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Choosing their candidate was the easy part. All three women, residents of
this southern city, favor the incumbent, President Hamid
Karzai. But in the face of
threats from Taliban insurgents to attack the election process, they cannot
decide whether to vote at all, let alone whether to work at the polls as they
have been asked to do.
The women say they do not fear death. They fear the shame a public death
would bring their families.
"My biggest fear is that if something happens election day, the whole
town will talk afterward," said Farida, who is
23 and unmarried, and who, like the others, uses only one name. "There
is already a general rumor that women who work outside the home are prostitutes
to Americans or foreigners, that women who work
outside the home lose their honor."
There is a saying in the culture, she said. For a woman, a death in the
home - with purdah, which literally means curtain -
is a death of honor. A death outside the home is a death with dishonor.
"I just don't want to die on the street," she said.
Roshana, about 30 and the mother of a
14-year-old son, agreed. She envisioned lying in the street missing a head or
a limb, being viewed by strange men. It would be an
insoluble stain on her family's reputation.
The women were among a group of 30 recruited by the United Nations to work
at the polls on Saturday in this southern city. For their work, they are to
be paid $40.
Is the money worth the risk?
For many women, the answer is no. Only 15 of the 30 showed up for the
training, said Rangina Hamidi,
the director of women's projects for Afghans for Civil Society, an aid
organization, which had offered its office to the group. More than half of
those who showed up dropped out. Now the six or seven who are left argue
constantly over whether the chance to shape their country's future is worth
the risk to their family's honor.
"A lot of women are fearful," said Ms. Hamidi,
a 27-year-old Afghan-American. "They are completely confused about
whether to vote."
She herself is not planning to vote, she said, because she promised her
parents, who are in the
"God forbid something should happen," she said.
Nobody feels that there will be a war after the election, she said. The
fear is of insurgent activities before or during the election. Combined with
the fact that many husbands oppose participation by their wives in a
male-dominated activity, she said, she doubts that more than 10 percent of
women here in
The picture is even bleaker in rural areas across the south, where Pashtun culture severely limits women's ability to leave
their homes and a stubborn insurgency has radically altered the character of
the election.
Of 1.4 million registered voters in the five southern provinces -
Most of those who did register are from cities and district capitals
where, because of security concerns, registration was concentrated. As a
result, women from far-flung villages did not register, said Dr. Humayan, who also uses one name and who oversees the
southern region for the Joint Electoral Management Board.
In the southern provinces, the board has struggled
dismally to recruit women to work at polling places in rural areas but
instead will rely on local elders and mullahs to help women who do show up at
the polls with voting procedures. One reason is the lack of educated
women; Dr. Humayan estimates that only 5 percent of
women in the south are educated. But security is a
bigger problem, he said, ensuring that in some districts neither men nor
women want to be seen working with the electoral process.
Farida, Hajira and Roshana said many women did not understand what the
election was about, or what they had registered for.
Even Hajira, a 39-year-old widowed mother of four,
expressed confusion: if she did not vote, would her registration card still
be valid?
Farida said many women had registered because
they had been told that a male member of their
family could take the card and vote for them, which is not the case.
Hajira said the women in her family had gotten
in trouble with the men for registering, and she did not think that they
would vote. Roshana, too, said that while her
mother would probably vote, her sister and sister-in-law would probably not
get permission from her father and brother to go.
All three women said there had been far too little voter education for
women, and they feared that many women would just vote for whoever's
ballot photo looked best to them.
The three women work on an embroidery project run by Ms. Hamidi, coming to the office each day despite the
whispers behind their backs.
"Generally, whenever we step outside, for work or shopping, the talk
is there," Roshana said.
They favor Mr. Karzai because, even if he has
done little for them personally, he has brought peace and opened schools.
All three women said their own education had been thwarted by conflict and
local leaders who opposed education for women - Farida
after four years, Hajira after two months, Roshana after just two days of
school. Now they cannot get jobs with the new government because they are not
educated.
"Because we ruined our lives not being educated, we want a good
future for our own kids so they do not have the same life," Roshana said.
As of Monday, Hajira and Roshana
said they were determined to vote and work at the polls, although that could
change in the next five days.
Farida was unsure. She had heard the day before
of a woman killed outside
The women expressed frustration. Since it will be the first time the
country is holding a presidential election, it had taken them a long time to
understand what it meant. Now that they did, there were people working
against it.
"For the 30 years of my life I've only seen war, killing, bloodshed
and guns," Roshana said. "There is fear,
but we have to put the fear behind our backs."