She was 14 when the knock came. No warning. No time to grab her schoolbooks. Just fear, and the end of everything she knew. As tensions rise between Pakistan and the Taliban, Afghan refugee girls are caught in the middle, on the frontlines of a conflict they never chose.

Since January 2025, more than 700,000 Afghans have been sent back from Pakistan, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Many of them are girls born in exile, now forced into a country where schools are closed, hunger runs deep, and child marriage is seen as survival.

But in Peshawar, hope is refusing to be deported. With BEFARe, and support from the Cesarini Foundation and Marriott Daughters Foundation, we stand beside them, defending their right to learn, to choose, to be free.