Preserving Knowledge and Access to Human Rights Resources on Afghanistan
In the face of rapidly changing conditions in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Human Rights Database offers an accessible platform to preserve and share vital human rights information. It hosts a collection of materials dedicated to providing access and shedding light on the country’s human rights situation.
Why This Database and Scope
Since the Taliban took power in 2021, Afghan and international organizations, academic institutions, and independent researchers have struggled to store, share, and access their publications.
This database serves as an archive and safeguards critical knowledge, supporting efforts to understand, document, and advocate for human rights in Afghanistan. It acts as a repository for human rights materials, preserving reports from Afghan civil society organizations (CSOs) that were publicly available before the Taliban's takeover in August 2021.
Many of these reports have been removed from the internet, restricted, or otherwise made inaccessible. The goal is to safeguard these records, ensuring their long-term availability for research and reference.
The database will also compile academic resources related to human rights in Afghanistan. This includes information on accessing academic texts from RWI’s library and other relevant sources, as well as a collection of materials produced by RWI. These materials include reports from research fellows, outcome documents from expert meetings and workshops, and other academic outputs.
Our Approach to Access and Preservation
We prioritize both accessibility and ethical data handling by making materials available under specific licensing terms, primarily using the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This allows users to freely use materials for non-commercial research, advocacy, and educational purposes while ensuring proper attribution to the original authors and respect for licensing requirements.
Features of the Database
Contributing to the Database
We invite Afghan and international organizations, scholars, and civil society members to contribute materials to AHRD. All submissions undergo a review process to verify authenticity and licensing compliance, helping to maintain a trustworthy and comprehensive collection. For those interested in contributing, please contact us to discuss submissions, licensing, and access permissions.
Get in touch
David Eile
David Eile currently works as a Senior Programme Officer responsible for various projects under RWI’s Europe Office, focusing on different forms of academic cooperation in Europe and Cuba. Since joining RWI in 2006, David worked with various human rights programmes in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. David has an MA in Anthropology from Lund University and is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Uppsala.
Helena Olsson
Helena has a Master Degree in Political Science with focus on Human Rights, Peace and Democracy from Lund University. She has worked with development, human rights and in the humanitarian field since 2001, for Swedish Embassies/Sida and UNHCR in Central and South America; at Sida Headquarters Humanitarian Team in Stockholm; and subsequently with academic institutions and NHRIs in Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East and North Africa; and South/Southeast Asia since she joined the Institute in 2010.
Between 2016 and 2018 she led the development and start-up of a new regional Asia team and office in Jakarta, and of regional programmes focusing on human rights and environment/climate change, as well as the integration of human rights into Agenda 2030 plans in the region.
She was also team leader of the thematic focus area People on the Move 2016-2017, and currently leads an internal working group of human rights and local governments.