In May 2005 I was elected to be the first woman to join the Sinjel Municipality in the Ramallah district. At that time a new law had been passed which set a minimum quota for women's representation in local councils. The assumption underpinning the law was that women should take part in decision-making processes. So, despite the fact that the idea hadn't yet been widely accepted in many rural communities, women from different economic and cultural backgrounds suddenly found themselves taking part in political life.

At Thursday’s London conference on Afghanistan, more than 50 countries will to try flesh out the details for a plan to gradually hand security to Afghans, which involved strengthening and expanding Afghan security forces, improving the way donor aid to Afghanistan is spent and reintegrating Taliban fighters. But where do women fit into these plans, especially if the Taliban are to be involved?

On Wednesday, groups representing Afghan women warned the international community against pursuing a peace deal with the Taliban. “I have great fears, and I am greatly confused … 2001 was a very clear signal that there is no more room for conservative elements to rule in Afghanistan,” Homa Sabri of the United Nation’s agency for women, UNIFEM, told Reuters in London.

President Hamid Karzai’s nomination of a record three female candidates to cabinet posts was a short-lived victory for women in Afghan politics. Only one female nominee was approved during Saturday’s parliamentary vote, with lawmakers rejecting 10 of 17 candidates from Karzai’s second cabinet list, including two women. The only woman among Karzai’s first round of nominees also failed to gain approval during a previous vote two weeks earlier.
Karzai’s revised picks included Amina Afzali, who was approved to head the ministry of work and social affairs, and two candidates rejected by parliament: Palwasha Hassan for the ministry of women’s affairs, and Suraya Dalil for the ministry of public health.