Hundreds of Paktia Province women October 23 rallied in Gardez to announce their intentions to actively participate in the upcoming elections next year.
"We will be voting for the candidates who could help us achieve our rights," civil society activist Anar Gula said.
One evening, in a conversation with a group of impressive Afghan women activists in Kabul, the first participant started the conversation by making a simple but profound statement. She said, “Stop looking at us as victims, and look at us as the leaders that we are.” She was right.
Women are increasingly exposed to violence and exclusion from the public sphere as Afghanistan nears the 2014 security transition and conservative forces gain momentum.
Analysts say a spate of attacks on high-profile Afghan women has heightened fears that the limited gains for women’s rights will be reversed after NATO forces withdraw next year.
Last May, Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament quietly removed an electoral law that stipulated that a quarter of all provincial council seats should be allotted to women. When women politicians found out nearly a month later, they fought to have the bill recalled.
In Afghanistan, a female politician who escaped an assassination attempt in the south of the country says she fully intends to return to work.
Women across Afghanistan risk being unable to vote in next year's presidential elections because of a severe shortage of women in the security forces, the country's election monitor said on Wednesday.
Ten years after the start of the western intervention in Afghanistan, Afghan women are facing an uncertain future.
Ten years after the start of the western intervention in Afghanistan, Afghan women are facing an uncertain future.
Afghan authorities must make every effort possible to ensure the release and safe return of abducted Afghan woman MP Fariba Ahmadi Kakar and to provide greater protection for all women parliamentarians in the country, says the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).