Act Now for Afghan Women and Girls

Immediate action must be taken to safeguard Afghan women most at risk: women’s rights activists, journalists, educators, civil society leaders, human rights defenders and direct service providers. The very women who have been on the frontlines for decades, risking their safety to realize the promise of equal rights, are being abandoned by those who pledged to protect them. 

In the face of this mounting crisis, we are calling on the administration to immediately take four concrete steps to support Afghan women: 

List of Actions

1. Provide direct evacuation flights for women who are under imminent threat.
   Major roadways and borders have been blocked. Emergency evacuation flights are the only viable option for targeted women’s rights activists and their families. The U.S. military must remain on the ground to facilitate safe travel and entry to the airport and evacuation.  The deadline must be extended until these women and their families are able to safely evacuate with the support of the U.S. military.

2. Protect and invest in women who remain in Afghanistan.
   The administration must defend and bolster Afghan women’s rights organizations and their leaders. We must do all we can to ensure that they can continue to provide crucial services to women and girls who will remain inside Afghanistan regardless of who governs the country. 

3. Allocate resources for livelihood assistance and resettlement. 
   Women and children who are able to evacuate will need urgent support. Emergency funding must be made available for resettlement. 

4. Expand Special Immigrant Visas to include a category for at-risk women and raise the refugee cap. 
   Bureaucratic red tape is costing lives. The administration must accept more refugees and work with Congress to add a category to SIV visas for at-risk women. Additional staff and resources must be made available so that applications are fast-tracked. 

"There are moments in history where we will be judged not by whether or not we won or lost but by whether or not we did the right thing. This is one of these moments.” 

— Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International.  

About the Campaign

Organized by NGOs Vital Voices and Women for Women International, the group of celebrities, policy experts, NGO leaders and activists came together out of a common concern that the Biden Administration is not honoring its commitment to the women and girls of Afghanistan and is leaving behind the same female leaders that the U.S. and international community has supported and empowered for nearly two decades. 

Read Press Release

Signatories of the letter include: 

• Amanda Gorman, Poet and Activist

• Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook 

• Allison Janney, Actor and Activist 

• Charlize Theron, Actor and activist and United Nation’s Messenger of Peace 

• Connie Britton, Actor and Activist 

• Debra Messing, Actor and Activist 

• Alyssa Milano, Actor and activist 

• Gina Gershon, Actor and activist 

• Maria Bello, Actor and activist 

• Marianne Williamson, Author, activist, and Women for Women International Ambassador

• Natasha Bedingfield, Singer and activist 

• Jazmyn Simon, Actress 

• Alison Luff, Singer and actress 

• Christy Turlington Burns, Founder of Every Mother Counts, Model 

• Donna Karan, Fashion designer 

• Alyse Nelson, President & CEO, Vital Voices Global Partnership 

• Diane von Furstenberg, Fashion designer and activist 

• Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security 

• Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International 

• Kate James, Chair of Vital Voices Global Partnership Board 

• V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), Founder V Day 

• Laurie Adams, President & CEO, Women for Women 

• Sonja Hoel Perkins, Founder of Broadway Angels, and Project Glimmer 

• Kathryn Vizas, Co-founder and Chair of the Board of TogetHER 

• Juliette Boselli, Owner, Denali Mountain Works 

• Alice Waters, Restaurateur, activist, and author 

• Rina Amiri, Non-resident fellow at NYU’s Center for International Cooperation; Senior fellow at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs; UN Senior Mediation Advisor  

• Saba Ghori, Vice President, Vital Voices Global Partnership 

• Susan Vitka, Philanthropist, producer, environmentalist 

• Mary McCormack, Actress 

• Amira Yahyaoui, Founder and CEO, Mos 

• Chandra Jessee, President, InMaat Foundation 

• Nilofar Sakhi, Lecturer in International Affairs at the George Washington University; Afghan Peace Process 

• Amy Marks Dornbusch, Director of Marks Family Foundation 

• Cheryl Thomas, Executive Director, Global Rights for Women 

• Gary Barker, CEO and Co-Founder, Promundo-US 

• Mahnaz Afkami, Founder, President, and CEO of Women’s Learning Partnership and former Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran 

• Julia Drost, Chief of Staff, Population Services International (PSI) 

• Yasmeen Hassan, Global Executive Director of Equality Now 

• Samay Nadery, Medical specialist at International Heath Centre of The Hague 

• Stephanie Sinclair, Photojournalist 

• Sohrab Azad, Freelance journalist, founder of Advocates for a Prosperous Afghanistan 

• Sweeti Noori, Former Country Director for Afghanistan, Women for Women International 

• Nooria Faizi, Employee Relations Specialist Supervisor at UC San Diego 

• Maryam Faiz, Concerned Citizen 

• Zakia Nadery, Concerned Citizen 

• Masooma Sharifi, Concerned Citizen 

• Noorjahan Akbar, Founder of Free Women Writers 

• Sam Worthington, CEO of Interaction: 

• Sarah Degnan Kambou, President of International Center for Research on Women  

• Elisha Rhodes, CEO of YWCA