If mediation fails, Ms. Naderi said, her organization’s lawyers will pursue a divorce on behalf of their clients. Cases involving criminal allegations are referred to the attorney general’s office.

Ms. Naderi’s organization has even taken the bold step of helping several clients find new husbands, carefully vetted by the shelter’s staff. The men could not afford the customary bride price, making them more accommodating of women who deviated from tradition.

When Mariam arrived at the Women for Afghan Women shelter in 2007, the group’s lawyers took her case to family court. Her husband pleaded for her return, promising not to beat her again. Mariam consented. In a recent interview, Mariam, a waifish teenager with a meek voice, said she had feared that “no one would marry me again.”

But soon after her return, the beatings resumed, she said. She fled again.

Mariam’s case was moved to criminal court because she said her husband had threatened to kill her, said Mariam Ahadi, the legal supervisor for Women for Afghan Women and a former federal prosecutor in Afghanistan.

At the shelters, others told still more harrowing tales. For the same reason as Mariam, none wanted their full names used.

Nadia, 17, who has been living in Ms. Akrami’s long-term shelter since 2007, recounted that to avenge a dispute he had with her father, her husband cut off her nose and an ear while she was sleeping. She has undergone six operations and needs more, Ms. Akrami said.

“I don’t know anything about happiness,” Nadia said.

At 8, another girl, Gulsum, was kidnapped by her father, who was estranged from her mother. She says she was forced to marry the son of her father’s lover. Her husband and her new mother-in-law beat her and threatened to kill her, she said.