Asia and the Pacific

Filing a nomination to stand in next year’s Afghan presidential elections is, unless you happen to be one of the ‘chosen few’ backed by your personal ‘private army’, akin to signing your own death warrant. And when the person who files, a complete unknown in political circles, happens to be a woman, then she really is putting her life on the line.

The recent Muzaffarnagar riots bared a dangerous trend where crimes against women were distorted and used as a trigger for communal conflagration and polarization for votes.

"It is most dangerous as incidents of eve-teasing and sexual assaults were twisted and used as a means to communalize and polarize ahead of 2014 elections. The riot is linked with election and also Narendra Modi's right hand man Amit Shah is in-charge of UP," said Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA).

Chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Megawati Soekarnoputri, has urged more women to join politics in the hope that some of them would be the presidential candidates of the future. “We should have another woman president. I don’t know in what year, though,” Megawati said in a discussion about women and civilization held at the party’s headquarters in South Jakarta on Wednesday. She said she lamented the fact that so many women were reluctant to join politics these days. “Most of them say they aren’t given permission by their husbands,” she said.