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Insurgents Reverse Afghan Women's Political Gains

By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 31, 2009 8:23 AM CDT
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(Newser) – Afghan women streamed to the ballot boxes five years ago, and in some districts female turnout was even higher than male. But the flood of women voters that delighted aid groups dried up this year, reports the Washington Post, and many of the segregated female polling stations had few if any voters. More educated women who had voted before stayed home, while in more rural areas families kept mothers and daughters inside in the face of Taliban threats.

Election monitoring groups say that in the Taliban-dominated regions in southern Afghanistan, almost no women voted at all. Women who did vote often did so by proxy—opening the door to fraud. "We have lost a lot of the ground we made," said one woman who voted, fearfully. "We can give a card to a woman and tell her to vote, but that does not protect her from danger, and it does not give her any real rights at all."

An Afghan woman, seen at a polling station in Jalalabad the provincial capital of Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday,Aug 20, 2009.
An Afghan woman, seen at a polling station in Jalalabad the provincial capital of Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday,Aug 20, 2009.   (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Women queue up to vote at a polling center in Herat, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. Afghans head to the polls to elect the new president for the second time in the country's history.
Women queue up to vote at a polling center in Herat, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. Afghans head to the polls to elect the new president for the second time in the country's history.   (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Women wait at the Dawood Jabarkhyl food distribution center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009.
Women wait at the Dawood Jabarkhyl food distribution center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009.   (AP Photo/Dima Gavrysh)
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I voted for Mr. Karzai last time. We were all so excited then, and we thought peace would come. But now things have gotten much worse, and I decided not to vote at all. - Shuqufa, 38

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COMMENTS
Showing 2 of 2 comments
prowlerzee
Aug 31, 2009 4:25 AM CDT
Oh....but I do hope he does draft the morons who voted for him.
prowlerzee
Aug 31, 2009 4:25 AM CDT
Well put, lumina. It was a line of bs the entire time...and Zerobama is asking for 10's of thousands more troops...he's trying to get Great Britain to cough them up. He's not getting my son!

 
Afghanistan • Taliban • women • women's rights • Afghanistan election

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