Decades of conflict, displacement, poverty, restricted girls’ education, and insecurity disrupt children’s lives. Floods, droughts, and unexploded ordnance further threaten their mental health.
A new report from UNICEF spotlights the severe psychological strain gripping Afghanistan’s youth: one in four children aged 5 to 17 now suffers from anxiety, and about one in seven is battling depression.
The warning came during a workshop in Kabul on child and adolescent mental health. Alice James, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, urged Afghan authorities, humanitarian agencies, and civil society to adopt a unified, national strategy to address the burgeoning mental health crisis.
“Every child has the right to care, compassion, and hope,” James said, noting that years of conflict, economic collapse, social restrictions, and now severe humanitarian pressures threaten the psychological well-being of a generation.
Scale, Causes, and Implications
According to UNICEF and affiliated reports, more than 24 percent of children in Afghanistan (ages 5–17) live with anxiety – a rate about ten times higher than global norms. Meanwhile, nearly 15 percent of children struggle with depression.
These numbers reflect a convergence of severe stressors. Decades of conflict, internal displacement, poverty, restrictions on girls’ education, and persistent social and economic insecurity have disrupted children’s lives and traumatised communities. Natural disasters, recurrent floods, droughts, and the presence of unexploded ordnance further magnify the risks to children’s mental health.
In many cases, children’s daily lives are marked by chronic uncertainty: loss of homes, disrupted schooling, restricted mobility (especially for girls), and strained family finances. The UNICEF workshop identified these compounding pressures as central to the rising rates of anxiety and depression among Afghan youth.
Clinical case studies lend a human face to these statistics. One such example is Zahra, a 16-year-old who turned to suicide attempts following the 2022 ban on girls’ secondary education. She later accessed counselling in a UNICEF-supported child and adolescent mental health clinic and has since made measurable improvements. Her story underscores both the depth of the challenge and the possibility of recovery when appropriate support is available.
Dr. Tayaba Hamedi – one of Afghanistan’s few child psychiatrists – says cases often expose how social and familial stress, trauma, restrictions on female education, forced marriage, poverty, and domestic violence all play into young people’s psychological distress.
However, such specialised mental health services remain scarce. The clinic treating Zahra is among the few of its kind in the country, supported in part by UNICEF’s funding. According to UNICEF, the nation lacks a cohesive child protection system and has limited infrastructure to respond to psychosocial needs across remote and conflict-affected areas.
Urgent Calls to Action
UNICEF has been scaling up efforts to provide mental health and psychosocial support. Its 2024 plans include reaching hundreds of thousands of children and caregivers with community-based interventions. The agency’s “Humanitarian Action for Children” appeal notes that roughly 2.9 million children and caregivers will need access to mental health and psychosocial services in the coming period.
UNICEF also supports over 750 child-friendly spaces across Afghanistan – safe environments, separately designed for girls and boys, offering recreational, educational and psychosocial support activities. These spaces aim to reduce stigma, allow children to express emotions, and connect them with trained facilitators.
Still, the scale of the need far outstrips available resources. UNICEF’s Afghanistan appeal for the current year seeks USD 1.2 billion to cover a range of humanitarian and protective services – mental health included. The appeal underscores the danger of neglecting psychological care: children with untreated depression or anxiety risk long-term developmental setbacks, poorer educational outcomes, and adult mental illnesses.
At the Kabul workshop, UNICEF called for the adoption of a national mental health strategy for children and adolescents, along with greater investment in training mental health professionals and integrating psychosocial support into public health and education systems.
James urged that mental health services be accessible, non-discriminatory, and designed to reach disadvantaged communities, particularly girls, rural populations, and those affected by displacement or conflict.
The stakes of inaction – and the path forward
The mental health emergency facing Afghan children is not just a humanitarian matter – it carries profound implications for the future. As children’s ability to learn, interact socially, and mature into healthy adults is undermined, setbacks in national development, social cohesion, and peace-building may follow.
Public health researchers have long warned of the urgency: Afghanistan’s youth are exposed to PTSD, anxiety, depression, and emotional trauma across generations. A recent review adds that mental illnesses are prevalent across children in Afghanistan and remain under-treated.
Addressing this crisis requires both immediate and structural measures: expanding mental health care access, reducing stigma, training community workers, embedding psychosocial support into schools, and ensuring that girls’ access to education is restored.
Some interventions, such as counselling, peer support, psychosocial activities in child-friendly spaces, and recruitment of trained therapists, have already shown promise.
In Zahra’s case, consistent therapy, family involvement, and safe spaces have helped her recover from suicidal depression to hope and engagement. But for every Zahra, many more children struggle silently, invisible to formal services.
As UNICEF’s Alice James aptly stated, “Every child has the right to care, compassion, and hope.” The time to act is now – before a generation of children is lost to untreated mental suffering.
