[{"bbox": [96, 152, 1134, 234], "category": "Text", "text": "removed a critical resource for young girls' hygiene during their menstrual cycles having significant negative physical health effects but also affect mental health, leading to psychological stress, shame, and behavioural change, including limiting mobility, social interaction, and participation in schooling⁴²."}, {"bbox": [96, 244, 1136, 562], "category": "Text", "text": "As the world's leading opium producer, Afghanistan suffers from a drug abuse crisis exacerbated by extreme poverty, lack of future prospects, and post-traumatic stress due to conflict and social pressure. In 2015, out of 2,757 households sampled for the *Afghanistan national drug use survey*, 11% had tested positive for one or more drugs⁴³. Many drug users are forcibly locked up in so-called 'treatment centres' that are deficient in terms of adequate medical and mental care, food, sanitary facilities, heating, and meaningful rehabilitation and reintegration. With the lack of access to adequate health care services, especially in rural areas, some use of drugs also occurs in the context of self-medication for treatment of physical pain, as well as in case of psychological issues (e.g. stress, anxiety, depression, trauma). Drug use is associated with increased vulnerabilities in many areas of life, resulting in negative social and health consequences, such as co-occurring mental and physical disorders (including HIV, Hepatitis, and other infectious diseases), drug-related deaths, unemployment, stigmatisation, crime and violence (including domestic violence) affecting not only the drug users but families and entire communities."}, {"bbox": [96, 575, 1136, 789], "category": "Text", "text": "Mental health disorders in Afghanistan are exceptionally high for both adults and children, caused by decades of conflict and insecurity. About 66% of the Afghan population have experienced at least one traumatic event in their life, and 77% witnessed such an event. The major mental health disorders with high prevalence rates are psychological distress (47.7%), suicide ideation (7.3%), attempt (3.96%) and committing (3.43%), post traumatic stress disorder (5.3%), depression (4.9%) and generalised anxiety (2.8%). The mental health situation of children has become worrying with the prevalence of emotional problems at 39%, conduct disorders at 40.7%, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) at 15.47%, and problems with peers at 51.81%. 11.5% of them are impaired in their daily life owing to mental health problems."}, {"bbox": [96, 799, 1136, 1012], "category": "Text", "text": "Moreover, Afghanistan has one of the highest proportions of people with a disability in the world. Even though the overall security situation has improved, landmines, unexploded ordinance, local and domestic conflicts and accidents continue causing disability on a daily basis. About 80% of the adults live with some form of disability (24.6% mild, 40.4% moderate and 13.9% severe forms) as do 17.3% of the children aged between 2 and 17.⁴⁴ Severe disabilities are more prevalent among women and girls (14.9%). Human Rights Watch and other human rights organisations report that Afghan women and girls with disabilities face extreme barriers, entrenched discrimination, and sexual harassment in accessing assistance, education, employment and healthcare. They are often seen as a burden on their families and are at increased risk of violence, both in and out of the home."}, {"bbox": [96, 1023, 1136, 1477], "category": "Text", "text": "Advances made over the past twenty years in the fight against **Gender-Based Violence (GBV)** have been badly set back by the Taliban takeover. Previous legal dispositions, including the 2009 law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW), are not operative. It is unlikely that commitments of the Afghan State to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (ratified in 2003 without reservations) will be upheld. The Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) was dismantled, gender units in Ministries, previously funded through donor support, ceased to function, as did, at the local level, Family Response Units and Elimination of Violence Against Women Units. The dissolution of the MoWA, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the police and justice systems, means that the multisector referral system for victims of gender-based violence is now mostly inaccessible to women and girls, limiting their access to services. Shelters have been under pressure, and most of them stopped their operations after the 15 August 2021, while the majority of women organisations working on GBV are now keeping a low profile. The recent closures of many safe houses for women, who suffer domestic violence, have left women and girls in even more vulnerable situations. On 3 December 2021, the Taliban de facto authorities released a 'special decree on women's rights' setting out the rules governing marriage and property for women, with instructions for implementation. The decree states that \"[A] woman is not a property, but a noble and free human being; no one can give her to anyone in exchange for peace deal and or to end animosity\". It also states that women, including widows, should not be forced into marriage and that widows have a share in their husband's property. The extent to which this decree"}, {"bbox": [85, 1548, 1006, 1599], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴²https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-rapid-gender-analysis-november-2023#:~:text=Deeply%20rooted%20patriarchal%20gender%20norms,and%20social%20privilege%20for%20men"}, {"bbox": [85, 1597, 477, 1622], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴³ https://dataunodc.un.org/content/country-list"}, {"bbox": [85, 1621, 519, 1646], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴⁴ From a study by the Asia Foundation (May 2020)"}, {"bbox": [1027, 1682, 1144, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 12 of 38"}]