As Sharia continues its resurgence. “First Afghan woman mayor says women’s rights worsened,” by Golnar Motevalli for Reuters, January 15 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi):
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s first woman mayor is determined to improve one of the country’s newest and poorest provinces, but she is concerned women’s rights in the former Taliban state are getting worse.
“I was very happy to get this job, especially being the first woman to be a mayor in Afghanistan, but there are some men who think a woman couldn’t do this job,” Azra Jafari told Reuters.
“Unfortunately, Afghan society has not yet become a society which can accept that women are able to do this job, like any other person.”
Jafari is just two weeks into her new post….
“Unfortunately, day by day, the position of women fades … We had three or four women ministers during the interim government period, now we have one.”
“President Karzai himself wants to see women progress and wants to seem them strengthen as part of a democracy, but Afghanistan is a male-dominated society,” Jafari said….