On Their Way Home: Advocates say more must be done to successfully relocate Afghan refugees.

• Author: Bader, Eleanor J.

After graduating from Afghanistan's Herat University in 2010, Heleena Kakar and a group of young, college-educated professionals started a trilingual magazine--in Dari, English, and Pashto--called Ruidad. It was the country's first feminist publication, and it tackled a range of issues, from family life to the need for women's independence and an end to domestic abuse.

The first issue, Kakar tells The Progressive, was met with great excitement; she soon was being interviewed by international media outlets. Financial support began to flow from philanthropic foundations in the United States and United Kingdom including MADRE, a group headquartered in New York City that works to strengthen women's human rights throughout the world.

But Ruidad also drew considerable backlash. Menacing messages were mailed and phoned in: "Shut this or we will shut you," one caller warned.

Then, in 2014, Kakar's sixteen-year-old sister, also an outspoken feminist, was grabbed and pushed into a large black car. "She had gone to class and was returning home," Kakar recalls. "People who were watching saw a huge man take her." Neighbors intervened and Kakar's sister was freed. A police report subsequently filed by Kakar's family went nowhere. "The police said there was nothing they could do, that we had to take better care of our family members," she says.

The attempted abduction was sobering and unsettling for Kakar, her family, and Ruidad's staff. The magazine quickly relocated to an undisclosed location and switched from being a weekly to publishing new issues just four times a year. Kakar also stepped back from her role as Ruidad's main spokesperson.

Still, Kakar and others continued to champion women's human rights and empowerment, and she proudly relates how Ruidad expanded its reach into classrooms throughout Afghanistan.

This continued, she says, until the Taliban took control of the country last August.

"We were petrified," Kakar relates. "My husband and I got humanitarian parole visas, and I was awarded a small emergency grant from the Urgent Action Fund, and another from MADRE, which I used to help others find safety. Our journey took us from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif [in Afghanistan] to Qatar. We entered the United States on October 31."

Kakar is now living in New Jerseys Liberty Village, one of seven U.S. military bases that are being used to shelter, vaccinate, and process incoming Afghan refugees. She and her husband have shared a huge, heated, and...