LEVERAGE:

One by one, foreign aid groups with long histories of working in Afghanistan are insisting on clear guarantees for their female Afghan staff to work freely in delivering goods and services, especially to other women. From the Norwegian Refugee Council to CARE International, relief groups have set a red line for gender rights.

"If women are prevented from delivering humanitarian services, we become complicit in the entrenching of gender inequality," says Anita Bhatia, deputy executive director of United Nations Women. For his part, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council that aid must be delivered "without ... discrimination."

This principled stance by the humanitarian aid community reflects three decades of work to shift global thinking about women's rights. It also reflects faith in Afghan women to insist on the rights and freedoms they enjoyed under nearly two decades of democracy.

The Taliban are definitely listening to the international community, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told The Associated Press. "Yes, there are no women yet [in the Cabinet]," he said. "But let us let the situation evolve."

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