman Sheikhulislami, the head of the Legal Committee of the Afghan Refugee Council in Pakistan, told several media outlets that the woman’s name was Maryam and she was twenty years old.

The cause of this suicide has not yet been determined.

This event occurs while thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are facing social and economic difficulties and are living in uncertainty.

Afghan refugees in Pakistan are trying to reach Western and European countries through obtaining humanitarian visas, but the process of issuing humanitarian visas by these countries has been halted.