Kerry Jane Wilson, an aid worker in Afghanistan, was taken at gunpoint from the office early last Thursday.
A spokesman for the Nangarhar Governor, Noor Ahmad Habibi, said security had been bolstered in the area since the kidnapping, including police searches of vehicles and interviews with locals.
“A number of armed men wearing police and security forces uniforms kidnapped the woman, so the Nangarhar Governor has ordered Afghan security and investigative teams to arrest the perpetrators as soon as possible and to trail them," he said.
“So far eight suspected staff from the office she was working with has been arrested and they are under investigation."
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Ms Wilson, who was in her sixties and is also known as Katherine, had lived in Afghanistan for 20 years and set up the Zardozi charity 10 years ago with the intention of helping women to develop their own fashion production businesses.
Speaking on a promotional video on the Zardozi website, Ms Wilson said, “We take them [women] to the market, we show them what's selling, and then put the two together and say to her, so what do you want to make, what do you think you could make?”
University of New South Wales development researcher, Dr Susanne Schmeidl, worked in Kabul for 10 years, and knew Ms Wilson well.
“What I find surprising is how it happened because usually with past kidnappings they get picked up off the street,” she said.
“The Taliban is more active, the killing of civilians has gone up but also crime has gone up considerably and that is usually linked to the withdrawal of aid funding.”
She said Ms Wilson was a driving force in sourcing funding and opportunities for the lowest income earners among Afghanistan’s female population.
Dr Schmeidl said the police arrests were likely to have been carried out to source information rather than the staff being suspected of foul play.
“For staff that worked with her, it would be against their honour, it would be dishonourable for them to actually sell her out, which is why I would [think] that if there were close, trusting people then they wouldn't have done it because there's still fairly strong honour code in Afghanistan,” she said.
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Ms Wilson’s charity Zardozi developed a sister relationship with Indonesian women’s charity PEKKA.
Director Nani Zulminarni said she was feeling “very emotional”.
“I stayed with her in her house," she said.
"She's just a wonderful person - creative in finding ways in difficult situations to empower the women, to give these women meaningful lives.
“We hosted Zardozi last year. They would like to learn from us in Indonesia and we had exchange learning, then they invited us to Kabul because they said they had adopted some of our approaches in Indonesia. After that they came back for further learning and exchange."
Ms Zulminarni said both the charities worked on empowering poor women from rural areas.
“We exchanged inspiration from her work and her because she focused on establishing business development centres, located in different places in Afghanistan," she said.
“Kerry really helped me look very critically inside at the economic side of empowerment.
"She’s very critical about how we find the market and how we build capacity in the women as producers, looking at whether it’s really helping women or making them more dependent.
"Very intelligent, very dedicated and very sharp. I hope she’s tough enough to face the difficult situation.”
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs is refusing to comment on the kidnapping.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has confirmed Australia is working with other foreign agencies in Afghanistan to find Ms Wilson.
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