KABUL (The Thursday Times) — Women across Afghanistan are being turned away by male doctors and dentists under a ban the Taliban have never formally announced, according to an investigation published on Thursday that drew on interviews with patients and doctors.
Clinics told women to “go home” in the middle of treatment, the investigation found. Doctors said they had received directives in most provinces not to examine female patients unless a male guardian, or mahram, was present, even in emergencies, and that the rule was being enforced through raids and warnings of jail.
One woman, a 37-year-old in Herat who had recently returned from Iran, said her dental implants were left unfinished in July after the clinic told her an order had come from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice barring male dentists from treating women. Three months on, the treatment remains incomplete.
“We are not allowed to directly examine female patients because we are not their mahram. It makes no difference how simple the procedure is or how critical the patient’s condition may be,” a surgeon at a public hospital in northern Afghanistan was quoted as saying.
A pattern of restrictions
The findings run against assurances given in February by Hamdullah Nomani, the Taliban’s communications minister, who said male doctors would be treated as a woman’s mahram when examining her.
Earlier reports point the same way. In May, the Taliban detained two doctors in Kandahar for treating women without male guardians, and in 2025 women in Kandahar were barred from visiting male dentists. In Balkh province, officials reportedly told hospitals and clinics in May to write “Bibi” instead of women’s names, even on prescriptions.
The squeeze comes as the supply of female doctors shrinks. Women have been barred from studying at medical institutes since December 2024, and the United Nations children’s agency has warned that Afghanistan could lose more than 25,000 women teachers and health workers by 2030.
The Taliban administration did not respond publicly to the findings.
