Dear you,

The past three weeks have been extremely challenging.

Afghan families in Pakistan are targeted in midnight and early-morning raids. Police arrest entire households — women, children, elderly — load them into large vehicles, and take them to holding centers such as Haji Camp. From there, they are forcibly deported to Afghanistan. Often without notice. Without legal protection. Without winter clothing, food, or money. The psychological impact, especially on children, is severe.

At border points such as Torkham, deported individuals are reportedly handed directly to Taliban officials. Fingerprints, names, dates of birth, and identity data are collected using biometric machines and cross-checked with Taliban databases linked to former government, police, and military records.

Several deported individuals have reportedly been identified and killed days or weeks after their return. This includes former police and commando officers killed in Karte Naw, Dasht-e-Barchi, District 11 (Khair Khana) in Kabul, and one individual whose beheaded body was found in Badakhshan Province. According to available information, some were deported from Iran, others from Pakistan roughly twenty days earlier.

Inside Afghanistan, harassment, arbitrary arrests, and targeted killings of people associated with the former government continue to rise. At the same time, unemployment, economic collapse, and deepening poverty have left many families without income or livelihoods, particularly in areas such as Dasht-e-Barchi, Parwan, and Wardak. District hospitals remain critically under-resourced, and cases of child malnutrition increase daily.

Many Women Human Rights Defenders inside Afghanistan are living in constant fear. They move from place to place to avoid detection. In Kabul, Parwan, and Jawzjan, the risk of arrest, harassment, and violence remains extremely high.

For WHRDs in Pakistan, the situation remains critically dangerous. Those staying in safe houses and shelters are largely confined indoors due to fear of exposure to local communities and police. This prolonged confinement is taking a serious toll on both physical and mental health.

On 18 December 2025, the Pakistani government reportedly issued an order restricting hospitals and banks from providing services to Afghan nationals. This created an immediate crisis for our team and for the women under our protection. Despite this, and thanks to a small number of Pakistani allies and pre-existing agreements with one hospital and one multi-specialty clinic, we were able to secure urgent daytime medical treatment for five highly vulnerable individuals. Overnight admission was not possible due to legal risk.

Two of these WHRDs had previously been arrested and tortured by the Taliban, including electric torture. They were also arrested multiple times by Pakistani police and released only after paying large sums of money, after which they were forced to relocate repeatedly to hide.

The lights in the darkness

• We supported the 20-year-old son of one of the women suffering from severe PTSD, depression, and epilepsy by providing anti-epileptic medication, though full diagnostic admission could not be arranged. 
• One pregnant WHRD with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy underwent a caesarean section and recovered safely.
• Another high-risk pregnant WHRD, Nargis Azizi Shahab — previously beaten by Taliban forces in Bagrami and suffering from a severe lumbar injury, hyperprolactinemia, gestational diabetes, and gestational hypertension — has been advised to undergo a caesarean section at 37 weeks. A hospital has agreed to provide secure transport and surgery, at very high financial cost and legal risk.

Another upside is that Hadisa Hashemi has finally arrived in France, with her two daughters. She is currently in an asylum center and is waiting for her asylum request to be processed. She is sending you from all of her heart peaceful Christmas wishes and thanks (see her and her daughters in the photo above) for the support that you have enabled during this difficult period leading up to her transfer.

Dread and uncertainties 

We have close contacts with other Afghan WHRDs in Pakistan beyond this group of 60. Among them, three to four individuals have disappeared after being deported to Kabul. Despite ongoing efforts, we have been unable to determine whether they are in hiding without access to communication, have been arrested, or have been killed. 

This morning we received an update:

For your information, last night I received a message in the Kabul security group with two photos of a lady who had previously been deported—first from Iran and later from Pakistan—and had a pending case for Germany. We only received her photos; we do not have any information about the circumstances or place of her death. It seems that they have found her dead body.

If you want to update the petition, I can send her photos to you. Otherwise, these photos are very distressing, and I do not wish to share them unnecessarily. I just wanted to inform you so that you are aware of the dire situation in Kabul.

Thank you.

My answer to this message was:

Awful, simply awful. No words.

And I would not want to share the photos in the petition. It's too distressing. But I will share an update accordingly.

The dread and uncertainty weighs heavily on our team and adds to the urgency of the situation, while many other WHRDs remain stranded in Islamabad and continue to request support amid severe funding constraints.

If you can, please give whatever is possible. Even €5 or €10 helps us to respond to the emergencies that come in daily.

💸 Donation Details

 HeartWork Stichting – https://heartwork.earth/peacework

End of year 2025 reflections

And as the end of the year 2025 is approaching and I reflect on this work, I want to share something more personal.

It has been heartbreaking to witness the cruelty Afghan migrants face.

But it has also been painful to see how deeply unprocessed trauma shows up, even among those we are trying to protect.

Years of fear and instability do not disappear when immediate danger is reduced. Trauma surfaces as insecurity. As mistrust. As competition for scarce resources. Sometimes even as accusations directed at those who are helping.

There have been moments when I felt deeply discouraged. Not because the work isn’t needed. It totally is. But because desperation can drive behavior that is hard to hold with an open heart.

I entered this work with a lot of idealism. This year has taken some of that away. What remains is quieter, harder earned, and more grounded.

Learning to continue without illusions — but without giving up — is one of the hardest lessons this work demands. It requires acceptance. Clear boundaries. And the willingness to meet reality as it is, not as we wish it to be.

This work is not clean or easy.

It is human.

Messy.

And still deeply necessary.

And from the bottom of my heart I thank you for standing with us in this work. Not because it is simple or uplifting, but because it is real. Your support makes it possible to keep responding, to keep people alive, and to keep choosing humanity even when the work is hard.

Nadja and team