August 2026 marked five years since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, and five years since I began my journey as an advocate for Afghan women. Over the years, I’ve spoken about my “connection” to Afghanistan many times. Most who know me know the story well.
In 2019, a particularly hard year for me, three Afghan women – two fictional and one real – deeply affected my life with the force of their voices. The stories I read were soul stirring, and they gave me the strength to get through some very tough times.
I never set out to advocate or fundraise for Afghan women, but the profound connection I felt to Zeba from A House Without Windows, and Rahima from The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, both books by Afghan-American author Nadia Hashimi, compelled me to act when the Taliban seized control in 2021.
The Taliban seemed like a thing of the past when I first read those books. I never imagined that just two years later, those haunting stories would become reality, and the world would watch as Afghan women faced a renewed wave of oppression.
Today, Afghan women are enduring gender apartheid. The Taliban have issued more than 100 edicts targeting women and girls, methodically erasing their rights, and pushing them out of public life.
Girls are banned from education past grade six. Women cannot go to gyms, parlours, or parks, or participate in most public jobs. They are banned from playing sports. The Taliban have issued strict regulations for clothing, make-up, and, most recently, perfume. Women are also banned from working with NGOs. Women are prohibited from travelling long distances without a male guardian (a mahram), and transport drivers are forbidden from picking up women inside cities who do not wear a Taliban-mandated burqa.
Over the years, I have often found that people do not fully grasp the magnitude of what Afghan women have lost. In the two decades before the return of the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan had achieved remarkable progress despite the country’s turbulent past and patriarchal society. They claimed 27 per cent of parliamentary seats and served as ministers, deputy ministers, and ambassadors. Afghan women were visible in society as lawyers, judges, teachers, singers, journalists, secretaries, doctors, and more. They played soccer and cricket, formed a robotics team that competed internationally, and built communities.
According to a 2025 UN report, more than “78 per cent of Afghan women are not in education, employment or training.” The same report also states that “Child marriage is also becoming more common, and women are increasingly subjected to violence, inside and outside of their homes. In some cases, de facto authorities were the ones involved in or enforcing forced marriages.”
In many parts of the country, women have little or no access to health care, and aren’t allowed to receive treatment from male doctors. Women have also been banned from studying medicine and midwifery. A 2025 UN Women’s report states that, “Women are living shorter, less healthy lives. Maternal mortality risks are rising, especially with high rates of adolescent birth due to child marriage.”
So, how can an ordinary person living far away support Afghan women?
Why should anyone outside of Afghanistan care about the struggles of the girls and women inside its borders?
Perhaps you are even questioning the purpose of this essay, especially since it is not written by an Afghan woman. My journey as an advocate and fundraiser for Afghan women began in an unexpected way, one that still has people asking even five years later, “You’re doing this because of two books you read?”
While my first fundraiser was motivated by the emotional impact of Nadia Hashimi’s books, my reasons for continuing are fuelled by my commitment to supporting women’s right to equality. Nowhere in the world today are women’s voices being so brutally silenced and threatened as they are in Afghanistan. You do not need a personal tie to the country to care. Empathy, compassion, and the courage to stand up for those suffering injustice are what’s required.
It would be foolish to think that women’s rights are secure anywhere, especially with the rise of far-right, fascist governments around the world. The extremism unfolding in Afghanistan is not confined by geography. This gender apartheid is not only an attack on Afghan women; it serves as a warning to every society still battling misogyny, toxic patriarchy, and religious extremism.
Remaining silent now means accepting a world where, even with all our scientific and medical progress, women and girls continue to be treated as less than human and stripped of their fundamental rights.
As for what ordinary citizens of this world can do, let me share some of the aid I have been able to provide over the past five years, which was made possible only because of the support of some amazing women both in Hong Kong – where I live – and elsewhere. I hope we inspire you to find your own way to support Afghan women at this crucial time.
Over the past five years, we have helped more than 1,000 families in Afghanistan. For our first fundraiser in September 2021, we raised money for the Women’s Regional Network to support Afghan women human rights defenders who were and still are under threat from the regime.
In 2022 and 2023, two author friends and I hosted online events with author Nadia Hashimi to raise funds for vital food aid for Afghan widows and children. The generosity of our donors has since enabled us to deliver sanitary aid to more than 900 women and girls, distribute food to countless widows, and give 40 sewing machines to families in need. We have brought fruit and hygiene kits to children in orphanages, supported families with rent, tents, job carts, and medical care, and covered costs for dental work, hospital visits, and cataract surgeries.
Our winter aid drives brought warmth to children through clothes, shoes, and blankets. We have equipped several girls with phones and tablets so they can keep learning online, enrolled underprivileged women in sewing classes, and helped children attend private school. In 2024, we renovated and repaired the one-room homes of several Afghan widows.
In addition to using my voice to advocate for Afghan women, I have collaborated with writers and editors in the writing community to create spaces where their voices can be heard. In 2025, I was invited to curate and edit a special issue for Usawa Literary Review in India, highlighting the creative works of Afghan women.
This summer, I collaborated with The Candyman’s Trumpet, a journal in Scotland, to curate a collection of poetry by Afghan women for their August issue. Earlier this year The Dreaming Machine in Italy published poems by four Afghan writers, and will be publishing another small collection curated by me for their winter issue.
Over time, I have used every tool at my disposal, especially the power of social media, to rally support from friends, acquaintances, and fellow creatives in Hong Kong and beyond. I turned my candle-making hobby into a way to raise money for aid by donating sales profits. My daughter and her friends raised funds through sales from their school crochet club.
Over the years, local artists I know have generously donated their artwork, while businesses have stepped up with donations of products and services. Last year, at my request, a few authors in Hong Kong shared PDFs of their English-language picture books for Afghan children learning the language.
I’ve always believed in doing as much as one’s life allows one to do.
If you can, please donate towards food and essentials.
If you use social media, amplify the voices and organisations that matter by engaging with their posts, since many advocates struggle to be heard.
If you have time to volunteer, online schools are seeking teachers to support Afghan girls with online learning.
You can also sponsor phones, tablets, and internet access to help Afghan girls continue their education.
Read books by Afghan authors, spread awareness in your own circles.
If you are unsure about where to begin, reach out. I never imagined I would be able to rally support for this long. Most of my advocacy happens while I am sitting at my desk, posting on my social media, or pacing around my apartment as I talk to people on the phone. The difference we have made has surprised even me, showing that even the smallest action by one person can send ripples that last far beyond what we expect.
Shikha S. Lamba is a jewelry designer, gemologist, and poet who formerly taught jewelry design at the Gemological Institute of America in New York. Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, she has been a dedicated advocate for Afghan women’s rights. She lives in Hong Kong.
