A record number of women are running in Afghanistan’s critical parliamentary elections next month despite many being inundated with threatening phone calls, including death threats from insurgents. Amid ever-rising violence, which some people fear could foster a repeat of last year’s catastrophic presidential election, women are struggling to campaign at all outside a few areas, poll monitors say. Even in Kabul, the capital, where the Guardian has interviewed a number of female candidates, women say they are facing daily obstruction from conservative hardliners.
For more information, please visit The Helmand Blog.
A record number of women are running in Afghanistan’s critical parliamentary elections next month despite many being inundated with threatening phone calls, including death threats from insurgents. Amid ever-rising violence, which some people fear could foster a repeat of last year’s catastrophic presidential election, women are struggling to campaign at all outside a few areas, poll monitors say. Even in Kabul, the capital, where the Guardian has interviewed a number of female candidates, women say they are facing daily obstruction from conservative hardliners.
For more information, please visit The Helmand Blog.