Abortion in Afghanistan: ‘My mother crushed my stomach with a stone’

WHEN Bahara was four months pregnant, she went to a Kabul hospital to beg for an abortion.

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“We're not allowed,” a doctor told her. “If someone finds out, we will all end up in prison”.Abortion in Afghanistan is illegal and you can be locked up for having or assisting one.

But Bahara was desperate. Her jobless husband had ordered her to “find a solution” - he did not want a fifth daughter.

“We can barely afford to feed” the girls as it is, Bahara, 35, said. “If it was a boy, he could go to school and work”.

But there are no such prospects for a girl, with women banned from secondary schools, universities and most jobs since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

So Bahara took a neighbour's advice and bought - for the equivalent of $2 (about R34) - a herbal tea at the market made from a type of mallow that induces contractions.

The bleeding was so bad she had to go back to the hospital. “I told them that I had fallen, but they knew I was lying because I had no marks on my body. They were angry but did not report me,’ said the mother-of-four.

“They operated and removed the remains of the foetus. Since then I have felt very weak”