Our Position Regarding Recent Ban on NGOs Employing Women in Afghanistan

Over the past few weeks, the Taliban has sought to significantly roll back women’s rights in Afghanistan- barring women from attending universities, prohibiting girls from attending secondary school and, most recently, banning female staff of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from going to work. These decisions are devastating for Afghan women and girls,  and for the future of the country. 

The Free to Run team is distressed but undeterred by these decisions. In 2021, in the wake of the abrupt Taliban takeover of the country, we suspended operations in Afghanistan and evacuated program staff. In May 2022, we restarted our work through a program called“Omid,” (Hope in Dari). For the past eight months, this program has supported the physical and mental health of young women in Afghanistan through regular indoor physical activity, peer support and opportunities to experience some small measure of freedom. ‘Omid’ is delivered as a mix of virtual sessions directly to girls and young women, and in-person sessions through our training partners.

We stand in solidarity with the NGOs who have chosen to suspend their operations for practical reasons and to increase pressure on the Taliban to reverse its decision regarding female employment at these organizations. However, we also realize that every time girls’ and women’s rights are further constrained, the impact extends to the wider community. The needs of girls and women for support, especially related to mental and physical health, continue to increase, as the humanitarian crisis deepens. As the repression of women and girls becomes more acute, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan deepens in severity. Free to Run exists to disrupt this repression and ensure that women and girls are not erased from public life. 

After careful consultation with our locally-based community, we have decided to CONTINUE our programming in Afghanistan - in a modified manner.

As always, Free to Run is putting the safety and leadership of girls and women at the forefront of our decision making, and we continue to be driven by their voices.  The young women who lead this work insist that we continue providing safe (indoor, home-based) fitness and mental health support to girls and other young women in their communities.  While we have to suspend centralized programming, we are adapting our modality of delivery to be largely virtual with a hyper-local, community outreach component. Sessions will be delivered outside of formal organizational structures, in a peer-to-peer manner. We know the reprieve of physical activity is vital to addressing the enforced isolation of girls and women, maintaining links with caring peers and providing psycho-social support during this dark time. 

The operational environment in Afghanistan is incredibly dynamic. As the situation changes, we will continue to be agile and to update you when we can about any changes.

Free to Run’s work is unfinished in Afghanistan. We hope you’ll continue to stand in solidarity with Free to Run. 

To support this work in Afghanistan, make a donation to Free to Run programs here.

For more information, feel free to contact info@freetorun.org