Caroline Marks – "We're in a unique position to help"

Half a year ago, on August 15th, 2021, the Taliban captured control of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, marking a devastating anniversary for the country.

Since then, Afghans have faced rising risks including hunger, unemployment, and human rights abuses. These challenges make it difficult for Afghans to access food, work, and education, and they often become targets for abuse and interrogation. As the international community's focus wanes, the Taliban continues to expand its control.

Caroline Marks is the Executive Director and President of The Aleph Institute and Jewish Humanitarian Response. In collaboration, the two organizations have been working to provide relief, rescue, and resettlement to Afghans, focusing on women, who have had their lives restricted and been subject to gender-based violence.

"At JHR and The Aleph Institute, women are our prime concern. They have had their ability to self-determine steadily distinguished. Taliban has banned girls' education past the age of 10. They have abolished women's right to work outside the home and go on trips unless accompanied by a male relative. And they have abolished a woman’s right to be visible outside the home with the burqa requirement."

Establishing an underground clinic

For about 20 years, Caroline has donated her time to criminal justice, advocacy, reform organization. Due to her work she has been following the situation in Afghanistan close.

"We’re in a unique position to help. We have relationships that other NGO’s don't. If we don’t take advantage of that and if we don’t use those channels, it’s opportunities that are lost."

“For everybody in Afghanistan, conditions have worsened because foreign governments are not working with the Taliban. Food and medical supplies are not getting in. So ordinary people are finding life very difficult. We get stories frequently that show that it’s very dire for the ordinary people in Afghanistan.” 

One of the most recent eliminations by the Taliban was refusing to allow women and girls to be treated by male medical practitioners. In the first six months of occupation, Taliban fired and/or imprisoned female medical practitioners, and they’re essentially now denying women and girls medical treatment.
JHR and the Alpeh Institute responded by establishing an underground clinic where girls and women can now receive medical treatment.

JHR and the Alpeh Institute responded by establishing an underground clinic, where girls and women can now receive medical treatment. 

”We had a very young child with a brain tumor whose vision was going. We were able to get funding and get her out and across into Pakistan for surgery. We’ve now set up an underground clinic treating women and girls”, Caroline explains.

“The Taliban denying women and girls medical treatment are just a few of the conditions in Afghanistan.”

“Can you help?”

The collaboration between JHR and The Aleph Insitute started just after the Taliban occupation when the organization The International Association of Women Judges(IAWJ) turned to Caroline and The Aleph Institute for help. They had 250 sister judges in Afghanistan who, overnight, desperately needed help. They knew that The Aleph Institute had international advocacy relationships. Could they help?

“As a Jewish organization, very sensitive to persecution, immediately the response was: “Yes, we’ll help.” We didn’t have any special skills in evacuations, rescuing people, or diplomacy trying to negotiate with countries to get either temporary or long-term resettlement. But we have relationships with donors, who we knew would be emotionally motivated as we would to respond. So the first thing we did was to reach out to our donor network and see who would be prepared to help fund the evacuation and started to work with different NGOs.” 

Among different NGOs, The Aleph Institute partnered with JHR. Their partnership resulted in four evacuation flights from Afghanistan – three to the United Arab Emirates and one to Greece. On those flights were women judges and several other people. And that’s how their humanitarian work in Afghanistan started.

"Knowing that we can help individuals and have policy and government relationships that may make a difference makes it both an obligation and a privilege."

According to Caroline, the Western response has been slow, making their work difficult. 

"The biggest difficulty has been getting corporations from foreign governments. I compared it to Ukraine, where I saw how responsive governments were. Here we have people – particularly women–who are essentially being erased from society, and there just isn't enough movement or fast enough response. So a lot of NGOs have given up, and pretty much on a weekly basis now, I'll get requests from NGOs to take on their people and, if not, take them on for advocacy."

The situation in Afghanistan has worsened

At the beginning of their work with evacuations, humanitarian aid, and resettlement, they thought it would be done in six months – they would arrange the funding for flights and go to the refugee cities. Then the countries would go in and process them, and they would be moved out a year later.

"I hope that a time comes where the Taliban are not in power and that all the intellectual ability that's fled Afghanistan can go back and rebuild it."

However, reality has proved different. One year later, JHR and The Aleph Institute have more than a thousand people left on their list they're going to find long-term resettlement pathways for. Furthermore, the situation in Afghanistan has worsened.

According to Caroline, the Western response has been slow, making their work difficult. 

"The biggest difficulty has been getting collaboration from foreign governments. I compared it to Ukraine, where I saw how responsive governments were. Here we have people – particularly women–who are essentially being erased from society, and there just isn't enough movement or fast enough response. So a lot of NGOs have given up, and pretty much on a weekly basis now, I'll get requests from NGOs to take on their people and, if not, take them on for advocacy." 

“Slowly, every day, we’re moving people”

JHR and The Aleph Institute will continue to raise funds and provide emergency and maintenance support in and out of Afghanistan while people wait to be evacuated. They will also continue to improve their emergency care networks to those unable to get out of Afghanistan. 

“The crisis continues. We all continue to work in the small ways we can. We keep moving people, we keep raising funds to be able to maintain them while they’re waiting for long-term resettlement, and we keep negotiating with foreign governments. Slowly, every day, we’re moving people. We get messages from our people as they get resettled. That reminds us that it may be slow, but there’s progress.” 

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Thank you, Caroline, for telling the JHR story. Support their work here: https://www.jewishhumanitarianresponse.com/