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Afghanistan leader eyes bigger role for women
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IN Afghanistan’s strictly patriarchal society women are generally hidden from public view, but Rula Ghani could be the exception after her husband paid her a heartfelt tribute at his presidential inauguration yesterday.
Rula Ghani has already broken several taboos by accompanying her husband Ashraf to election campaign events and giving at least one speech to supporters.
The new president has often said he wants women to play a greater role in Afghan life, and many rights activists are hoping Rula will be an influential “first lady.”
“I want to take this opportunity to thank my partner and wife for her support to me and Afghanistan,” Ghani said after being sworn in at a ceremony in the presidential palace where the couple will now live.
“(She) has always helped IDPs (internally displaced people), women and children and I’m sure she will continue to do so,” he added, in highly unusually comments in Afghanistan’s conservative Muslim culture.
Rula, who was among a small number of women to attend the inauguration, is Lebanese-American.
The pair met at the American University of Beirut in the early 1970s and have two children.
In March, during the campaign season, Rula gave a speech marking International Women’s Day to a large all-female audience in Kabul.
Ghani came second in the first round of the presidential elections, and then won the run-off in June, which he attributes, in part, to the votes of women.
Hamid Karzai, who stepped aside as president yesterday, was almost never seen with his wife, Zinat.
Karzai passed the internationally praised Elimination of Violence Against Women law in 2009, but its implementation has been weak.
According to Amnesty International, Afghan “women are still routinely discriminated against, abused and persecuted.”
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