The Revd Glen Ruffle serves as the Anglican Communion’s Geneva Representative at the United Nations, where he works to amplify Anglican voices on global issues, particularly in the areas of refugee advocacy and human rights. Through his engagement with UN agencies, international policymakers, and faith-based networks, he highlights the Church’s role in supporting displaced communities and advocating for just policies that uphold human dignity. In this article, he shares the story of Sabira, an Afghan woman who fled persecution under the Taliban and found new hope through the efforts of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Politics can be dangerous, especially when you are a female leader in Afghanistan.

Sabira was a leading light in the Afghan Women's Justice Movement, a group that demonstrated against the Taliban after the fall of Kabul.

She had owned an art business and sold handmade products, as well as working for the benefit of wider society in charities, social justice organisations and women's groups.

But all that was destroyed when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021. Denied education, professional careers or the freedom to run businesses, women are kept at home while men are encouraged to beat them if needed to keep the Taliban's idea of social order.

Sabira thus became a target for the Taliban’s police – yet her family and friends would not tell them where she was. Her brother-in-law was even assaulted by the police, but told them nothing. There is no doubt in Sabira's mind that, had the police found her, she would now be dead.

Her gender was not the only issue: Sabira is also from the ethnic minority Hazara group. Her people have been persecuted for more than a century, with 20,000 of them being killed as recently as 1998.

With no future or hope in Afghanistan, Sabira and husband Jawad escaped to Pakistan. Once in Pakistan as refugees, her family were able to apply for resettlement and to seek to begin a new life. In Canada, the Anglican Diocese of Niagara – which holds a private sponsorship agreement with the Canadian government – was able to help, along with partner organisations, bring Sabira and her family to Canada.

As the family arrived at Pearson Airport in Toronto in February 2024, members of the Refugee Committee of St. John the Evangelist parish, Hamilton, met them as they came off the plane.

Launching a new life in a foreign country is an immense task, but the Anglican volunteers have helped find and equip a home for Sabira’s family, get her son Kiarash into school, and helped Jawad and Sabira learn English. More than that, Jawad is now able to seek work, while Sabira is continuing her advocacy against the oppression of women and for the Hazara people via the internet. She has already met with Canadian politicians concerning this.

The work done by the Anglican Church of Canada was presented in 2023, when the Anglican Communion joined the world's states at the Global Refugee Forum, organised by UNHCR.

We submitted pledges from various Provinces of the Communion concerning how we will commit to caring for refugees. Sabira's story with the Anglican Church of Canada is one of many good news stories in which Anglican Christians have taken the call of Christ to love refugees and care for the alien in our midst (Lev 19:33-34; Deut 10:18-19).

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