Even though many women still suffer, there has been some progress. Since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban's Islamic fundamentalist regime, women have taken on roles in government. Schools for girls have opened. But millions still live in abject subjugation to men.
"I'm afraid we're going backward a bit right now," said Soraya Sobrang, head of women's issues for the human rights commission. Deteriorating security is a prime reason, said Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women.
The commission documented 42 cases of forced marriage during the first quarter of this year, an increase from the same period in 2008, Sobrang said.
"So many cases don't ever get reported," she said. "Most women are still afraid to speak out because they could get beaten even worse, or even killed."
Shelters for women risk attack by Islamic militants. In a tribal, patriarchal society governed by conservative Islamic values, where men dominate and women are required to be subservient, the shelters are resented by many Afghans as foreign interference in private affairs.
The shelter where Shabana stays has been threatened by several enraged husbands, and an agency counselor and driver were roughed up last month by one man's angry relatives.
The country's first shelter opened in late 2002 in Kabul. There are now six, three of which are run by Women for Afghan Women.
A professor of literature and women's studies at Long Island University for 37 years, Hyneman first came to Afghanistan in 2003 for a women's conference. She is now an unpaid board member of the agency.
"Teaching is a great profession, but this work is just so much more fulfilling," she said.
It is also emotionally draining. The cases often bear an almost medieval cruelty; the victims arrive in pain and tears, pouring out tales of heartbreaking degradation and abuse.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm on pain overload," Hyneman said.
Outside her office recently, little girls in school uniforms rushed to hug her. Hyneman kissed their cheeks, greeting them like a beloved grandmother, hoping they remember little of what brought them there.
Obeida, 10, was sold into marriage by her father. She came to the agency after her sister, Maryam, 19, already at the shelter, told the agency about her; Maryam was sold at age 10 to a blind cleric and escaped when she was 14. An agency lawyer and police officers rescued Obeida from a house in Kabul in February.
