Sima Samar, the chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, has had a long career as a champion of the oppressed. She was born in Afghanistan and, in 1982, she earned a medical degree, from Kabul University. In 1984, the communist government kidnapped her husband, who never returned, and Samar and her son fled to Pakistan. There, she established the Shuhada Organization, to provide reproductive health care to Afghan refugees. After the defeat of the Taliban, in 2001, Samar returned to Afghanistan, where she served as the minister of women’s affairs in the interim government of Hamid Karzai. She went on to serve the United Nations, as a special representative on human rights in Sudan. Since 2004, Samar has been the chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the country’s national human-rights organization, which is independent from the Afghan government.

Early this year, the Trump Administration announced that it had a framework for a peace deal with the Taliban, which would eventually lead to the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces. Yet the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, and women’s-rights activists fear that an American-led deal would undermine their interests, and that the Taliban would be unlikely to abide by it in the long term. Though Afghanistan has made progress on human rights during the past two decades, it is still one of the most dangerous places in the world for women. Samar is not opposed to peace talks but has said that such talks should include women and address past human-rights violations.

I recently reached Samar, by phone, in Kabul. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Afghanistan’s current human-rights record compares to earlier eras, what peace talks can and cannot accomplish, and how the country can avoid a state of permanent conflict.

What is the state of human rights in Afghanistan today, and how does it compare to where it was before the American-led war?

We have lots of achievements on human rights. If we look at the situation in the nineteen-nineties in Afghanistan, there were violations of the human rights of everyone, but particularly women. Women were not allowed to go to school; women were not allowed to walk on the street, or go to the shop and buy a piece of bread, because they had to have been accompanied by a male member of the family, and they had to wear the burka. It denied the dignity and identity of people in the country. This was the same for men—they had to wear the turban. And the children were not allowed to play with toys which had music or which looked like a living thing. Imagine, they were not allowed to run a kite, because it looks like a bird.

So, if you compare that to today, you have around nine million children going to school, boys and girls—although access is still limited because of war going on, in some parts of the country, and also because of the war culture, which was implemented not only by the Taliban but before the Taliban, by the mujahideen, and also during the war with the pro-Russian government in our country. During conflicts, women are more vulnerable to abuses, particularly to sexual abuses, so families were controlling them. Political groups were controlling women’s mobility and women’s rights, and freedom of expression. Now freedom of expression and freedom of the media is one of the biggest achievements in this country. If you compare it to neighboring countries, we are on top on that issue.

Do you think the current government is committed to human rights?

Yes, of course. The government after the Taliban, which was ruled by President Karzai, was committed to human rights, and, of course, the human-rights defenders were also fighting for this, including myself and the Human Rights Commission. And the current government continues to do that. Of course, the opposition to the Afghan government, the armed opposition, are not happy with the freedom of expression and freedom of media in the country. And also some illegal armed groups that are not with the Taliban put pressure on the freedom of media and freedom of expression, in different parts of the country.

You’ve explained why things have gotten better, in terms of human rights, than they were during Taliban rule. Do you think that continues without the American military presence? Or do you think that a constant occupation and constant war are not only bringing human-rights abuses but also are the only way to preserve the advances that have been made?

I think that recent history, the forty-one years of conflict in Afghanistan, shows that full withdrawal, without looking at the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan, will be a failure. This is what happened with the withdrawal of the U.S.S.R. Sudden withdrawal will deteriorate the situation. American and NATO forces are partners to the Afghan government and the Afghan people. And this partnership should be based on the understanding that the withdrawal of the troops, or the rejection of the troops, should be based on the condition on the ground.

We are very grateful for the support of the American people and the American government, but I think that this partnership and this support should continue until we stand on our own feet. And we’re going in that direction.

So you think progress is being made?

Yes. In 2002, we didn’t have an army. We didn’t have police. We didn’t have intelligence services. After that, the militias who came to Kabul, they were acting as an army, they were acting as the police. Now we have established our army, and they’ll need to be trained and supported. We have our national police. We have a better intelligence service. Again, I insist that it is not perfect, and they might not be able to continue without support of NATO and the U.S. as our partners.

Recently, the Trump Administration has been trying to negotiate some sort of end to the conflict with the Taliban. What do you make of these negotiations, and do you think that they are a good idea?

All the conflicts around the world need negotiation, there is no doubt about that. In Afghanistan, regimes came and went, and, unfortunately, with all the support of the international community, we’re still in conflict, to be very honest and frank. So one of the ways to end the conflict is to negotiate. It cannot be unconditional negotiations. But if the Taliban really accepts the democratic process that we have in Afghanistan—as I mentioned before, it’s not perfect, but it’s still a process that people have paid a price for—then they can come and stand for elections. Let me give an example. In 2005, Mullah Muttawakil and Mullah Qalamuddin—Muttawakil was the foreign minister of the Taliban, and Qalamuddin was the minister for Vice and Virtue, the one who was beating people on the streets, saying, “Why are you walking without mahram [a male relative]?” or “Why don’t you have longer hair?” or “Why do you have a short beard?”—both of them stood for elections and failed. So that shows the desire of the Afghan people. If they accept the process, the democratic process, let them come.

But, for me, as a human-rights activist, I think we have to have accountability—we should not undermine justice. Because, in the previous agreements, including the Bonn Agreement, we forgot about accountability. We forgot about justice. We forgot about the victims of war. Then what? Then the war continued. And the war continues.