Afghan women, the survivors of widespread domestic violence, decades long armed conflict, extreme poverty and discrimination, are still perceived by many Afghan men as a second class human beings. Despite western world's military intervention, political support and financial aid to the country's democratization and stabilization move, women have received a tiny proportion of attention and resources. The retrograde suspension status of the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law, reduction of quota for women's membership in the Afghan parliament and the boundless power of warlords and anti-women's rights leaders predict even a worse-off destiny for them.

Notwithstanding all these untoward state of affairs, Afghan women have faced enormous psychological impact of the war leading to losing family members, sustaining injuries, displacement, separation from family and mistreatment among others. However, they have almost no access to mental health care at the country's level at large. Many medical professionals who have worked in rural areas in Afghanistan, which obviously comprise 90 percent of the country, share the experience that Afghan man hesitate to tell even the name of their wives and daughter including at the health facilities where they seek health services. They will rather name them for example as “mother of Fahim” or “sister of Habib” than telling their actual name. Many men in the rural areas consider pregnancy of their women a shame simply for being linked with their intimate physiological characteristics.

On the top of all these disadvantages, the merely few professionals in the field of mental health do not take the symptoms of their female patients serious enough. In many cases, they will  label them as “malingering” in first place than properly diagnosing and providing their best advice. Meanwhile, the families behavior is different towards their male and female members, valuing men over women in many cases.

While developing an efficient health system is a huge challenge in Afghanistan , it seems to be a weigh long and rough path to see women having comparable access to health care services, particularly mental health care. Obviously, the international community might need to invest more in women's development and allow for positive discrimination and advocate for positive action to address this issue.