Why have female suicides increased in Afghanistan?

According to global rankings, Afghanistan is the worst country for women. With the Taliban back in power, the challenges and limitations on women have increased immensely. Women are deprived of their basic human rights such as the right to education, work, travel, and recreation. Of all the effects that those restrictions have had on the personal and social lives of women, perhaps the most serious is a significant rise in death by suicide among women. According to an investigation in 11 provinces by Zan Times in August 2023, women and girls accounted for the vast majority of those who died by suicide. Therefore, as women writer, I will look into this basic question: Why has suicide increased among women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?  

Definition of a concept 

The term suicide was first used in 1737 by Defontaine in France. Suicide is any kind of death that is the direct or indirect result of the actions of a victim, who is aware of the result of their action. Although, some consider suicide as an individual problem, sociologists study it as a social phenomenon that is dependent on social factors. The impact of those factors can increase in times of economic, political, cultural, and moral crisis.  

While some consider death by suicide to be a phenomenon of the modern and industrial society, which is prone to mental disorders due to social inequalities, a famous French sociologist named Emile Durkheim, who conducted the first scientific research on the topic, believed that suicide existed as far back as ancient times and he believed it was a form of protest. The importance of Durkheim’s research on suicide is his look into the relationship between suicide and the dominant social condition. He argued that suicide has nothing to do with weather, race, or mental state, but rather is a social phenomenon and the result of a person’s problematic relationship with their social group. 

Reasons for increasing suicide of women in Afghanistan 

In the socio-cultural context of Afghanistan, female suicide is considered taboo for the most part and is often concealed. Moreover, there are no accurate statistics on the number of women’s suicides in Afghanistan in the absence of free media and reliable institutions. Regardless, domestic and foreign media have reported on the multifold increase in women’s suicides in Afghanistan. 

With the return of the Taliban to power, the country has effectively been turned into a giant prison for women. In this prison, women have virtually no rights. Some women have been forced into marriages with members of the Taliban or are sold by their families for money. Some female heads of their households have been forced to beg or sell their body parts to provide for their family’s livelihoods. In such situations, dying by suicide can be a protest against the reality of their lives. Women who die by suicide use the act as a way to voice their displeasure and protest. It’s as if they want to show that there is no difference between life or death for women in Afghanistan because of the conditions imposed by the Taliban.  

A serious problem for the women of Afghanistan is the widening gap between their goals and dreams and their social opportunities in Afghanistan. All citizens have goals in life, and a just and equal society provides tools to allow all of its citizens, regardless of their social status, to achieve those goals. In Afghanistan, the social tools and opportunities for women to achieve their goals have been systematically and purposefully destroyed by the Taliban. Women still have their goals, in accordance to their inherent needs, but they are forbidden to have the tools to achieve those goals. This deprivation leads to depression, mental disorders, feelings of powerlessness, and a decrease in self-confidence. In such a society, women consider their goals to be unattainable and interpret their lives as absurd and meaningless, which leads to an increase in suicide among women.  

Durkheim said that the imposition of strict and burdensome rules and norms, as well as social repression, leads to fatalistic suicide. An example of a mechanism that leads to suicide is the Taliban’s police of vice and virtue, which control women’s social conduct. Some women do not accept these strict rules, nor do they have the patience to deal with Taliban’s religious police. The Taliban employ humiliation, insults, torture, imprisonment, rape, and ever murder to make women to conform to their rules. This treatment and these rules have increased in harshness, leading to what Durkheim calls fatalistic suicide among women.  

The rejection and limitations that women experience under the Taliban have many layers: rejection from society, rejection from managerial and political administration, rejection from socio-cultural participation, and finally exclusion from any kind of progress and social-individual advancement. In Afghanistan, the sense of connection, belonging, and solidarity that those women have with society has been severed. As a result, women consider themselves helpless, worthless, and isolated from society. This isolation, as well as a feeling of worthlessness and sense of disconnection are important factors for the increase of suicide. 

Another critical factor is hopelessness. Women face a dark and uncertain future under Taliban rule. They do not see any way to improve their situation. With life and surviving losing their value, a person can consider ending their life as the only way to get rid of existing adversities.  

According to psychologists and social research, lack of social support can also lead to death by suicide. The possibility of suicide increases in situations where a person does not have social support, including that of her family, friends, relatives, social organizations, and the government.  

Conclusion 

Numerous reports indicate that there is an unprecedented increase in the number of deaths by suicide among Afghan women. Some are ending their lives as a form of protest to the conditions of suffering that the Taliban have imposed on the women of Afghanistan, including the deprivation of their basic rights; lack of social support; the gradual and daily increase of repression; and finally, the meaningless of life and hopelessness. 

*Karima Safdari is a human rights activist who specializes in the rights of sexual minorities.