“No-one Comes for Us”: The Women Trapped in Afghanistan’s Mental Health System
In Afghanistan today, thousands of women find themselves confined not just by walls, but by a system that has erased their freedom, voice, and hope. With each passing month under Taliban rule, reports of Afghan women suffering severe mental health crises have surged — and for many, there is no escape route.
A Silent Crisis Behind Closed Doors
Mental health hospitals and psychiatric wards have become holding spaces for women who are not “sick,” but simply broken by the world around them. Many are placed there by families who can no longer handle their emotional distress, or by a society that believes a woman’s suffering is best hidden away.
- Isolation and confinement replace treatment.
- Some women are kept in these facilities indefinitely, with no legal protections or follow-up.
- Others enter voluntarily out of desperation — because there is nowhere else to seek help.
One woman reportedly said, “We live in a cage. No-one comes for us. They say we are mentally weak, but it’s the world that made us like this.”
What Is Driving This Mental Health Breakdown?
The deterioration isn’t random. It’s the direct result of systemic repression:
| Cause | Mental Effect |
|---|---|
| Bans on education and work | Loss of identity, purpose, and future |
| Forced isolation at home | Depression, anxiety, claustrophobia |
| Domestic violence and forced marriage | Trauma, PTSD, despair |
| Stigma around mental illness | Shame, silence, lack of treatment |
| Institutional abandonment | Women locked away, forgotten |
Women who used to be teachers, doctors, students — now sit in dark rooms, staring at walls, unable to leave or speak freely.
The System Isn’t Healing Them — It’s Hiding Them
Instead of community-based mental health care, the current system often treats suffering women as problems to be removed. There are very few female psychologists left. Hospitals lack medication, safe spaces, or trauma-informed care.
Some families drop women off at psychiatric hospitals simply because they see no other option.
“We come here to scream and cry because there is no place outside where we can,” says one patient in a group counselling session.
Small Rays of Hope
Despite everything, some underground and NGO-supported counselling programs do exist. These small initiatives offer:
- Group therapy sessions for women
- Safe rooms where they can share their stories
- A moment of human connection in a system that has erased them
Some humanitarian workers say the demand for help has increased by 40–50%, but services are disappearing faster than they can be created.
Final Reflection
The phrase “No-one comes for us” is not metaphorical — it is the lived reality of Afghan women trapped within mental health institutions and societal cages.
They are not inherently “mentally ill.” They are reacting to a world that has stripped them of their rights, education, movement, and dignity. Until the world begins to see them — not as silent victims, but as human beings in crisis — this hidden epidemic will continue.
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