Afghan women vote for change

MADRASA, Afghanistan – Her eyes barely visible through the tightly woven grill of her blue burqa, Nadeera said her Afghan husband forbids her from showing her face but told her to vote however she wants.

Like all the votes cast by Afghan women in Thursday’s presidential and provincial council elections, Nadeera’s ballot knows no sex discrimination.’Today I am voting for change,’ she said, sitting on a low bench at a primary school converted into a polling centre near her home village of Madrasa, on the Shomali plain outside Kabul.’There has been no change in the quality of my life since the fall of the Taliban’ in 2001, she said, referring to the lack of economic development.’My husband was earning 150 afghanis (three dollars) a day as a labourer then and he earns the same now,’ the 37-year-old told AFP.Afghans went to the polls Thursday to vote for a president for the second time in their history, with turnout of women in particular expected to be low due to a protracted Taliban intimidation campaign.There can be little denying the lot of Afghan women has improved since the end of the horror of the Taliban regime, under which they were not permitted to go to school, work or leave their homes without male relatives.But there is still a long way to go, said Nazanin Khan Ali, 41, an observer at the Madrasa polling station for the Independent Election Commission (IEC).’Women are the equal of men, they are able to do anything and everything men can do,’ said Ali, a white IEC vest over her long black dress, only her face and hands on show.’I hope that in the future, women will be able to have a bigger stake in the running of the country, to be represented in the government, in business, in all walks of life, as they should be.’Most women interviewed at polling stations across the country referred to economic development as a priority and expressed pride in being able to have a say in Afghanistan’s future that carried the same weight as that of men.In Jalalabad, Tim Fairbank, an observer with the independent US monitoring organisation Democracy International, reported that 200 women voted at a women-only polling centre with the first 90 minutes of it opening.In the southern city of Kandahar, the old Taliban capital where women running for office have been harassed and Taliban have thrown acid in the faces of schoolgirls, Maliha said that at the ballot box she attained equality.’I feel so good that I’m able to vote and choose a president exactly like a man does,’ she said from within her burqa.Standing nearby was Khudaija, clutching a baby in her arms beneath her burqa, who said: ‘I have come here to vote for a president who will look after widows, homeless and helpless women of Afghanistan.’But elsewhere, several men were seen carrying the voting cards of women relatives, reluctant to let them brave the risk of violence but prevented by officials from voting on their behalf, an AFP reporter said.In the eight years since the Taliban regime was toppled in a US-led invasion millions of Afghan women have registered to vote.Women’s groups, which have mushroomed in recent years, launched a campaign to get five million women – of a total of 17 million registered voters – out to polling booths.Of the original 41 presidential candidates, two are women; eight of the 82 vice-presidential candidates are women; and 328, or more than 10 per cent, of the 3 196 candidates for provincial seats are women.’It is very important that women’s status develops,’ said Nazanin, who supervises teachers at a college for illiterate women.’Right now, though, we’re waiting for more women to come and vote – which they will do once they have finished their houseshold chores,’ she said. – Nampa-AFP

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