From emergency evacuation and resettlement to rebuilding livelihoods and advancing global advocacy, Vital Voices has remained alongside Afghan women through five years of escalating restrictions on their rights and freedoms.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — August 2026 — Five years after the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women and girls are confronting one of the most systematic campaigns of gender-based repression in the world. Through it all, Vital Voices Global Partnership has maintained one mission: that Afghan women lead: wherever they are.
Since August 2021, the Taliban’s supreme leader has issued more than 260 decrees and directives, approximately 166 of which restrict the rights, dignity, autonomy and freedom of women and girls. Girls remain barred from secondary school and university. Women have been pushed out of most employment, restricted in their ability to travel and increasingly excluded from public life.
Yet Afghan women have continued to lead in exile, in their new communities and, often at enormous personal risk, from inside Afghanistan.
Vital Voices has stood beside them from the first chaotic days of the crisis through today, evolving its support from emergency evacuation to long-term investment in women’s safety, livelihoods, leadership and political power.
From Evacuation to Permanent Resettlement
When Kabul fell in August 2021, women activists, journalists, educators, politicians and civil society leaders faced immediate threats to their lives. Vital Voices joined a coalition of Afghan and American women leaders to mobilize rapidly on their behalf.
That effort ultimately evacuated 1,236 at-risk women leaders and family members and supported them through permanent resettlement.
The work did not end when evacuation flights landed. Vital Voices and its partners helped women and their families navigate the long road toward rebuilding their lives, providing support ranging from shelter, healthcare and psychosocial assistance to legal and resettlement services. Vital Voices’ earlier reporting described this approach as one centered on resettlement with dignity. Not simply moving women out of immediate danger, but providing the resources and trusted networks necessary to begin again.
Five years later, that commitment remains.
When a Woman’s Safety Cannot Wait
For women still facing immediate danger, Vital Voices’ Crisis Response Program provides individualized assistance through trusted partners and women’s rights networks built over years.
In 2025 to 26 alone, 18 women human rights defenders received direct assistance for safety and relocation. Depending on an individual woman’s circumstances, that support can include confidential safety planning, emergency resources and relocation; legal representation and refugee advocacy; and culturally responsive mental health and livelihood assistance.
Behind each number is a woman whose leadership has made her a target.
The five-year impact brief tells the story of “Rana” and “Sahar,” whose names have been changed for their protection. The two women taught girls literacy from their homes for three years. When Taliban authorities discovered their underground school, they evaded arrest and fled with their families. Through a trusted longtime referral partner, Vital Voices supported their relocation.
Their story reflects both the danger Afghan women leaders face and their determination to continue creating opportunities for others.
Aghaaz: From Surviving to Rebuilding
Emergency response is only one part of the work.
Through Aghaaz, meaning “the beginning” or “rebirth” in Dari, Vital Voices is helping Afghan women rebuild their lives, reclaim economic and political power and ensure that their voices continue to shape the global conversation about Afghanistan.
In 2024 to 25, 483 Afghan women leaders were supported through Aghaaz, with programming organized around three interconnected priorities: Rebuild, Lead and Advocate.
For women rebuilding their lives in Canada, 65 received English-language classes, 42 completed driving lessons and 29 received small grants to start businesses. In the United States, 60 Afghan women participated in needs assessments that helped shape assistance delivered by Women for Afghan Women.
The program has also created pathways back into professional life. Six of 10 Leadership Journey fellows secured permanent positions following six-month host placements, while 10 Afghan women technologists were placed in remote international work through Aseel.
For these women, rebuilding a career is about far more than employment. It is a pathway toward independence, stability and renewed influence, allowing a woman leader to rebuild her own life while continuing to contribute to her family and community.
As one Women in Tech Fellow, identified as Aliya, described the opportunity, it provided “a safe space to work without fear or restrictions” while supporting her family and rebuilding her career.
Ensuring Afghan Women Are Seen, Heard and Represented
As women have been systematically removed from public life inside Afghanistan, Vital Voices and its partners have also worked to ensure they are not removed from the international decisions that affect their future.
Through Aghaaz, Afghan women are building coalitions, documenting abuses, strengthening legal accountability and advocating before international institutions.
That work has included supporting the establishment of the Coalition to End Gender Apartheid, led by Afghan women with a 12-member steering committee; convening a 15-member political participation group whose engagement plan was validated by 60 women leaders; training 35 Afghan women lawyers across 16 sessions; mentoring 30 young Afghans on gender apartheid; and supporting advocacy across six U.S. states.
Vital Voices also supported 39 delegates behind the 2024 Tirana Resolution, which advanced a shared platform calling for aid to reach women directly, Afghan women to have a seat at every negotiation with the Taliban, and gender apartheid to be recognized as a crime against humanity.
These investments demonstrate the ripple effect at the heart of Vital Voices’ model: supporting one woman leader strengthens her ability to open doors for others, influence institutions and build collective power. That approach reflects Vital Voices’ broader commitment to providing women leaders with the skills, connections, capacity and visibility to accelerate their impact.
One Afghan woman, Sana, participated in a United Nations session from Kabul through Vital Voices partner Farageer.
“My voice reached people who have the power to influence change, and that gave me hope. Even though I could not be there in person, having this platform meant that Afghan women were seen, heard, and remembered.”
Five Years On, the Work Is Not Finished
The international landscape has shifted dramatically since 2021. The five-year donor brief reports that U.S. policy shifts in 2025 cut funding that had reached thousands of women inside Afghanistan, prompting many international organizations to close their Afghanistan portfolios.
Vital Voices did not.
The infrastructure that makes this work possible: vetted partners, secure channels and trusted relationships with Afghan women leaders, already exists. Those relationships are especially critical in an environment where women increasingly must organize, teach, work and advocate outside public view.
Five years after the fall of Kabul, Vital Voices’ work in Afghanistan has moved through different phases, but its purpose has remained constant: stand with women when their safety cannot wait, invest in them as they rebuild, and amplify their leadership as they fight for the future of their country.
Because Afghan women are not only people affected by this crisis. They are leaders shaping what comes next.
And five years on, Vital Voices remains committed to standing alongside them.
###
About Vital Voices Global Partnership
Vital Voices Global Partnership invests in women leaders taking on the world’s greatest challenges. Founded on the belief that nations and communities cannot move forward without women’s voices in leadership, Vital Voices provides women leaders with the skills, connections, capacity and visibility to accelerate their impact and create a more equitable world.
Source: Vital Voices Afghanistan Donor Brief: Five Years After the Fall of Kabul, August 2026.