2 minutes ago

How Afghan Women Are Rebuilding After Being Displaced Twice

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When the earth shook across eastern Afghanistan in August 2025, thousands of families lost everything in an instant. But for many women and girls in the region, the devastation did not stop there. Months later, renewed hostilities along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border sent those same families running again, this time from the skies rather than the ground.

According to UN Women, more than 100,000 people have been displaced by cross-border air strikes, shelling, and ground clashes in eastern Afghanistan. Women and girls bear a disproportionate burden in this unfolding catastrophe. Over two thirds of women across ten affected provinces have lost their income, three quarters are struggling to find enough food, and more than four in ten face greater difficulty accessing healthcare. For pregnant women, the situation is especially dire, as limited medical access and chronic hunger compound the dangers of childbirth in a conflict zone.

One young mother gave birth at a Red Crescent clinic during an air attack, then boarded a crowded truck with her newborn and six other children to reach a new camp in the Maza Dara Valley. To pay for the journey, her family sold blankets, flour, and cooking oil. A seventeen-year-old mother nearby described feeding her children first and eating less herself, after conflict stripped away the farmland her family had depended on for generations.

What makes this story one of resilience as much as hardship is the presence of women supporting women on the ground. Through funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UN Women has helped establish women-only safe spaces inside displacement camps, staffed by female counsellors who offer mental health Support, connection, and a rare sense of privacy amid the chaos. These spaces have followed communities even as conflict forced new relocations, because the people running them refused to leave.

The women who seek Support there describe feeling lighter after each session. The women who provide it describe finding purpose in every conversation. What the planet needs more of is exactly this: sustained investment in community-led care that centers the dignity and voices of those most affected. Supporting organizations like UN Women and their local partners is one concrete way each of us can stand with Afghan women right now.

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