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Earthquake in Afghanistan: When Customs Kill More Than the Quake, by S N Tripathy – 6 September 2025

The recent earthquake in Afghanistan was merciless. A 6.6-magnitude tremor, followed by powerful aftershocks, reduced villages to rubble, killing at least 2,200 people and injuring more than 3,600. Yet while the seismic waves destroyed homes, it is centuries-old customs and rigid gender restrictions that have deepened the tragedy. Women, already the most oppressed under Taliban rule, were left among the last to be rescued – or not rescued at all – as Taliban rules barred unrelated men from pulling them out of the debris, The Telegraph reported.

In the villages of eastern Afghanistan, survivors describe a chilling reality. Men and children were promptly pulled out of the debris, but women and adolescent girls were pushed aside, bleeding and neglected. “They gathered us in one corner and forgot about us,” said 19-year-old Bibi Aysha of Andarluckak village in Kunar province, in a report by The New York Times. She and other women received no help for over 36 hours after the quake struck.

The absence of female rescuers has meant that women trapped under collapsed homes were often left to die. In some cases, even retrieving the bodies of women posed challenges because Taliban-enforced prohibitions prevent unrelated men from touching them. Volunteers dragged dead women out by their clothes to avoid contact with their skin. “It felt like women were invisible,” said Tahzeebullah Muhazeb, a 33-year-old male volunteer in Mazar Dara. He recounted how all-male medical teams hesitated to treat women, focusing instead on men and children.

This is not just a story of a natural disaster. It is a story of how social norms and gender apartheid can exacerbate suffering during humanitarian crises. Earthquakes are indiscriminate, but in Afghanistan, their aftermath is filtered through the lens of patriarchal custom. Rescue efforts stumble not only over rubble but also over rigid gender rules.

The Taliban, back in power since 2021, had promised a “revamped” version of their earlier regime that ended in 2001 after the US invasion. Yet, far from being progressive, their policies have steadily stripped women of their rights.

Schooling for girls is banned beyond the sixth grade. Women are not allowed to work in most professions, travel long distances without a male guardian, or even participate in public life. Humanitarian organisations have seen their female Afghan staff harassed, threatened, and often confined to working from home. These restrictions have devastating ripple effects. With women barred from many jobs, including those in non-profits and aid agencies, the very presence of female rescuers and healthcare providers has dwindled. In a society where men are forbidden from touching or directly helping unrelated women, this absence is catastrophic during emergencies. The recent earthquake is proof: women trapped under debris remained there, not because help was unavailable, but because help was forbidden by custom.

When natural disasters strike elsewhere, international teams often rush to the scene, trained in gender-sensitive rescue operations. In Afghanistan, however, the barriers are both cultural and political. Even before the earthquake, aid delivery was hampered by Taliban-imposed restrictions on female workers in NGOs and UN agencies. Now, in the quake’s aftermath, those same policies are costing women their lives.

What makes this tragedy more poignant is its preventability. Rubble can be cleared with equipment, wounds can be treated with medicine, but centuries-old norms – when backed by state power – become harder to dismantle. Customs that once merely curtailed freedom now actively determine who lives and who dies. The Taliban, in claiming to revive traditional values, has effectively institutionalised neglect. By excluding women from education, employment, and public service, they have ensured that when disaster struck, half the population was left defenceless. Women were not just victims of collapsed homes; they were victims of a collapsed social system.

International aid agencies face a dilemma. While humanitarian principles demand inclusivity, operating in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan requires constant negotiation. Agencies like the United Nations have already had to suspend operations at times because their female employees were barred from working. Even when allowed, the harassment they face makes their presence precarious. This not only reduces the reach of aid but also prevents women survivors from being approached, spoken to, or treated. The gender breakdown of the quake casualties is still unknown, but the numbers are expected to show a disproportionate toll on women. This is no coincidence. When survival depends on being seen, women in Afghanistan are condemned to invisibility.

There is an old saying that disasters expose the cracks in societies. In Afghanistan, those cracks are gaping wounds. The earthquake has shown that gender norms can be as deadly as falling buildings. When men hesitate to rescue women because of prohibitions, when bodies are dragged by clothes instead of being handled with dignity, when survivors are pushed aside because they are female, one must ask: who is responsible for their deaths-the quake or the customs?

The tragedy lies not only in the numbers but also in the silence surrounding these women. Their suffering rarely reaches beyond whispered testimonies, smuggled out by international reporters. Unlike men, they cannot advocate for themselves, protest their neglect, or demand accountability. They are silenced in life and erased in death.

The global community must recognise that humanitarian aid in Afghanistan cannot be gender neutral. It must be gender conscious. To save lives, aid agencies must insist on including women in rescue and medical teams, even if it means pushing back against Taliban diktats. Every negotiation with the regime must prioritise women’s participation, not as an afterthought but as a precondition for effective aid.

Moreover, the Taliban must be held accountable on the international stage. Their refusal to allow women into public roles is not merely a domestic matter; it has transnational implications when disasters strike, and foreign aid is blocked. Sanctions and diplomatic isolation should be leveraged to press for humanitarian access that includes women.

Finally, Afghan women themselves must not be reduced to passive subjects in global debates. They must be given platforms, voices, and opportunities to tell their stories. Only when the world hears directly from those silenced will there be pressure strong enough to shift entrenched customs. The earthquake in Afghanistan is a stark reminder that disasters are never just natural. They are social and political events, shaped by the structures in which they occur. For Afghan women, the ground shook twice – once from the quake, and once from the crushing weight of customs that render them invisible. Unless the world confronts these barriers, the next disaster will once again turn women into casualties of both earth and tradition.

S N Tripathy is Former Professor of Economics, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, currently at Berhampur, Odisha, India.

This article originally appeared in Mainstream Weekly.

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