01 / 04
Herat classroom · 2009
Afghan women arebeing suppressed
Since August 2021, Afghan women and girls have faced sweeping restrictions on education, work, movement and public life. But many continue to resist, teach, organize and create opportunities. Support their work through funding, advocacy or practical skills.
02 / 04
Protest after the Kabul school attack · 2022
03 / 04
Kabul textile workers · 2012
04 / 04
Midwifery students · 2006
If you are in
Afghanistan
This part is for you, not about you, and it comes first on purpose. Everything else can wait. Several organisations here work in Dari and Pashto.
!
Your safety comes first
Read this before opening another link- 01
Best is a device that is yours alone. On a shared phone, assume anyone who can unlock it can see what you did.
- 02
Clear your history after reading pages like this on a shared device, including this page's address.
- 03
Tor Browser hides what you read from your provider and forgets its history when it closes. Only download it from torproject.org.
- 04
If it is blocked, message
@GetTor_Boton Telegram or email[email protected]. Ask@GetBridgesBotfor a bridge.
Places that
can help
These links take you directly to organisations already doing the work. We do not collect anything from you.
School · Dari & Pashto
Begum Academy
Free school lessons for grades 7 to 12, in Dari and Pashto. Video lessons, tests and certificates can be saved to watch offline, and the same classes air on Begum TV.
School · local teachers
LEARN Afghanistan
Schools and online classes run by Afghan teachers. Students can register through their website.
University · scholarship
University of the People
A tuition-free, accredited online university with a scholarship fund for Afghan women that covers the remaining fees.
Protection · family support
Women for Afghan Women
Protection and family support programmes with locally hired staff working across many provinces.
Digital safety · Dari & Pashto guides
Access Now safety guides
Practical online-safety guidance in Dari and Pashto. Its 24/7 emergency helpline supports civil society, but does not currently work in either local language.
What was taken
This was not one rule written once. It was a door closed, then another, then another. The dates matter less than the pattern, but keeping the record matters.
School - 2021
Girls are barred from classes past the sixth grade. Afghanistan is the only country on earth where this is policy.
University - 2022
Universities close their doors to women ‘until further notice’. The notice never came.
Work - 2022-23
Most paid work is closed off, decree by decree: government offices, NGOs, the UN mission and salons.
Movement - 2022-24
No long journey without a mahram, a male chaperone. Parks, gyms and public baths are off limits entirely.
Voice - 2024
The ‘vice and virtue’ law orders faces covered and instructs that a woman's voice should not be heard in public.
Medicine - 2024
Midwifery and nursing training, the last study path still open to women, is shut in a country where male doctors may not treat a woman alone.
The internet - 2025
A nationwide blackout silenced the whole country for days: banking, medicine and the online classrooms women had left.
July 2025
The law caught up.
Enforcement has not.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Taliban's supreme leader and chief justice for persecution on gender grounds. The Taliban reject the court; the warrants stand.
Put something
back
Start with whatever is already in your hands. Pick one, and this page becomes a short list of places turning that exact thing into something useful.
I can give
A few places to begin
Fund the doors that are still open.
These teams turn donations into classrooms, protection, reporting and livelihoods.
Helps restore school taken 2021
LEARN Afghanistan
Community-based schools across 18 provinces, alongside midwifery training and digital classrooms run by Afghan educators.
Helps restore school taken 2021
Malala Fund
Funds home schools, digital platforms, radio, TV and the legal campaign to recognise gender apartheid.
Helps restore work taken 2022-23
Afghanaid
Four decades of humanitarian work, including women's livelihood and economic programmes.
Helps restore work taken 2022-23
Women for Afghan Women
Protection programmes inside Afghanistan and community centres for Afghans rebuilding abroad.
Helps restore voice taken 2024
Rukhshana Media
News reported by Afghan women, about Afghan women, from one of the few outlets still telling these stories.
A few places to begin
Make the pressure harder to ignore.
Two direct routes turn your name and a few honest sentences into political weight.
Helps restore voice taken 2024
End Gender Apartheid
The campaign led by Afghan and Iranian women jurists and rights defenders.
Helps restore voice taken 2024
Find your MEP
The official European Parliament directory. A short letter in your own words beats any template.
A few places to begin
Pass a useful skill forward.
Code, translate, mentor, or lend a little infrastructure to work already in motion.
Helps restore university taken 2022
Code to Inspire
Afghanistan's first coding school for girls. Developers can donate or offer mentorship online.
Helps restore voice taken 2024
Respond Crisis Translation
Dari and Pashto language teams supporting asylum cases and crisis response.
Helps restore the internet taken 2025
Run a Snowflake proxy
Turn a browser tab or server into a bridge that helps people reach the open internet through Tor.
A few places to begin
Give a room some of your time.
Sometimes the whole contribution is arriving, listening and helping in person.
Helps restore movement taken 2022-24
Melissa Network
An Athens hub for migrant and refugee women. Volunteer, donate equipment or simply show up.
About the photographs & image credits
These photographs document Afghan women’s lives, studies, work and protest. Each is dated: older images show opportunities that existed before the restrictions described here. They do not depict the programmes of the organisations linked above.
- Samangan classroom · 2006 · USAID / photographer uncredited · Public domain
- Computer lesson, Afghanistan · 2009 · Todd Huffman · CC BY 2.0
- Herat classroom · 2009 · TSgt Laura K. Smith · CC BY 2.0
- Kabul Medical University · 2006 · Ben Barber (USAID) · Public domain
- Protest after the Kabul school attack · 2022 · ABNA · CC BY 4.0
- Bagh-e-Babur, Kabul · 2013 · ninara from Helsinki, Finland · CC BY 2.0
- Midwifery students · 2006 · Ben Barber (USAID) · Public domain
- Kabul textile workers · 2012 · Senior Airman Andrea Salazar (U.S. Armed Forces) · Public domain
- International Criminal Court · 2016 · OSeveno · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Afghanistan internet shutdown · September 2025 · Cloudflare Radar · Chart reproduced with attribution
- Tor Snowflake · proxy interface · The Tor Project · Interface screenshot
- Kabul · Mohammad Husaini · Unsplash
- begum-academy.org · Begum Academy · Website screenshot
- learnafghan.org · LEARN Afghanistan · Website screenshot
- uopeople.edu · University of the People · Website screenshot
- womenforafghanwomen.org · Women for Afghan Women · Website screenshot
Images are resized and may be cropped to fit the layout. Source links show the originals. The ICC photograph and its adapted versions remain under CC BY-SA 4.0.