September 2025, almost four years after the Taliban came to power, the diaspora of Afghan women find themselves at a crossroads: some are forming a new transnational elite, whilst others risk becoming a “lost generation.”
Maintaining the voices of Afghan women, across a influential Afghan diaspora, will depend on the international community’ support for migration procedures, education access, and labour integration.
The Transnational Elite
- Khalida Popal, former captain of the Afghan women’s national football team, now lives in Denmark, founded the organisation GirlPower, helped evacuate female athletes, and oversees the first ever women’s football “refugee team” under the auspices of FIFA.
- Pashtana Durrani, founder of LEARN Afghanistan, now in the U.S., is actively developing digital schools that reach hundreds of Afghan children and women in several provinces.
- SummiaTora, the first Afghan-Rhodesian Rhodes Scholar, founder of Dosti Network, provides assistance to refugees, continues educational initiatives.
- Salma Niazi is a journalist who founded The Afghan Times in exile, giving a voice to Afghan women amidst gender-led violence.
These women use their knowledge, experience, and networks to lead educational, sports, and human rights projects.
Barriers to Afghan Women’s Rights and Leadership
- Migration barriers and long procedures. Despite SIV or P-2 status, many wait up to 20-30 months for legalisation.
- Many women remain in the camp, without access to education, healthcare or work. Legal restrictions. The recent temporary suspension of visa programs (travel ban) delays the movement of activists, leaving them in “sheltered places”, for example, in Pakistan.
- Cultural and psychological isolation. Stories from Open Society participants tell of “a sense of guilt and loss, alienation from new communities.”
In addition, the lack of unity in the diaspora reduces joint effectiveness.
Education and Sports as Tools for Integration
Within Afghanistan, about 1.5 million girls are still denied access to education, according to UNESCO.
This ban is holding back the development of an entire generation. Meanwhile, Afghan girls and women in exile are actively continuing their education in the United States, Canada, and Europe, trying to preserve their right to a future through knowledge and degrees.
Abroad, sports have become not only a means of socialisation, but also an important channel for integration. In Houston, despite a lack of funding, the Afghan women’s soccer team continues to train.
FIFA has also launched an initiative to support the integration of refugee women in sports, emphasising the potential of sports as a platform for restoring self-esteem and leadership among Afghan women.
Waning Support: Multilateral and Government
International organisations, including UNESCO and Amnesty International, in collaboration with governments such as Canada, are actively supporting projects on education, healthcare, and the protection of rights for Afghan women.
Their efforts are aimed at restoring access to basic rights whilst ensuring the safety for refugees and activists in exile. However, political will remains extremely fragile as the international community appeases the Taliban via normalisation.
However, governmental support is waining. U.S. temporarily suspended migration programmes for Afghans whilst revoking Temporary Protected Status. Trump’s declaration risks the lives and safety of thousands of women at risk, who still cannot obtain official status, asylum, or a visa to travel.
Afghan women in exile balance leadership across humanitarian initiatives, aimed at bettering the opportunities and lives of their own people, whilst being unprotected by the realities of international and domestic insecurity.
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