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DAYMIRDAD, Afghanistan: In a village deep within the mountains of central Afghanistan that has been dominated by the Taliban for 1 / 4 of a century, girls overtly work alongside males at an important well being clinic.
Tangi Saidan in Wardak province has lived within the shadow of the entrance line however by no means been underneath the complete management of presidency forces since a US-led invasion ousted the brutal and repressive Taliban regime in 2001.
Reached by slender filth roads, the Tangi Saidan clinic is alone in providing surgical procedure within the distant space, with native Taliban leaders permitting some flexibility within the motion’s guidelines on the segregation of the sexes.
“We have now to function right here. If we don’t, girls will die,” mentioned Sharif Shah, a person and the one surgeon, who carries out procedures on girls.
It takes hours to achieve the clinic from some surrounding villages, and within the winter, when snow blocks the roads, sufferers are sometimes carried on foot.
Reaching higher well being amenities within the capital Kabul, a day journey away on rocky, winding roads, is out of the query for folks on this impoverished mountain space.
There are seven girls among the many clinic’s 28 workers members: one nurse, a vaccine specialist, two midwives, a nutritionist and two cleaners, usually working facet by facet with males.
“When it’s needed, Islamic regulation permits it,” Mohammad, the Taliban official accountable for well being care in Daymirdad district, instructed AFP.
The Taliban, who seized energy in August as US-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan, have but to subject clear pointers on how they’ll govern in keeping with sharia regulation.
They initially ordered girls to chorus from returning to work till Islamic methods have been in place.
The group later referred to as girls well being employees again to clinics and hospitals, however many have been too afraid to renew their duties.
Others in Kabul, probably the most progressive Afghan metropolis, mentioned guidelines on segregation made their work too tough.
However Jamila, the only real feminine nurse on the Tangi Saidan clinic, mentioned she had by no means needed to fear about working in Daymirdad, though she is chaperoned by a male “mahram,” or guardian, when she does the evening shift.
“Individuals don’t have an issue with males docs, as a result of a physician is sort of a mahram,” she mentioned.
Clear guidelines govern this coexistence — one among few exceptions granted by the Taliban.
When there aren’t any male nurses, a feminine nurse can take care of male sufferers.
And when there aren’t any feminine docs, a male doctor can deal with girls.
“Women and men can work collectively in the identical room, though underneath regular circumstances there needs to be a curtain between them,” the Taliban official defined.
But on the Tangi Saidan clinic, there isn’t any curtain, and nurse Jamila chats overtly together with her male colleagues.
In deeply conservative Afghanistan, even in areas underneath the management of the earlier US-backed governments, ladies and men have been anticipated to be handled by a well being skilled of the identical intercourse.
Jamila is extra involved with whether or not she is going to proceed to be paid.
The nation’s well being service is getting ready to collapse, with Western nations largely halting the help that propped up Afghanistan’s clinics and hospitals.
Many workers at authorities well being facilities have gone months with out salaries, whereas medicines are dwindling and expert workers similar to docs have fled the nation.
The Taliban victory has introduced financial hardship but in addition an finish to air strikes and evening raids by airdropped authorities forces within the village, situated close to a entrance line.
The clinic run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan was repeatedly focused by troops searching for Taliban militants, who have been handled alongside civilians throughout the battle.
Behind its inexperienced partitions, nonetheless pockmarked from automated hearth, Mandanda, a affected person in her 60s who has come from a neighboring village for chest pains, is relieved.
“We’re now not shedding our youngsters. It’s as if the solar has lastly risen,” she mentioned.
However in a neighboring mattress, Jamila, a 40-year-old mom of seven, is much less upbeat.
“They’ve introduced us peace, however we now have nothing to eat,” she instructed AFP.
Mastura, a 27-year-old midwife, remembers with horror an assault on the clinic two years in the past — helicopters roaring above, screams, and a gun pointed at her when Afghan authorities forces charged in.
Two workers members died within the raid.
Throughout her seven years on the clinic, the worry of raids was a part of on a regular basis life, however Mastura mentioned she had prevented run-ins with the Taliban.
“They aren’t on the street saying ‘do that or don’t try this’. They dwell right here with their households as a part of society,” she mentioned.
However Mastura is underneath few illusions in regards to the future underneath the Islamists.
“My mom and my grandmother had very tough lives. I’m solely 27 and my life has already been very tough.
“I don’t assume that it will likely be any higher for my daughter.”
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