Afghan women fear mandatory poll photos could stop them from voting

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS SEPTEMBER 25, 2019 / 5:33 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Afghan women fear mandatory poll photos could stop them from voting

Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Storay Karimi
4 MIN READ

KABUL/HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan women’s rights activists have demanded the authorities lift a requirement that all voters be photographed at polling stations in Saturday’s presidential election, arguing that it could prevent hundreds of thousands of women from voting.

Afghanistan’s electoral authorities have decided to photograph all voters using facial recognition software as an anti-fraud measure, after elections in 2009 and 2014 ended in disputes over rampant ballot stuffing.

But the photo requirement could be particularly difficult for women, especially in conservative areas, where most adult women and older girls cover their faces outside the home and do not show themselves to men who are not their relatives.

The election commission says that women voters can have their pictures taken by female election staff. But it acknowledges that at least 1,450 of the nearly 30,000 polling stations employ no women.

Eighteen women’s rights groups have separately written to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to call for the photo requirement to be scrapped. The letters, shown to Reuters by a senior IEC official, said women in rural areas wanted to vote but believed it was against Islam or culturally inappropriate to allow themselves to be photographed by men.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-election-women/afghan-women-fear-mandatory-poll-photos-could-stop-them-from-voting-idUSKBN1WA2WU

[customerserviceguy]

1. Another reason

why pouring blood and treasure into Afghanistan was a total waste.