Be the one who transforms lives - join the UN Refugee Agency in empowering Afghan and Uzbek women in Uzbekistan to create opportunities, build brighter futures, and inspire lasting change.
Imagine fleeing your home, seeking safety across the border, only to find that the doors are closed. This is the reality for thousands of Afghans who escaped the Taliban’s rule and now live in limbo in Uzbekistan.
Despite being Afghanistan’s northern neighbour, Uzbekistan has restricted border access to only those with education, business, or diplomatic visas. This has left between 2,000 and 8,000 Afghan women, children and men stranded in the Surkhandarya region—one of Uzbekistan’s poorest areas, bordering Afghanistan.
Here they face immense challenges. Uzbekistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention nor its 1967 Protocol and does not have a national asylum system. Meanwhile the full-scale war in Ukraine has sharply increased food and energy prices, making it especially hard for them to make ends meet. As a result, they face economic marginalisation and high poverty levels.
But there is hope.
Between July 2022 and May 2023, the UN Refugee Agency launched a pilot programme to provide Afghan refugees and vulnerable Uzbeks with vocational training in areas such as hairdressing, sewing and confectionary. Participants also received language training, psychosocial support, legal counselling and awareness sessions on gender-based and domestic violence. At the end of the course, a proportion were given the tools they needed - like sewing machines and hairdressing kits – to start home businesses and regain their independence.
Now, with your generosity, we can scale this programme to empower up to 2,000 Afghans and Uzbeks over the next two years. Together we can give them the skills, tools and hope they need to rebuild their futures.
