NY Times: Meeting on New Constitution, Afghan Women Find Old Attitudes

Meeting on New Constitution, Afghan Women Find Old Attitudes

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 15 — After hours of tedium on Monday in the selection of deputy chairmen for Afghanistan's constitutional convention, or loya jirga, there came a moment of illusion-shattering truth.

The chairman, Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, had announced that there would be three deputies, not two, as planned, and, based on the votes, all of them would be men. Thirteen men and three women had run for the posts.

From the front rows of this assembly, meant to give Afghanistan a constitution that would move it further away from war, a chorus of protest rose. The 100 or so female delegates, of a total of 502, wanted one of their rank as a deputy. They may have been only one-fifth of the delegates, they had argued earlier in the day, but they represented 50 percent of the population.

Mr. Mojadeddi, a former president and religious scholar routinely depicted as a moderate, was having none of it. "We all have to respect the vote," he said. "Women are free to vote for men. Men are free to vote for women. We cannot make this separation." Then he spoke words that still stung hours later. Don't try to put yourself on a level with men, he told the women. Even God has not given you equal rights, he added, because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man. He was referring to a provision of Islamic law, itself displeasing to many women, that says that the testimony of two women is equivalent to that of one man in some cases. He did not bother to couch the sentiment in a legal context, presenting it instead as a general principle.

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Meeting on New Constitution, Afghan Women Find Old Attitudes

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