Executive Summary and Recommendations Throughout Afghanistan's conflict-ridden history, the struggle for women's rights has been an issue of contention, false promises and failed attempts to reform the deeply patriarchal system of relationship between women and men. With the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghan women have once again been striving to create opportunities for themselves to actively partake in the social and political developments in the country. Though Afghan women played a largely subordinate role in creating the new political system in post-Taliban Afghanistan during the first Bonn conference in December 2001, their achievements, such as the establishment of new institutions like the Ministry of Women Affairs (MOWA) and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), were of historic importance. Since then, despite the threats and challenges posed by the resurgent Taliban, local warlords as well as the large number of restrictions that Afghan culture place on women, there has been a significant increase of women's participation in almost all spheres of life. In part due to the heavy presence of the international community but also thanks to the tireless efforts of untold audacious Afghan women, the latter have been able to gradually expand their presence into such areas as civil society, political decision-making, education and legislation. One particularly emblematic example is Afghan women's numeric presence in the two legislative bodies, where they now constitute approximately one fourth of the Afghan Wolesi Jirga representatives. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that Afghan women's participation in political decision-making is still largely a top-down process, led by a small number of educated and economically privileged women who receive the support of national and international stakeholders, hoping to create a trickle-down effect that will eventually benefit all female Afghan citizens. Unfortunately, because of a lack of authentic engagement with and understanding of ordinary women, the wide discrepancies between the lives of women in the city and those in rural areas as well as widespread insecurity, that strategy has not had the expected impact. As a result, the vast majority of Afghan women continue to live in unacceptable living conditions. Furthermore, the recent developments in the country paint an increasingly worrisome scenario. With the announced withdrawal of most foreign troops by 2014, an expected cut in international aid, and the growing possibility of a political compromise of the Afghan government and the international community with different extremist groups (e.g. the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and the militant wing of Hizb-eIslami), most achievements relating to women's rights made over the last decade are in danger of being reversed. The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO) has attempted to make a contribution to address some of the aforementioned AHRDO Afghan Women after the Taliban: Will History Repeat Itself? Page 4