Women are voting in large numbers in Afghanistan in a country where three years ago they couldn’t even leave their homes unescorted, couldn’t go to school, and couldn’t live in any semblance of freedom.
But what has been most remarkable is the large scale participation of women. In the northern Balkh province, women came out in their bridal finery – with beads around their necks and henna on their hands – to vote.
In Kabul, at the end of the day, emotional women told the BBC that it had been the most memorable day in their lives. Some of them were in tears. One old woman said she’d woken up early in the morning and then woke up her sisters saying: “We have to get out to vote. The future of Afghanistan is at stake.”
I got this via worldmagblog from the BBC blog about the elections in Afghanistan.
And to think in this country we have people who don’t even bother to register. In writing class today our instructor asked if we knew the political party of our grandparents. (No one did unless they came from a family that never changed affiliations.) Many had grandmothers who couldn’t vote (pre-1920). I believe my grandmother, a well-to-do farmer and college educated, was over 45 before she could vote.