Women question value of vote

Chris Sands, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: September 04. 2009 12:34AM UAE / September 3. 2009 8:34PM GMT

Kabul // Long before all the arguments about fraud and intimidation began, Sheila Samimi decided that Afghanistan’s main presidential contenders could not be trusted.

“I spoke with other women and told them that if a candidate took his wife with him on the campaign trail, then we could believe in him. But none of them did.

“It shows they are not accepting women’s rights and we are still second-class citizens.”

While the ballots are being counted and the allegations of corruption continue to multiply, the sense of disillusionment Afghans feel is perhaps most acute among sections of the female population.

For them, the claims of backhanded deals and vote-buying that dog this election are symbolic of a greater problem that has existed since the early optimism of the US-led invasion started to fade. Whenever political power is genuinely at stake, they said, their rights become pawns in the game.

Ms Samimi is the advocacy manager of Afghan Women’s Network, an umbrella organisation that supports non-governmental groups throughout the country.

After the early years in which some progress was achieved following the overthrow of the Taliban regime, she has noticed a clear rolling back in the way she and her colleagues are regarded by officials and politicians.

“During the first election there was lots of talk about women’s rights; this time there was less.”

Out of the 41 candidates shortlisted for the presidential campaign, only two were women and neither was regarded as a serious contender. That in itself was not particularly significant or surprising. It even represented an improvement on 2004, when just one stood.

More worrying for those concerned with improving the lives of women here are what they see as growing attacks on their basic rights in the public and private sphere.

Ms Samimi has attended meetings with some of the main contenders, including the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, and his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. For a while now, she has had a list of 10 demands for the government and they will still apply for whoever is the next president.

The three most important points on her list, she said, call for the execution of rapists, allocation of 30 per cent of high-profile official positions to women and inclusion of women in any negotiations with the Taliban.

None of her wishes seem likely to be granted. At present there is just a single female cabinet minister and Mr Karzai has been accused of pardoning convicted rapists with influential connections.

But the clearest example of the renewed threats women face came in the spring, when it was revealed that parliament had drawn up a law for Afghanistan’s Shiite community that appeared to give a husband the right to forcibly have sex with his wife.

Following an international outcry, Mr Karzai vowed to review the legislation. As the election fast approached, he quietly agreed to a controversial amended version.

Ruqia Naiel, a member of parliament from Ghor, opposed both versions and now finds her political career in jeopardy as a result.

“One month ago I went to my province and visited my constituency. One hundred per cent of my district is Shiite. They said to me, ‘Ruqia, why did you stand against this law?’ The mullahs and the commanders threatened me; they said next year [in parliamentary elections] they will not support me.”

The amended legislation allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands, states that a woman must get her husband’s permission to work and gives fathers and grandfathers exclusive custody of children.

Critics claim the new bill was signed to appease warlords and religious leaders, who could ultimately prove decisive in swinging the election the president’s way.

“He signed it just for votes. That is what is important to Hamid Karzai, not the women and children,” said Ms Naiel, who is concerned that the future will be bleak if he wins another term.

“See the eight years we have just passed? Maybe the next five years will also be like this. All we will be trying to do is stay alive,” she said.

Weeda Ahmed is convinced that neither candidate provides much reason for hope. As director of the Social Association of Afghan Justice Seekers, she fears that both are disturbingly close to mujahideen commanders who have committed human rights atrocities.

Mr Karzai’s running mates, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Abdul Karim Khalili, played key roles in the fighting that devastated Kabul from 1992 to 1996, as did Abdul Rashid Dostum, another of his allies. Mr Abdullah, meanwhile, was a member of the same faction as Mr Fahim at that time.

“I don’t think we will be able to take the people’s rights back from this new government. Still the criminals and warlords will be in power. A lot of families say they will not even be able to accept putting them on trial. They say ‘that man killed my son, so I want to kill his son’,” she said.

csands@thenational.ae