IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: Getting more women into politics
2 March 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]

KABUL, 2 March (IRIN) - The United Nations and the Ministry of Women's
Affairs (MoWA) called on Afghan political parties on Wednesday to
promote and support female candidates for the upcoming parliamentary
elections.

The first parliamentary elections in Afghanistan under newly elected
President Hamid Karzai were scheduled to be held in May but were
postponed last week for security and logistical reasons.

The election has already been postponed once since the autumn due to a
lack of administrative preparedness and slow progress on a census of the
country's population.

Observers and women's rights activists are concerned that low public
awareness of the parliamentary election, the influence of warlords in
rural areas and the strongly patriarchal traditional culture in the
country will mean women will be poorly represented in the new
parliament.

Such a situation would be technically illegal. The new Afghan
constitution states that at least 68 - two from each province - of the
249-member lower house must be women.

"We must be very, very serious and should not take it easy, otherwise
warlords will grasp this absolute right of women," Habiba Sarabi, a
former minister of women's affairs, told IRIN at a gathering of Afghan
political parties on ending violence against women. The meeting was
organised by the United Nations Development Fund for Women [UNIFEM] and
the MoWA in the capital Kabul.

Sarabi said male-dominated Afghan society where the gun still ruled made
women's participation in the political process very hard. "Unfortunately
we can clearly see political violence against women," she noted.

Her comments followed a demonstration in the central province of Bamyan
against a recent government decision to appoint a female governor to the
province. Sarabi said local commanders and warlords had forced people to
attend the demonstration because they did not want women in positions of
authority in the country.

"People do support women as MPs, governors and ministers but there are
some elements still trying to impede women's development," she noted.

Currently there are three women ministers and several others with
leading government positions in Karzai's new cabinet. According to local
media, Kabul is also planning to appoint women governors and ambassadors
in an attempt to show the government is committed to gender equality.

But despite strong opposition from conservative elements in Afghan
society, Mahbooba Hoqooqmal, state minister for women's affairs, said
women had an important political role to play in reconciliation and
development.

"Despite the very tense situation for women in the country, more than
200 women attended the emergency Loya Jirga [grand assembly] in early
2002 and 102 of the 500 delegates of the constitutional Loya Jirga in
[December 2003] were women," Hoqooqmal told IRIN.

Clearly women want to participate in the country's political process. Of
more than 8 million Afghans who voted in the presidential poll in
October 2004, more than 40 percent were female. "Also for the first time
in history we had a women presidential candidate," Hoqooqmal added.

There are more than 80 registered political parties in the country. But
female membership remains low. Some politicians explain the lack of
women in politics by arguing the high rate of female illiteracy means
women members of parliament would lack the ability to defend women's
rights and engage in meaningful political debate.

"I am concerned about the participation of women and also about their
capacity as decision-makers in parliament," Hoqooqmal said. She added
that there were many qualified and capable women who should stand as
independent candidates and receive support to enable them to do this.

"The experience of the past means many educated women fear joining a
political party, so the government and the United Nations must encourage
them and help them to present themselves for parliamentary elections,"
she said.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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