AFGHANISTAN'S GENDER EQUALITY

Last December, Niloofar Rahmani -Afghanistan's first female fixed-wing pilot since the Taliban lost power -requested asylum at the end of her Air Force training in the United States.

Ms. Rahmani gained notoriety in Afghanistan and abroad after striking photos circulated showing her on the job in a tan jumpsuit uniform and ''Top Gun'' style aviators.

Afterward, she says she began receiving threats -not just from extremists, but also from extended family and her colleagues within the security forces.

The reaction at home to her asylum request has also been ugly : Afghan's military officials have slammed Ms. Rahmani as a liar and a traitor, and urged Washington to reject her case.

But she is not alone. Numerous Afghan military trainees who went through joint training in the United States have gone AWOL, according to the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

At least some have filed for asylum after they reported threats from the Taliban, other insurgents back home and from colleagues who resented them and spread rumors to ruin their reputation.

American efforts at recruitment have been marked by a 30,000 foot perspective that focuses on numbers but lacks sense of the realities for Afghan women on the ground:

Many families are wary of allowing their daughters to enlist, acutely aware of cultural notions that women in security forces are ''loose'' because they work so closely alongside men.

A false rumor is all it can take for a male colleague, or neighbor to undermine a women's career  -and even cost her her life.