Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan are low-income countries where the status of women is far lower than that of women in neighboring countries. Women are frequently deprived of opportunities in education, adequate health services, proper nutrition, and access to public resources. They are also routinely excluded from decision-making processes within the family, the community, and the nation state.

By archiving websites dedicated to topics of gender equality and justice, the Library of Congress will acquire and preserve this valuable, endangered material that documents the status of women, the transgender communities, and other sexual minority groups in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. This collection will focus on capturing websites related to the status of gender justice in the targeted four countries. Due to the shortage of financial resources available for print publications, most gender-related information from these countries is available only as digital content. They are in urgent need of being acquired and preserved for present and future researchers. The collection will provide a unique overview of gender justice in the four countries, as well as offer opportunities for comparative studies on the topic.

Collection Period: February 2020 to present (this is an ongoing archive).

Frequency of Collection: Sites in the collection were added to crawl on a quarterly basis, with fewer added to crawl on a monthly basis.

Languages: Collection material in English with Persian, Tajik, Russian, and other languages.

Acquisition Information: Sites have been added incrementally since the project began and will continue to be added as they are identified.