10 July 2018
News
Family health houses are helping midwives provide reproductive health care in far-flung parts of Afghanistan. © UNFPA Afghanistan
Midwives deployed to remote Afghanistan to lower maternal death rate
HERAT, Afghanistan – By midnight, Khurshid, 35, was in serious trouble. Five months pregnant and bleeding heavily, she had passed out at home. Her family carried her unconscious body to the nearest – and only – health... Read more
2 August 2017
News
Expert midwife Tahira Nazari provides support to health workers at the Midwifery Helpline in Afghanistan. © UNFPA Afghanistan/Ahmadullah Amarkhil
Midwifery hotline offers emergency support in Afghanistan
SAYED KHEL, Afghanistan – “It was seven in the morning, and I had not yet started my working day, when Hafsa* was brought to the clinic with normal labour pains,” said Mahbooba, a 27-year-old midwife who runs the Aqtash... Read more
7 June 2016
News
Noorjahan laughs as she recovers from fistula surgery in Malalai Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. Now, she says, "I can live." © Andrea Bruce/ NOOR
After childbirth trauma, Afghan women emerge from life in shadows
KABUL, Afghanistan – For 49 years, a traumatic childbirth injury left Noorjahan living in the shadows. A prolonged, obstructed labour, and lack of emergency maternal health care, left her with an obstetric fistula – a... Read more
16 May 2016
News
With a midwife’s help, quadruplets are safely delivered in remote Afghanistan
BALAKOH, Afghanistan – It was midnight in the remote Afghan village of Balakoh, and 37-year-old Zainab was entering her tenth hour of labour in her mountainside home. With no skilled birth attendant present and her pain... Read more
17 February 2016
News
Prosecuting gender-based violence in Afghanistan
BALKH, Afghanistan – It was after midnight and Bibi Gul* was in critical condition when her husband and eldest daughter brought her to a hospital in Balkh, a province in northern Afghanistan.  When the nurses examined... Read more
23 November 2015
News
Nargis, a midwife, provides family planning counselling in Herat, Afghanistan. © UNFPA Afghanistan/Ahmadullah Amarkhil
Acceptance of family planning grows in Afghanistan, but myths linger
HERAT, Afghanistan – "It is better to have one child rather than many, so you can give your child the support he needs and the best education you can offer," said Farzana, 37, at the family planning centre in Herat city... Read more
9 November 2015
News
Young people in Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan. A UNFPA-supported hotline is helping Afghanistan's youth learn about their health and rights. © UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
Phone line answers burning questions of Afghan youth
KABUL, Afghanistan – "We had a case where one of the callers, a girl, was pregnant, and when she told her boyfriend about her condition, he disappeared. She was desperate when she called us, even considering committing... Read more
21 April 2015
News
Zarmina and her mother. Some members of their family have blamed Zarmina for the abduction, but her mother has stood by her. © UNFPA Afghanistan
Snatched from her home, an Afghan girl's road to recovery
KABUL, Afghanistan – “They told me that my mother had sold me to them,” Zarmina* said of her kidnappers, who snatched her from her home in Afghanistan when she was only 13, then forced her into sexual servitude. Her... Read more
7 January 2015
News
Midwives help lower Afghanistan's towering maternal death rate
NEW YORK/KABUL – Boosting the ranks of midwives has helped to lower Afghanistan’s towering maternal and newborn death rates, a new report shows. Decades of grinding conflict and repressive attitudes towards women had... Read more
9 May 2014
News
The colour purple, changing the future of Afghan mothers
KABUL, Afghanistan – Purple is the colour that midwifery students proudly wear in a small but revolutionary school in the busy Afghan capital, Kabul. In addition to a purple scarf, they have one other thing in common:... Read more

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