Women trapped in the mental health system

On a hill to the west of the Afghan capital, behind a steel door on the hill with a barbed wire, Kabul is mentioned by several local people, and even less visits.

The female wing of a mental health center operated by the Afghan Red Crescent Community (Arcs) is the largest of a handful of plants dedicated to helping women with mental illness in the country.

The locals call it Qala or castle.

BBC has gained a special access to the crowded center where staff is currently found to be difficult to cope with 104 women on their walls.

These include women like Mariam* who say that they are victims of domestic violence.

It is here for nine years after he has endured what he described as abuse and neglect by his family, which is thought to be in the middle of his 20s.

“My brothers would beat me when I visited a neighbor’s house,” he says. His family says he doesn’t want to get him out of the house because of a cultural belief that young girls should not leave the house without supervising.

In the end, his brothers seemed to threw him out and forced him to live on the streets at a young age. Here a woman found her and apparently he was worried about her mental health, she brought her to the center.

Despite his story, Mariam’s smile is always bright. It is usually seen when singing and is one of the few patients who are allowed to work around the building and is voluntary to help cleanliness.

Ready and willing to be discharged.

But he can’t leave because he has no place to go.

Mariam, “I do not expect to return to my father and mother. I want to marry someone here in Kabul, because even if I return home, they will leave me again,” he says.

Since he could not return to his malicious family, he fell into the trap effectively in the facility.

In Afghanistan, strict Taliban arrangements and radical patriarchal traditions make women’s independent living almost impossible. Women have to have a male protector to travel, work and even access many services, and most economic opportunities are closed to them.

Gender inequality, limited education and limited employment left many women financially dependent on male bread holders, and strengthened a cycle of survival often depends on male relatives.

Habiba sat on a bed in one of the dormitories.

The 28 -year -old boy says he was brought to the center by his husband who took him out of his family home after he got married.

Like Mariam, now he has no other place to go. He is also ready to be released, but his husband will not take him back and his widow’s mother cannot support him.

His three sons now live with one uncle. They initially visited him, but Habiba did not see them this year; Without access to a phone, he cannot even communicate.

Orum I want to come together again with my children, or he says.

It is far from being unique in the center where our visit is supervised by the authorities from the Taliban government of our visit, including stories, personnel and patients.

Saleema Halib, a psychotherapist in the center, says that some patients have been here for 35 to 40 years.

“Some have been completely abandoned by their families. Nobody comes to visit and lives and dies here.”

Many Afghan, many Afghan, left a mark on the mental health of women, and the problem was often not understood and was exposed to stigmatization.

In response to a recent UN report on the deteriorating situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said to the BBC that his governments did not allow any violence against women and said that “women’s rights in Afghanistan”.

However, the UN data published in 2024 indicate a worsened mental health crisis in connection with the pressure of the Taliban on women’s rights: 68% of women participating in the survey reported that “bad” or “very bad” mental health.

Services have been struggling to deal with and outside the center, which has increased several times in patients in the last four years and is now a waiting list.

He is a senior psychiatrist in a nearby hospital in Kabul. Abdul Wali Utmanzai, “mental illness, especially in our society is very common in our society,” he says.

Most women say that they are being treated up to 50 a day from different provinces: “Most women are faced with severe economic pressure. Many have no male relatives to provide them – 80% of my patients are young women with family problems.”

The Taliban government says he is determined to provide health services. However, many of them cannot ask for help with restrictions on the movement of women without male charitor.

All this makes it difficult for women to leave, such as Mariam and Habiba – and the longer they stay, the less space for those who say that they need helplessly.

A family had been trying to accept Zainab, 16 -year -old daughter for a year, but they were told that they were not beds. Now it’s one of the youngest patients there.

Until then, he was limited to his home – chained to prevent the ankles from escaping.

It is not clear which mental health problems of Zainab experienced, but he is struggling to verbally.

A seemingly troubled sacrifice Muhammad said that the police had recently found Miles from home.

Zainab had disappeared in Afghanistan, where women were not allowed to travel long distances from home without a male guardian, especially dangerous for days.

Feda Mohammad said, “If we climb the walls and escape if we live.”

Zainab drowned in tears every time, especially when he sees his mother crying.

Feda Mohammad says they realized his situation when he was eight years old. However, in April 2022, he worsened after hitting a large number of bombing schools.

“It was thrown into a wall by the explosion, or he says. “We helped to make the wounded and collect bodies. It was terrible.”

What would have happened if there was no field. Zainab’s father said that his attempts to escape again honored him and argued that it was better for him and his family to be limited to the center.

Like Mariam and Habiba – it is now seen whether Qala will be one of the abandoned women.

*Names of patients and their families have changed