Afghan women tell of hopes, threats as they vote for the first time
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Women who voted in today's presidential election in Afghanistan say they hope it will bring peace after two decades of war. One 60-year-old woman summed it up this way: "For the first time, women are having a say in the future of Afghanistan. We are fed up with war."
Another woman whose husband died in war, leaving her to raise five children under the oppressive Taliban regime, says she was even threatened today as she went to vote.
She said a man threatened to chop her hand if she voted but she ignored him, saying, "We don't want those people. They did nothing for us."
At their polling place in Kandahar, the two women and almost everyone else there voted for President Hamid Karzai (HAH'-mihd KAHR'-zy), a fellow Pashtun. None chose the lone female candidate from Kabul.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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