The vote count has begun after today’s presidential elections in Afghanistan, a process that could very well take weeks . But this election will not instantly transform Afghanistan into a democratic society—not when women’s rights have been cynically bargained away by both Afghan and US policymakers. Here at MADRE, our Policy and Communications Director Yifat Susskind this week put out an op-ed, in which she wrote:
By the time the first ballot is cast in Afghanistan's August 20 election, hopes for a democratic outcome will already be dead. The Obama Administration is billing Afghanistan's second Parliamentary election in 30 years as a milestone in that country's march towards democracy. But there can be no democracy in a place where half the population is considered the property of the other half. That's why some of Afghanistan's toughest, most tenacious pro-democracy activists are women. They understand that democracy is more than a procedural election; women's rights and genuine democracy are interdependent.As Ann mentioned in her blog entry yesterday , MADRE has created the Afghan Women’s Survival Fund, to support women whose lives are threatened because they stand up for their human rights. Click here to find out more about how you can join us .
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I heard that men were taking ballets home using the ID cards to get the fingerprints of the women of the house and then using that ballot to vote the way they wish, that the “election” will do little to help women and the poor and I also hear that maternal deaths are up. That death during child birth has risen and finally I hear that the U.S. has plans to sell our surplus weapons to this poverty stricken country ensuring that the poor will only end up under the control of war lords who will at least give them scraps of food. I also called a N.P.R. station with a female Afghani guest/expert and she became livid with the above suggestions to the point where she said angrily that women aren’t the only concern you know I take her either to be some sort of C.I.A. operative or so upper class that she is thinking nothing of stepping on the throats of those “beneath” her.
ment ballots have stuff on my mind