For the last three years, we at MRG have run projects promoting freedom of religion and belief across Asia. In Afghanistan we have fostered strong partnerships with amazing local organizations representing ethnic and religious minorities. They were doing outstanding work, educating minority community members about their rights, collecting evidence of discrimination and human rights abuses, and carrying out advocacy.

Since August, we have responded to our Afghan partners’ numerous requests for support in seeking to secure safety for activists and volunteers left behind by international organizations.

Not all have been able to flee. Many had no option but to go into hiding. Some did not have a valid passport. Activists can no longer carry out the work they had embarked on. They can no longer draw a salary, which means they cannot feed their families. With a season of failed crops and a cold winter ahead, the future is bleak for too many.

We refuse to leave Afghanistan behind. We are asking you today to stand by us as we stand by them.

We will also use your donations to support our Afghan partners to pay their staff until they can regroup and make new plans, to use their networks to gather and send out information when it is safe to do so, and to seek passports and travel options for those who are most vulnerable and who have no option but to flee to safety.

The Taliban’s return to power in Kabul has drastically transformed the life of Azadeh (not her real name), a member of the persecuted Hazara community. Azadeh worked for a global organization offering family planning services. Standing for everything the Taliban systematically reject, Azadeh had no option but to flee to Pakistan.

MRG is working with our partners in Pakistan to support many brave Afghans who have escaped Afghanistan because of their humanitarian or human rights work or their faith. They are now in various secure locations established by our local partners on the ground in Pakistan. Although they are safer in Pakistan than Afghanistan, Hazara Shia and other religious minorities are also persecuted there.

We need your help, to support those who put their lives on the line for basic human rights principles we all believe in: equality, mutual respect, and freedom of belief and expression.

The situation on the ground changes daily as more people arrive and some leave. One night in a safe house (including mental health counselling and food) costs $45USD per adult.

Photo credits:

Preview image: A group of activists hiding on a rooftop in Afghanistan. Credit: Author prefers to remain anonymous.
Background image: Road to safety is often an arduous and lonely one. Credit: Author prefers to remain anonymous.
Housing Afghan minority refugees: The education network actively campaigned for women and girls’ rights, minority rights and LGBTQIA+ rights. Now they are at risk for their work. Credit: Author prefers to remain anonymous.
Supporting those left behind: Two Afghan human rights defenders in Pakistan after having successfully fled Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Credit: Author prefers to remain anonymous.

Aluminium mining in Baphlimali, India, has caused environment devastation and has wrecked the lifestyle of thousands of Adivasis. For centuries, Adivasi communities like the Paraja, Jhodia, Penga and Kondh have been living amidst the Baphlimali foothills. For generations they have lived in harmony with nature. They lived through rain fed subsistence agriculture of millet, cereals, pulses, rice and collection of non-timber forest produce, e.g. nuts, roots and fruit Domestic animals like sheep, goat, cow and buffalo used to be a very important source of income too. With widespread mining activities and linked deforestation, they have lost access to forest products and to the much needed pasture land in the vicinity of their villages. This affects everyone but one tribal leader, Sumani Jhodia comments particularly on the impact on women who have ‘an increase in domestic work hours since the disappearance of the forests, shrubs, bushes and contamination of water sources resulting from bauxite mining.’ On top of the damage to the local environment and income opportunities, wide roads and checkpoints have been built over the years and Advasis have been forbidden from accessing to the top of the hills, where they go to worship, meaning a loss of social and cultural practices and life. Your help will mean that MRG can support communities like these to help decision makers listen better to get priorities right for local people and help them to protect their environment and restore what has been damaged.

The above picture is of a tribal woman forcibly displaced from her home and land by District Forest Officers in the district of Ganjam, Odisha. Her cashew plantation burned in the name of protection of forests. Please note that the picture is to illustrate the story and is not from Baphlimali. Credit: Sarita Barpanda, Omkar Devdas and Sujata Dash, Human Rights Law Network, India.

Esther is a member of the indigenous Ogiek community living in the Mau Forest in Kenya. Her family lives in one of the most isolated and inaccessible parts of the forest, with no roads, no health facilities and no government social infrastructure.

The Ogiek were evicted from some forest areas, which have since been logged. The Ogiek consider it essential to preserve their forest home; others are content to use it to make money in the short term.

Esther has a 12-year-old daughter living with a physical disability who has never attended basic school, as it is over 12 kilometres away. Young children living in these areas face challenges such as long distances to school, fears of assault by wild animals and dangers from people they may encounter on the journey.

Because the Ogiek have no legally recognised land rights, despite hundreds of years of residence in this forest, the government is refusing to provide social services or public facilities in the area. This has an impact on access to education and health, particularly for the community’s most vulnerable members, such as people living with disabilities. Ensuring that the Ogiek can access health services and education is essential and will mean that they can continue living on their land, protecting and conserving the environment there.

Minority Rights Group and Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (OPDP) are working together to demand secure land rights for the Ogiek through litigation at the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights in Arusha, Tanzania. We are also advocating for equity in access to education and health by supporting OPDP to ensure that budgets for services are allocated fairly and are used well.

Photo: Esther Ntina at Sasimwani village in Nakuru County, Kenya. Credit: Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (OPDP).

Archana Soreng is a passionate and skilful young environmental activist who has witnessed the marginalisation of her community.  She is determined to ensure that her community’s way of life, especially as environmental custodians, can have a meaningful impact. Archana belongs to the Khadia tribe in Odisha, India. The tribe is an Adivasi community (India’s indigenous peoples) that lives in a mineral-rich part of the country. The consequence of this wealth is that successive governments – colonial and post-colonial – have seen greater value in the land than the people. This has led to extensive open cast mining which is doubly damaging to the climate, despite the opposition of the Khadia tribe. Archana is determined to document, preserve and promote traditional indigenous knowledge, and galvanise awareness and action that mobilises indigenous world views to help all of humanity find ways to tackle the urgent global climate crisis. 

Archana’s activism is based on her own deep understanding of indigenous cultural know-how and a formal education that includes a Master’s degree in regulatory governance. In recognition of the authority she brings to her work, Archana was selected as one of seven members of the Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change established by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to advise on global environmental policy. Archana is a rare example of an indigenous activist who is involved in UN debates; we need to support many more indigenous peoples and acknowledge their expertise. Minority Rights Group acts as a bridge between excluded communities and decision makers, telling indigenous peoples about opportunities to contribute and reminding decision makers that they need to listen to and involve all, particularly those with proven strategies of living in harmony with nature.

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