Afghan women registering to vote

Registration to run for parliament in Afghanistan closed this afternoon and the campaign season is officially underway. Of nearly 6000 candidates, over 600 women signed up to run. The system was set up to guarantee about 25% of the seats in the lower house of parliament go to women - that's much a higher percentage than the US congress, by the way. But even with seats guaranteed, it's not an easy decision for an Afghan woman to make.

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Bilqis is a deputy principle of a girls' school here in the northern city of Taloqan. She's 28 years old, and speaks with a soft but determined voice. She's runing for parliament. Bilqis agreed to meet me for an interview, but it took some arranging. To go alone to meet a foreign man and his male translator was out of the question. So a boy escorted Bilqis to a market place. She came covered head to toe ina blue burkha. She got to within ten yards of me. She then nodded slightly and began walking back to her office. I followed from a safe distance.

Indoors, it was safe for Bilqis to take off the burkha. She still wore her headscarf.

Bilqis said she's running for parlament because she wants to do something about the problem of illiteracy, especially among girls.

Bilqis said her family is supportive, but many conservative religious figures and local warlords oppose the idea of women in government. Still, she said, she gets a lot of respect since she's a teacher. And Bilqis hopes that will bring votes as well. But she admits she still has some inhibitions to overcome.

Bilqis will have a campaign poster, but she's afraid to put her picture on it. She worries that if she loses everyone will have her picture, and that would not be a modest thing by Afghan standards.

It's easier for women here in Kabul to campaign. Eight female candidates met with a political advisor for lunch here at her office yesterday. Some wore headscarves, others let their hair show. The conversation was lively and upbeat. The advisor Najia Hanifi was gleeful about the prospect of a parliament with one fourth of the seat reseved for women.

Najia Hanifi: "It's very good after a long dictatorship in a male dominated country. It's a big achievement."

But Hanifi says plenty of obstacles remain. Many women will still vote just the way their husbands tell them to. One of the candidates even mentions a warlord who has put up his wife as a candidate, so that he might control one of the guaranteed seats for women. But Hanifi says even a flawed election is progress.

Najia Hanifi: "At least there will be an idea for people that they have the right to go for voting, they have a right to the decision making in their own life. I'm really happy for the new generation of Afghansitan, that they are practicing the new way of democracy."

Hanifi wants equal rights for women, but she knows that's a long way off. A female television journalist was murdered just last week. Some Afghans considered her television program unIslamic. Still some female candidates say Islam is the basis of their demand for equal rights.

Habiba Danish is also running for a seat in Taloqan. She says the problems for women in Afghanistan result from misinterpretations of Islam. She recites a list of important women in Muslim history.

Habiba hopes that being in parliament will give her a larger audience to convince that it's unIslamic to discriminate against women.

And, she adds, I've never lost an argument.

For The World, this is Quil Lawrence.