Breaking Point: Children Lives One Year under Taliban Rule – A Report by Save the Children

The new restrictions have shattered girls’ lives, in particular. Nine out of 10 girls said they were losing weight from lack of food and had no energy to study, play and work. The crisis is taking a toll on girls’ mental and psychosocial wellbeing, with more than a quarter showing signs of depression and/or anxiety compared with less than a fifth of boys. Girls had trouble sleeping at night; suffered exclusion from social activities that made them happy; and felt hopeless about their future because of the loss of previous rights and freedoms. Almost half of the girls said they were not attending school, compared with a fifth of boys, listing economic challenges, the Taliban’s ban on girls attending secondary school classes, as well as community attitudes as the key barriers. The economic situation was also driving an increase in child marriages: out of the children who said they had been asked to marry to improve their family’s financial situation in the past year, 88% were girls. You can read the full report at https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/Breaking-Point-Childrens-lives-one-year-under-Taliban-rule_Aug-2022.pdf/