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Building Without a State: Hazara Community Organizations Around the World

When the Taliban took Kabul in August 2021, the Afghan embassy network - formally speaking - remained open in many Western capitals. But for Hazaras, the utility of those embassies had already effectively ended. The officials staffing them were Kabul government appointees with no mandate from, and no loyalty to, the new regime. The Taliban has made no serious attempt to staff these embassies with functioning diplomatic personnel. For most practical purposes, Hazaras outside Afghanistan have been without diplomatic representation since 2021.

This is not just a symbolic problem. It means there is no state infrastructure to advocate for Hazara refugees in asylum processes, no consular services for Hazaras who lose travel documents, no government counterpart for Western immigration authorities to coordinate with on family reunification, no diplomatic channel for Hazara political grievances to move through. A Hazara in Melbourne or Toronto or Hamburg trying to navigate a visa problem, a passport renewal, or a family reunification case is doing so without the basic infrastructure that citizens of other countries can access.

Into that gap, over decades and with accelerating urgency since 2021, Hazara community organizations have built what they can. This article maps that organizational landscape - what exists, what it does, and where it runs up against the limits of what a civil society infrastructure can do without a state behind it.

Why This Infrastructure Exists

Most refugee communities build some form of mutual support structure. Hazaras have particular reasons to build it, and they have built it more extensively in some countries than others.

The Hazara presence in Australia, for example, predates 2001. Hazaras began arriving as asylum seekers - many by boat - through the late 1990s and early 2000s, following the first Taliban period and the Mazar-i-Sharif massacres of 1997 and 1998. By the time the 2021 wave of arrivals began, Melbourne already had an established Hazara community with decades of institutional development. Cultural associations, sports clubs, language schools, community radio presence - these existed and were able to absorb and support the newer arrivals.

In the United States, Canada, and Germany, the 2015-2016 Afghan movement and especially the post-2021 arrivals created much faster and larger community growth, with less pre-existing infrastructure. Organizations had to scale quickly, or be built from scratch, while their members were simultaneously navigating complex legal situations and often severe economic precarity.

The specific functions these organizations serve are shaped by what the state does and does not provide:

  • Settlement support: navigating housing, employment, language training, healthcare access
  • Legal support: asylum claim preparation, visa applications, document translation, referrals to immigration lawyers
  • Cultural maintenance: Hazaragi language programs, Nowruz and Ashura events, oral history collection, youth cultural education
  • Advocacy: lobbying governments on refugee policy, raising the Hazara-specific persecution case in policy spaces, connecting with human rights organizations
  • Mental health and community solidarity: peer support networks, especially for recent arrivals dealing with trauma, family separation, and uncertainty about legal status

What the organizations generally cannot do is the thing that would matter most: affect what happens in Afghanistan, protect family members still there, or change the fundamental legal precarity that many Hazaras live in regardless of country.

Australia

Among Western migration destination countries, Australia has the oldest and most developed Hazara civil society infrastructure. The community is centered in Melbourne - particularly the western suburbs, including Dandenong, Footscray, Sunshine, and Hoppers Crossing - with a significant presence in Sydney and smaller communities in Adelaide and Brisbane.

The Afghan-born population in Australia was 88,730 as of the 2023-24 Department of Home Affairs figures. Hazaras are estimated to represent a significant majority of that population - a proportion that reflects both the historical over-representation of Hazaras among Afghan asylum seekers (their persecution risk was higher and more consistently documented than for other Afghan groups) and the post-2021 allocation in which the Australian government explicitly named Hazaras as a priority group. Official data does not separate Hazara from Afghan national figures.

Key organizations in the Australian landscape:

The Hazara Council of Victoria is one of the most established community peak bodies. It has been active in policy advocacy - appearing at parliamentary inquiries on Afghan resettlement, engaging with the Home Affairs department on processing priorities, publicly advocating for temporary protection visa holders.

The Australia Hazara Community Organization (AHCO) provides settlement services and cultural programming. It has been particularly active since 2021 in coordinating support for new arrivals.

The Hazara Community Association of South Australia operates in Adelaide, where a smaller but long-established Hazara community has existed since the early 2000s. Adelaide received a significant number of Hazara refugees in the early asylum-seeker period.

Mosque and hussainiya communities - Shia Islamic centers that serve primarily Hazara congregations - function as de facto community hubs in Melbourne's western suburbs. These are not advocacy organizations, but they maintain Hazaragi language use, run Muharram commemorations that function as major community events, and provide informal social support networks that formal organizations cannot replicate.

The organizational landscape also includes a range of Hazara sports clubs - football (soccer) clubs in particular - that function as social infrastructure, especially for young men. These are community-building institutions that operate under the radar of formal civil society but carry significant social weight.

What these organizations can do: cultural programming, settlement support, some policy advocacy, community solidarity. What they cannot do: change the legal status of the 4,573-odd Afghans still in the legacy TPV/SHEV caseload, many of whom are Hazara; access official data on Hazara-specific outcomes; or compel the government to separate Hazara protection claims from generic Afghan claims in its processing systems.

Canada

Canada's Hazara community grew rapidly after 2021. The country admitted approximately 40,000 Afghan nationals under its humanitarian commitment, and Hazaras form a significant portion of that cohort - though, as elsewhere, no disaggregated ethnicity data is published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The main settlement concentrations are in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (particularly Mississauga and Brampton), Vancouver and Surrey in British Columbia, and Edmonton in Alberta. Ottawa and Montreal have smaller but active communities. Calgary has seen growth as well.

The Hazara Saka Community Organization operates in the Toronto area with a focus on settlement services for new arrivals, including language support, employment assistance, and cultural programming.

The Afghan Hazara Society of BC is based in the Vancouver/Surrey corridor and provides settlement support and community programming.

Canadian Hazara organizations since 2021 have been particularly active in the advocacy space - specifically around the Afghan Adjustment Act equivalent in Canadian terms, family reunification processing speeds, and the situation of Hazaras still in Pakistan awaiting processing. The IRB's relatively favorable processing of Afghan claims in the post-2021 period gave Canadian Hazara communities something to work with politically - a track record to defend and build on.

The Shia Islamic organizations active in Toronto and Vancouver - including established hussainiyas in both cities - provide the cultural maintenance infrastructure that parallels the Australian pattern. Muharram commemorations in Mississauga and Surrey draw large attendance from the broader community.

A notable feature of the Canadian landscape is the role Hazara community organizations have played in direct family sponsorship under the Group of Five and Community Sponsor pathways. Hazara community members have organized group sponsorships for specific families, navigating the paperwork and providing the financial commitments required. This is direct, bottom-up resettlement work that supplements the government program.

Post-2021 arrivals in Canada have encountered a community that is simultaneously welcoming and itself stressed. The second-generation community - Hazaras who arrived in the 1990s and 2000s and have now built stable Canadian lives - absorbed much of the practical burden of new arrival support. That dynamic has produced some strain alongside the solidarity.

United Kingdom

The UK's Hazara community is smaller than Australia's or Canada's, and the institutional infrastructure reflects that. The main concentration is in London, with smaller groups in Birmingham, Leicester, and other cities. The community grew significantly with ACRS and ARAP arrivals post-2021, but the total numbers remain modest compared to the Pacific and North American destinations.

The Afghan and Central Asian Association (ACAA) is one of the longest-established organizations working with Afghan communities in the UK, including Hazara members. It provides legal advice, settlement support, and community programs in London.

The Hazara Community Association UK is a smaller organization specifically representing Hazara interests, active in London.

UK-based Hazara advocacy has focused particularly on the ACRS processing failures - the gap between the 20,000 commitment and the roughly 13,900 actual arrivals, and the closure of the scheme in July 2025 with 22,000 applications still pending. Organizations have worked with parliamentarians - including participating in the January 2023 parliamentary debate that explicitly raised Hazara and minority access to ACRS Pathway 2 - to push for prioritized processing and a Hazara-specific carve-out from the Home Office's revised (and more restrictive) guidance on Afghan protection claims.

The grant rate collapse from 99 percent in 2023 to 34 percent by December 2025 has made asylum advocacy much harder and more urgent. Organizations doing casework with Hazara asylum seekers are working against a system that has explicitly downgraded Afghanistan's threat assessment - an assessment that advocates argue is factually wrong as applied to Hazaras specifically.

Political advocacy in the UK Hazara community is partly channeled through broader Afghan civil society organizations rather than Hazara-specific bodies. The smaller community size makes a dedicated Hazara advocacy organization harder to sustain. Cross-community solidarity structures have been more common.

Germany

Germany has been a major destination for Afghan refugees since the 2015-16 period, with significant further arrivals post-2021. The Hazara presence in Germany is substantial, with concentrations in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Munich. Hazaras - because of their documented persecution risk - have tended to fare relatively well in German asylum adjudication, with higher recognition rates than other Afghan groups, though the overall Afghan recognition rate in Germany declined from around 80 percent in 2023 to lower figures by 2025 as policy tightened across Europe.

The Hazara Community Association Hamburg is one of the more active organizations in Germany, running cultural events, language programming, and community support services in the Hamburg area. Hamburg has one of the larger Hazara concentrations in Germany.

Hazara Community Germany (various regional branches) - there are several regional Hazara organizations in German cities that operate largely independently but maintain informal national connections.

German Hazara organizations operate within a civil society environment that is relatively well-funded for refugee integration. Germany has legal aid organizations, refugee advocacy groups, and state-funded integration programs that Hazara community groups can tap into or partner with. This is different from the more resource-constrained environments in some other countries.

The specific advocacy focus of German Hazara organizations has included opposition to Afghan deportation programs - Germany has periodically attempted to restart deportations to Afghanistan since 2021, a policy opposed by Hazara advocates on the grounds that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is not safe for Hazaras. Charter flight deportations became a significant political controversy in 2024.

Youth-specific organizations and student associations at German universities have also been active. Afghan-Hazara student organizations at universities in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Berlin have organized cultural events and advocacy activities, often as the first institutional face many Hazara students encounter on arrival.

United States

The United States received the largest post-2021 Afghan population of any country - approximately 200,000 Afghans across all pathways since August 2021. The Hazara share of that population is not officially tracked, but given the persecution profile that drove many Afghans to seek US protection, it is assumed to be significant.

The main Hazara concentrations in the US are in California (particularly Fremont, San Jose, San Diego, and the broader Bay Area), Virginia (Northern Virginia - the Annandale area specifically), Texas, and Illinois. Denver, Colorado has a growing community. Washington D.C. and environs have both a Hazara community and proximity to the advocacy infrastructure of national politics.

The Hazara American Community Organization (HACO) is based in California and has been one of the more visible Hazara-specific advocacy organizations in the US, engaging with congressional offices on Afghan refugee policy, Temporary Protected Status, and the Afghan Adjustment Act.

Afghan Coalition based in Fremont, California, has long served the large Afghan community - including Hazaras - in the Bay Area. It provides settlement services, legal support, and advocacy.

The Northern Virginia Afghan community organizations - centered around Annandale and the broader DC suburbs - include organizations serving Hazara members, though many operate as pan-Afghan rather than Hazara-specific.

The US advocacy landscape has been particularly focused on two linked issues:

The Afghan Adjustment Act: First introduced in 2022, repeatedly reintroduced through the 118th and 119th Congresses, this legislation would create a pathway to lawful permanent residency for Afghan parolees and SIV holders. It has had bipartisan support in principle but has not received a floor vote. Hazara organizations and advocates have been among the most consistent voices in pushing for it - for obvious reasons: Hazaras represent a large fraction of the people most at risk from the absence of legal permanence, particularly those on parole with no pathway to a green card.

Temporary Protected Status termination: In April 2025, DHS terminated TPS for Afghanistan, stripping work authorization from 11,700 TPS holders and placing them at deportation risk. Hazara advocacy organizations were among those challenging this decision, both in the courts and in the political sphere.

The US organizational landscape is more fragmented than Australia's - a reflection of the geographic spread of the community and the varied pathways through which people arrived. Organizations in California, Virginia, Texas, and Illinois operate largely independently, connecting through national advocacy coalitions rather than a unified Hazara peak body.

The proximity to national political institutions in Washington, and the presence of a Hazara community in Northern Virginia, has made the US Hazara community disproportionately influential in policy advocacy relative to its size. Congressional testimony, policy briefs, and direct lobbying of congressional offices have all been part of the US Hazara organizational approach in a way that is structurally harder for communities in countries with more centralized political systems.

What These Organizations Can and Cannot Do

The pattern across all five countries is consistent: Hazara community organizations are effective at cultural programming, settlement support, community solidarity, and incremental policy advocacy. They are significantly less effective at the structural level - changing legal frameworks, enforcing implementation of commitments, or having meaningful impact on the conditions in Afghanistan that produce the need for those organizations in the first place.

This is not a failure of the organizations. It is a description of what civil society can and cannot do without a state behind it.

What would change the equation:

Ethnicity-disaggregated data: No government in any of these five countries publishes Hazara-specific refugee data. Without that data, there is no accountability mechanism. Organizations have no way to demonstrate that Hazaras are being under-served relative to their persecution risk, because the numbers are not tracked. A coordinated push from Hazara organizations across all five countries - as a single demand - for ethnicity disaggregation in refugee intake statistics would create the evidential foundation for every other advocacy argument.

Legal permanence in the US: The Afghan Adjustment Act's failure means 76,000 initial parolees remain in legal limbo. TPS termination compounds this. Resolving the legal status of the US Afghan population - a population that includes a large Hazara cohort - would transform the situation of organizations working in that country from crisis management to community development.

Coordination infrastructure: The five-country Hazara organizational landscape is weakly networked at the international level. There is no regular forum, no shared data, no coordinated advocacy calendar. Individual organizations are aware of each other and communicate informally, but a more structured international Hazara civil society network - modeled on what other stateless communities have built over time - would amplify the political leverage of each country's organizational work.

The diplomatic gap: The absence of Hazara-aligned diplomatic representation remains the fundamental structural problem. Community organizations can lobby governments, but they cannot substitute for state-to-state relations. Until there is some form of recognized Hazara political representation with international standing - a question that remains unresolved - the civil society layer is carrying load it was not designed to carry.

What these organizations have built, given the constraints, is significant. They have kept language alive, maintained cultural continuity across borders, processed tens of thousands of new arrivals in an unofficial but essential settlement function, and maintained a sustained political voice for a persecuted group that has no formal diplomatic representation. That is not a small thing. It is also not enough.

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