On August 20th, 2009, Afghanistan's citizens voted in the country's second direct presidential election in its history. The growing unpopularity of President Hamid Karzai, whose continued viability in government is considered by many to depend on his political masters in the aid-giving Western administrations, has left him in a defensive spot. With the pro-democracy election slogan "ballot over bullet," thousands of polling centers across the country opened for voting even as millions of Afghans were expected to choose a new president. And yet insecurity and repeated threats ensured that turnout in many places, like in southern Afghanistan, was as low as one percent.
Ironically, reports of election fraud that have surfaced have indicated the registration of high numbers of women in traditionally and culturally conservative provinces. Figures from Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission show a suspiciously high number of registered women voters. Figures from Khost show around 72,958 women registered compared to 38,500 men. The suspicions are that where women could not register in person Afghan men might have registered multiple women. Figures from less conservative regions, like the more liberal northern province of Herat, where women move about more freely, show that 55,483 women registered compared with 104,946 men, making the allegations of tampering more serious. An armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government, the controversial Shiite law, electoral malpractices and Taliban threats all point to the significance that women might come to play in healing Afghanistan's troubled history -- if they were able to enjoy political and social freedoms like their counterparts.
Despite coercion to prevent voting and threats to punish those seen with the indelible ink on their fingers and even actual rocket attacks that kept voters away, for many Afghans democracy lies at the root of any sustainable solution to the country's stable future. And yet every step forward appears to be at the cost of half the population of the country -- as witnessed in the passing of the controversial family law that dramatically abrogates women's freedoms recently. In April this year national and international outcry had forced President Karzai to promise a review of a bill that opened up a contentious debate on right to cultural identity and women's rights.
With a dwindling support base, the passage of the law is seen by many as the outgoing president's latest sell-out to the radical clerics and fundamentalist leaders amongst the political elite of the country. In a country in which women still are not as politically active the law may actually help the chances of the beleaguered president.
The revised legislation, which retains many of its earlier provisions allows husbands to starve wives who fail to obey sexual demands, passed quietly in the days leading up to the crucial presidential elections. As in the earlier version, the law grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. A minor alteration states that women can leave their homes in adherence with "local customs," but otherwise, the law largely remains unchanged.
What this has done in effect is to shift the enforcement of the law completely into the hands of the law enforcers and the husbands. According to Human Rights Watch, it effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying "blood money" to a girl injured when raped. The international chorus of condemnation surrounding provisions legalizing marital rape evidently did not pull many strings in favor of the Afghan women. The rehashed version continues to contradict the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country. The truth is that the code of conduct laid down for women by the law are not very different from what most women face on a daily basis in the country. Hence, the hue and cry over the law is seen by most, including many women, as an unneccessary interference in local affairs.
While the language of the law might have been watered down, its actual provisons remained the same and it enjoys the backing of hardline Shia clerics who are believed to influence the voting patterns of some of the country's Shias. The large number of candidates has increased the possibility of a second round of voting and that is when these back room deals and contentious laws might really count. Women's rights are hardly a huge price to pay for the guarantee of a victory. The irony really is that laws like these that once were seen as the stamp of the Taliban militia are now being approved by the head of a democratic government, a government that the US administartion and its Western allies help set up.
Malalai Joya, a Member of Parliament who was expelled from the Wolesi Jirga (the National Assembly) for likening her fellow members to zoo animals, sums up the condition of women in the country: "The killing of women is like killing a bird today in Afghanistan." While the Taliban succeeded in pushing back women's rights by centuries, the past eight years of international presence in Afghanistan have not shown very significant progress to getting women back to the conditions they were used to in pre-war years. Afghanistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and has thus committed itself to working to ensure equality for women. Under its Constitution, 25 per cent of members of parliament must be women. However, women's presence in parliament has not translated into tangible improvements in their situation in the country. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's (UNAMA) report, published in July 2009, is an indictment of the tremendous risk - to their lives and that of their families - those defending women's rights and the equality agenda face.
Entitled "Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan," the report describes the pervasive violence against women in Afghanistan, which has inhibited their participation in public life. A woman provincial council member was killed early this year in Kandahar. Another high-ranking policewoman was also murdered in the same province in 2008. The year 2005 witnessed the murder of a 25-year-old poet-activist in Herat and a popular veejay of a musical show in Kabul. And even as the list of women murdered seems endless, it is also country that has seen a tremendous increase in the rates of suicide. Recent statistics show that about 25% of women in the country are subjected to sexual violence, 30.7% women suffer physical violence and another 30% suffer from psychological violence. For many women this is the only way to end the constant cycle of violence both inside and outside their homes. The kind of abuse faced by women ranges from beatings to electric shocks and burns. And the victims are girls married as young as twelve. Even today 43 per cent of the female population is under 18 years when they marry. Consequently, Afghanistan has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world as one woman dies every 27 minutes due to pregnancy-related complications. Forced marriages, domestic violence, poverty and lack of access to education are some of the main reasons for suicides. In a country where 80 percent of the women are illiterate their ability to turn to the democratic structures for redress also remain stunted.
It is only recently that women are turning to the method of divorce to get out of abusive marriages, otherwise considered taboo. And women who manage to get a divorce hide from their family out of fear of what are referred to as "honor killings" because of the disrepute a divorce brings to the family name. While Afghanistan's law allows a man divorce without his wife's consent, a woman needs the approval of her husband and witnesses who can testify in court that the divorce is justified. Often for battered women the price of freedom through a divorce means losing custody of their children, a prospect that dissuades many battered women. Many women compensate their husbands for a divorce. Consequently literate women work several jobs to pay their husbands back for their freedom.
Afghanistan's presidential elections had two women candidates in the fray. The pictures of women candidates displayed across the country was itself seen by many as a crime against Islam. And of the 3,000 provincial council candidates, 328 are women. Even as their posters were torn down, they suffered abuse and feared for their safety these are women who have promised to work on the women's agenda in Afghanistan. And while these steps might be pitifully slow for some the agonizing situation of the women is summed up by an Afghan woman when she said "...we are not helpless, history has forced helplessness onto us." And even as the political game has induced a sense of cynicism these elections are still seen by many as the change that Afghanistan has been long hoping for.
