Women for Afghan Women

In 2003, when WAW held a conference on women's rights in Kandahar, we visited the women's prisons in Kabul and Kandahar. It was then that we discovered that in Afghanistan, women are imprisoned along with their children, and that no school or other activities are provided for these children. Seeing the women incarcerated in Pul-e-Charki, a hellish medieval-like fortress on a vast, desert-like plain outside Kabul, Manizha vowed to do something about this. A board member went to check it out again in 2008, and was sickened by the conditions: the filth, the chaos, the state of the children. WAW went to work immediately to raise money to get the kids out of there.

WAW's CSC is a model of its kind in Afghanistan and would compare favorably with any similar facility in the world. There's an accelerated learning program to help the kids qualify for entrance into local schools, individual and group therapy, tutoring, computer and English classes, sports, entertainment, field trips. The children arrive angry, out of control, illiterate. Very soon they quiet down and throw themselves into their studies. No children in the world are more eager to learn than these kids. They are starving for education.

Over the years, WAW has been able to track that the children in its CSCs receive exceptional tutoring and one-on-one educational support. They, overall, do better than other Afghan children in school and are often at the top of their class.

Our Halfway House serves women coming out of prison and shelter.
Women coming out of prison often have no home and family to return to, or will be risking their lives if they return home. Most women in prison have committed no crime-- they are in prison because they're have ran away from abuse, are accused of adultery, or are taking the rap for a husband, boyfriend or brother.
Women in shelters often have the same problem. They have shamed the family and must be punished. Women alone often end up walking the streets or turning to prostitution. Many end up dead. There is no solid evidence about this population because they aren't worth worrying about enough to collect data. They are simply erased.
But WAW worries about them and also about their children if they have them. What will happen to the children, now thriving in our Children's Support Centers and attending school if they have to return to a village in the middle of nowhere, without a school to attend, and to extended family who will torture if not kill them and their mothers. These women will enter WAW's Halfway Houses, the only facilities of their kind for women at risk in Afghanistan. There they will learn a vocation, how to read and write, how to manage money and other life skills. In other words, we will help them prepare for their independent futures. We will find them jobs and a place to live when they're ready to move out of these safe places and into the world.
This important project rounds out the mission of our Family Guidance Centers, our shelters, our Children's Support Centers: to preserve and protect human rights for Afghan women.

WAW NY is a home away from home for Afghan women. It is a safe space for the women from this community, where their needs are the priority. Most women who frequent the Center live in Queens, although Afghan women from Long Island and other NYC boroughs also participate in our programs. The programs we offer are designed to respond to the needs and challenges of Afghan women living in New York, and to protect their rights.

We provide:
● Confidential case management and onsite legal support for individuals and families dealing with domestic violence, immigration, public benefits, education, employment, interpretation, and any other needs that may arise;
● Adult empowerment classes for women that include daily ESL classes, citizenship classes, driving test preparation, empowerment trainings, and workshops (such as self-defense, financial literacy, and computer programming), and a new citizenship class for men;
● Women’s Circle, a monthly support group program that provides a safe and confidential space for discussions on topics that are timely and relevant, but often taboo, in the community, including domestic violence and women’s rights;
● Girls Leadership and Boys Leadership Programs, empowerment programs for girls and boys aged 10 to 15 that offers life skills training and educates them about leadership, human rights, and career choices;
● Homework Help that provides students of all genders from first to twelfth grades with support on homework and preparing for state testing; and
● Community and Cultural Events that help preserve and celebrate the richness of Afghan culture and traditions with the wider NY community, and serve as an outreach opportunity to reach out to new clients, inform them of WAW’s services, and learn about emerging and current needs of the communities we serve.

Our Women’s Protection Centers offer women and girls safe and confidential homes until their legal cases around gender-based violence are resolved.

Within the Women's Protection Centers, WAW provides life-saving, life-changing services:

- Services for survivors of violence and rape;
- Intensive emergency and safety counseling;
- Rescue, transportation, and shelter;
- Safe reintegration into the community; and 
- Literacy and employment classes.

Some actual cases of this work include (names changed to protect confidentiality):
• Miriam was little over 3-years old when she was raped. She was referred to Women for Afghan Women after her case received intense media attention. WAW took the child to the French Medical Institute for Children (FMIC, also known as the Mother and Child Hospital) in Kabul, where the hospital was able to stem the post-rape bleeding but refused to do any further treatment. However, WAW persisted and negotiated with FMIC until it agreed to conduct the surgery Miriam required. She was finally admitted and hospitalized for 10 days.
• Gita is a 30-year old client, who was the victim of extreme violence and abuse by her husband and her in-laws. She was 8-months pregnant when her husband, sisters-in-law, and mother-in-law beat her until the point that she miscarried. Even after her full-term miscarriage, her in-laws did not take her to the hospital. She lost over half of her blood before she was finally referred to a hospital in Kunduz. The hospital felt her case required medical attention that they could not provide and asked that she be referred to Kabul for treatment. WAW was contacted and admitted Gita to a hospital in Kabul. WAW paid for her blood transfusions, but Gita required even more blood transfusions to survive. WAW’s Kabul Family Guidance Center staff donated their own blood to make up for the shortfall. She soon recovered and was sent back to live with her parents.
• Mina was 9-years old when she was promised to another man by her father, so that he could have another wife. A few months later, the 29-year-old fiancé kidnapped her and began to brutally rape her. The fiancé’s mother tried to protect Mina for as long as she could, but her son continued to rape the poor child for weeks. It got so bad that Mina could no longer sit or walk, was bleeding heavily, and eventually contracted a severe infection. A local community leader was made aware of Mina’s condition and he took her to the nearest clinic, where her case was referred to WAW. Mina was in constant, agonizing pain, and required surgery. After six months of medical care, the doctors were still worried she was too weak for surgery and would die under anesthesia due to the frailty of her condition. Mina was moved to Kabul where medical facilities could better manage her condition. She finally underwent the surgery she required and is now recovering in one of WAW’s Women’s Protection Centers, Mina is now doing much better and is healthy, but she will have to undergo further surgery when she is older.
• 16-year old Marzia was repeatedly raped by her own father. Her father tried to cover up his crime, however, eventually he impregnated her. When Marzia went into premature labor, her mother rushed her to the hospital. When the doctors realized the young girl had no husband, they suspected she was the victim of incest, and called the police immediately. The police referred her case to WAW, which took care of Marzia’s medical care. After her recovery, Marzia was placed in one of WAW’s women’s shelters, where she now attends literacy classes for the first time in her life. Her father has been arrested and sentenced to prison for his crime. Today, Marzia is not only safe, but also happy, and eagerly learning how to read and write with the dream of one day obtaining a university degree.

Similar to our Halfway House program, our Transitional Houses provide women transitioning out of prison safe homes, education, counseling, and vocational training. Most women in prison have committed no crime-- they are in prison because they're have ran away from abuse, are accused of adultery, or are taking the rap for a husband, boyfriend or brother.

Women in shelters often have the same problem. They have shamed the family and must be punished. Women alone often end up walking the streets or turning to prostitution. Many end up dead. There is no solid evidence about this population because they aren't worth worrying about enough to collect data. They are simply erased.

But WAW worries about them and also about their children if they have them. What will happen to the children, now thriving in our Children's Support Centers and attending school if they have to return to a village in the middle of nowhere, without a school to attend, and to extended family who will torture if not kill them and their mothers. These women will enter WAW's Transitional Houses, the only facilities of their kind for women at risk in Afghanistan. There they will learn a vocation, how to read and write, how to manage money and other life skills. In other words, we will help them prepare for their independent futures. We will find them jobs and a place to live when they're ready to move out of these safe places and into the world.

This important project rounds out the mission of our Family Guidance Centers, our shelters, our Children's Support Centers: to preserve and protect human rights for Afghan women.

Virginia Community Center (VACC) was established in 2022 to provide vital services to newly-arriving Afghans in the area, and to support already established Afghan and other immigrant communities. Virginia has the second largest Afghan community in the US—having over 23,000 or 18% of the US total Afghan population. VACC is located in Alexandria and will provide the following immediate, pro bono, culturally-sensitive, and linguistically-competent services:
Case management support to ensure families meet their basic needs;
Immigration legal services, which the majority of refugees and parolees will need for adjustment of status, asylum, naturalization;
Mental health counseling to help address traumas and develop positive coping skills;
Adult empowerment classes including, but not limited to, English language, literacy, and civics; and
After-school tutoring and youth leadership development programs for high school and college readiness, career development, and civic engagement.