KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government is seeking to take financial control of independently run shelters for abused women, alarming aid workers who fear the move could bring the shelters under the sway of conservative figures who have condemned them.

Nongovernmental groups now operate about 40 shelters, legal aid offices and halfway houses for women fleeing horrendous abuse from husbands, fathers, brothers and in-laws. Women at the shelters often have had arms and legs broken, and lips, tongues and noses sliced off.

Nearly all the sites depend on donations from international groups and have succeeded by operating in ways that, while in accordance with Afghan law, run counter to the patriarchal culture here.

Often, for example, fathers will try to retrieve daughters from shelters to compel them back into relationships they have fled, such as arranged marriages to older men or to the women’s rapists. The latter is still widely seen in Afghanistan as a satisfactory resolution to a rape case.