SHAHIDA VO: Girls in Kandahar have had acid thrown in their faces. Girls have been assassinated. They have been kept home by their fathers. Schools are being burned. In the rural districts there are no girls’ schools at all.

SHAHIDA: I love this land of mine. I love my own people. I love women. And what astonishes me, what my final issue is, is that … the world community came, saying, "We will work for the people of Afghanistan, especially for the women." It’s worse than being a dead person in Kandahar. We don’t have a life anymore.

NARRATION: While Hussein wonders if the international community has forgotten its pledge to Afghan women, Karzai begins to form his high peace council –charged with brokering a deal with the taliban.

NARRATION: clinton dispatches Melanne Verveer to secure a place on the peace council for women.

VERVEER: Much of what the United States is doing is responding to the requests of the women of Afghanistan.

NARRATION: Verveer, is the first U.S. Ambassador at large for global women’s issues.

VERVEER: I was thinking what can I do to stand with them to be their voice with their officials. NARRATION: Ambassadors Verveer and Eikenberry come from a closed meeting with President Karzai, NARRATION: Verveer is concerned that Karzai doesn’t support including women in the peace process.

AMB. EIKENBERRY: I know you can have a good discussion with Dave on this. He’s worried about it, too.

NARRATION: they pay a call on General David Petraeus.

GENERAL PETRAEUS: How are you Ambassador?

AMB. VERVEER: How are you, General? Thank you so much—for taking on such huge burden...

GENERAL PETRAEUS: No choice in the matter…

GENERAL PETRAEUS: Are you in need of Fireballs, by any chance?

AMB. VERVEER: Not I.

AMB. VERVEER: When the Ambassador and I met with the President yesterday, he had conveyed an understanding that was a little bit troubling in terms of how he sees, ultimately, the reintegration-slash-reconciliation on the ground. Because obviously my portfolio is women’s issues, and we believe very strongly that women have a critical role to play in this process. And he got—and you tell me if you heard this differently – he got a tad, agitated…

GENERAL PETRAEUS: Well, why don’t we turn it off now, and then let me—

NARRATION: Petraeus goes off the record to give his assessment of the situation. NARRATION: Verveer leaves Afghanistan hoping that her efforts will get women at least a third of the seats on Karzai’s Peace Council. NARRATION: In October 2010 the moment the women have been waiting for, and working towards, arrives.

NARRATION: President Karzai presents the members of the High Peace Council. of the 70 seats, 9 are given to women. Significantly fewer than they had hoped for.

NARRATION: The body is dominated by warlords and religious conservatives. Men the U.S. armed against the Soviets. Men responsible for thousands of civilian casualties during the Civil War. Men guaranteed immunity from prosecution for all war crimes. This is the council named to negotiate the peace.

NARRATION: For the women of Afghanistan, “peace” has never looked so threatening.

NARRATION: And it’s not just Afghanistan. More than a decade has passed since the U.N. insisted that women be included in all conflict resolution. Yet women remain virtually absent at peace tables around the world.

CLINTON OC:The women in Afghanistan are rightly worried that in the very legitimate search for peace their rights will be sacrificed. And I have personally stated, and I state again here in the Security Council, none of us can permit that to happen. No peace that sacrifices women’s rights is a peace we can afford to support.

HASINA OC: Just a little further…further. Two, three!

HASINA: I don’t want to go back. I want to make it easy for my daughters.

HASINA VO: We will struggle, we will struggle till the last breath.

HASINA VO: And we cannot do anything alone. We are a part of the world.

HASINA OC: We have to be identified to the world. The world have to support us in this thing.

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