Afghan citizens will soon have their mother's names printed along with their fathers' on
their national identification cards, the government said Tuesday, after years of campaigning
by activists to do away with the shame associated with female names in public.
The old Afghan taboo over women in public runs so deep that young schoolboys often get into
fights if someone even mentions the name of their mother or sister. In a country of war and
widows, women struggle to assert themselves as legal guardians of their names - only those of
male relatives.
A proposal to amend the census law to include the mother's name on the national identity card
had been approved in a committee meeting Tuesday. While the amendment still requires parliamentary
approval and signing into law by the president, a spokesman for the vice president said officials
expected those steps to be smooth.
“The new identity would comprise of the person's name, last name, father's name, mother's name,
and date of birth," said the spokesman, Mohamed Hedayat. "In the old definition, mother's name
was not part of the identity."
Women have long been long denied their basic identities, and the cards offered a new opportunity
on that front. A hashtag campaign on social media, #WhereIsMyName?, was already underway, and it
quickly began gaining ground.
Laleh Osmany, one of the earliest supporters of the #WhereIsMyName? campaign, said, "By printing
her name, the law gives her certain authorities to be a mother who can, without the presence of a
man, get documents for her chilren and enroll her children in school."