In 2001 I joined the board of Women for Afghan Women, a group working with Afghan women who face domestic abuse that runs shelters for them in Afghanistan. In mid-April I traveled to Doha with a colleague to join around 250 Afghan government officials, members of various civil society organizations and the opposition political parties in the first intra-Afghan dialogue on peace with the Taliban.

Although I was not officially invited, it was an opportunity to speak to attendees about ensuring there is no backsliding of the progress Afghan women have made in the past 18 years. Afghanistan has two million or more female heads of households, who often have to fend for themselves and negotiate on a daily basis to survive.

Unfortunately, the formal talks failed to materialize over a disagreement about the size and composition of the delegations coming from Afghanistan. On April 20, the day after formal talks broke down, I met with several members of the Afghan diaspora at a hotel in Doha who were interested in meeting the Taliban. The question of trusting the Taliban troubled many of us, but we wanted to see for ourselves whether they were tired of war and keen to chart a way forward.

Twenty-four of us, including four women, met with 25 Taliban representatives in what turned out to be a six-hour-long conversation. We were not sure how we would be received. My perceptions of the Taliban were formed mostly by the stories of Afghans who had lived under their rule, the stories of those who didn’t survive and my own years living in Kabul, where their attacks had become increasingly brazen and lethal.

The three other women and I were offered the first choice of seats at the discussion table. We sat directly across from the Taliban leaders, including Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the group’s chief negotiator, and Amir Khan Motaqi, former minister of education and son of Mullah Baradar, the only surviving co-founder of the Taliban, who was arrested by Pakistan in February 2010 in Karachi and recently released at the urging of the United States.