The Afghanistan Memory Home is an online museum dedicated to preserving the stories and honoring the memories of Afghan war victims. It serves as a safe and inclusive space for victims and survivors and their families to share their experiences, fostering a sense of community and participating in an important memorialization process, as well as providing a comprehensive perspective on the profound impact of war in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Afghanistan Memory Home plays a crucial role in documenting and archiving victims and incidents related to decades of conflict, contributing significantly to a historical understanding and truth-telling efforts.
About
Encouraging ongoing community participation, the Afghanistan Memory Home aims to facilitate a dynamic and evolving dialogue about the past and the diverse narratives of those affected by the war. This platform stands as a testament to the resilience and strength of the Afghan people, ensuring that the profound stories of struggle and survival are not only respectfully recorded but also actively remembered, contributing to a deeper understanding of the root causes of the Afghan conflict.
About AHRDO
The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO) is an independent, non-governmental, and non-for-profit organization, which is committed to promoting human rights, democracy and justice in Afghanistan through investigating and documenting atrocity crimes, advocating for a victim-centered justice such as through international justice mechanisms, designing cultural and artistic initiatives to foster inter-community peace and dialogue, and developing public memory and recollection of millions of war victims as an antidote to the deep-seated culture of impunity and the profoundly in-grained ethos of war and violence in the country.
Database Methodology and Limitations
AHRDO follows a comprehensive methodology, centering around the voices and experiences of victims and survivors, witnesses, and affected communities. The organization recognizes the importance of primary sources in building an accurate and reliable database about victims and human rights violations in Afghanistan. AHRDO engages directly with witnesses, survivors, and the families of victims. Through art-based and interactive workshops, interviews, and testimonies, AHRDO collects firsthand accounts of the incidents, atrocities, and human rights violations. AHRDO also utilizes Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques to augment the collection and verification of secondary sources. By leveraging OSINT methods, AHRDO enhances its ability to gather and corroborate information from publicly available materials such as media reports, official documents, and other relevant sources.
AHRDO employs a victim-centered approach, putting the needs, perspectives, and well-being of victims at the center of its work. This approach ensures that victims and survivors are active participants in the process and contribute to the documentation and advocacy efforts.
Through its victim-centered methodology, AHRDO aims to create a database that is not just a repository of information but a tool for honoring the memory of war victims and promoting truth, justice, and reconciliation. Despite our utmost dedication, this database cannot encompass a comprehensive record of victims and incidents.
While the database is a meaningful tool for shedding light on and remembering the victims of the long-standing conflict in Afghanistan, it's important to recognize its limitations. Due to the prolonged nature of the conflict, we acknowledge the challenges in providing comprehensive coverage of incidents and victims, despite our efforts to include different periods from 1978 to 2021. Nonetheless, AHRDO is committed to actively working to ensure regular updates that improve both the inclusivity and accuracy of the database.
Between 2009 and the present, AHRDO has mapped cases of 1234 incidents and 9999 victims that cover more than four decades of war in Afghanistan with a focus on post-2001 era.
