On August 5th, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) expressed concern about the lack of female staff for polling day and vote counting.  “The recruitment of female staff including those women who will check female voters still remains a problem”.

In response to the report issued by UNAMA and AIHRC, national and international women’s groups exerted pressure on the Independent Election Commission to find more female polling staff. 

Ten days later, the IEC spokesman, Noor Muhammad Noor, announced that 90% of the needed female staff had now been recruited.  According to Mr. Noor, the two ministries that came to the rescue of the IEC were the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.  These ministries managed to recruit female staff through the local council system.

The IEC confirmed that the recruitment of women has been difficult everywhere but most challenging in Urozgan, Paktia and Paktika.  The IEC webpage lists the number of female registered voters in Urozgan as 24863, in Paktia as 87600 and Paktika as 44621.

The IEC plans to fill the remaining 10% of the female positions with elders and mosque leaders.

Shukria Barakzai, a female MP and political analyst says that "women are less involved in political conflicts and tribal affiliations; therefore, their role and participation in the elections should not be weak".

She considers separate polling stations for women to be an important service but she is concerned that in some centers men may vote for women. “People, particularly women, should actively participate in the election. They should vote and they should be alert so that their votes are not altered.”

In response to the problem of recruiting female staff, Ms Barakzai says that “in the future, the IEC should use the support of teachers, nurses and midwives in rural areas”.

If the IEC is correct, the female staffing crisis is over. However, some questions remain. Why did the IEC wait so long to approach MOWA and MRRD? And where was the Ministry of Education?