In honor of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote in the United States, Social Education has published a special issue focusing on women’s voting throughout the century and across the globe. As an accompaniment to one article in that issue, “What Does it Look Like? Telling the Story of Global Women’s Political Participation through Photographs” by SSEC member Kathryn E. Engebretson, provided here are over 30 photos curated from the United Nations Photo Archive of women voting around the world. All images and captions are directly from this archive and are available free to use for educational purposes. Use the images in the article and these supplemental images with the questions and guided inquiry detailed in the article freely, but please note the image source in your use.
A voter casts her ballot in a polling station in Edendale Township in Pietermaritz.
01 April 1994
Natal, South Africa
Under the supervision of the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG), a team of more than 6,000 military and civilian personnel, a Constituent Assembly was elected.
A woman shows her voter registration card outside the voter registration centre in Katatura, a black township of Windhoek. UNTAG staff are supervising the voter registration. [July 1989]
01 July 1989
Windhoek, Namibia
Electoral officials at a polling station in the Ecole de la République in Bamako, Mali, during the presidential election. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has helped with the transportation and setup of election materials in the weeks leading up to election day.
28 July 2013
Bamako, Mali
In Gleno, a city in 30 kilometres southwest of Dili, voters turned out from 7 am at Konis Santana School to vote in today’s presidential run-off. A woman drops her ballot in the box.
16 April 2012
Gleno, Timor-Leste
A family displays a voter registration card a polling station in Timor-Leste. Timorese voted in a presidential run-off poll today, which follows the first round of voting held on 17 March.
16 April 2012
Timor-Leste
Polling staff begin to count ballots after a day of voting in Dili, Timor-Leste. The country held its second presidential elections since independence from Indonesia in 2002.
17 March 2012
Dili, Timor-Leste
A woman holds up her voting card as she waits in line at a polling station in Grand Laho, Côte d’Ivoire, during legislative by-elections. By-elections were organized in eleven of the country’s constituencies after irregularities were found in the original vote held on 11 December.
26 February 2012
Grand Laho, Côte d’Ivoire
A woman signs a document certifying her vote in Côte d’Ivoire’s legislative elections, at a polling station in Abidjan.
11 December 2011
Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
A woman signs a document certifying her vote in Côte d’Ivoire’s legislative elections, at a polling station in Bondoukou.
11 December 2011
Bondoukou, Côte d’Ivoire
Voters turn out in large numbers in Juba, capital of South Sudan, on the first day of polling in the South’s long-awaited self-determination referendum. Many voters slept at polling stations in order to be one of the first to cast ballots in the plebiscite which will determine whether Sudan remains united or Southern Sudan secedes to form a new country.
09 January 2011
Juba, Sudan
A South Sudanese voter shows her inked finger and registration card after casting a ballot in the South’s historic referendum on independence, on the first day of polling, in Omdurman, near Khartoum, capital of Sudan.
09 January 2011
Omdurman, Sudan
Voters turn out in large numbers in Juba, capital of South Sudan, on the first day of polling in the South’s long-awaited self-determination referendum. Many voters slept at polling stations in order to be one of the first to cast ballots in the plebiscite which will determine whether Sudan remains united or Southern Sudan secedes to form a new country.
09 January 2011
Juba, Sudan
Afghan citizens go to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to vote in presidential and provincial council elections. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), have congratulated the people of Afghanistan and paid tribute to all those who made the largely peaceful polls possible.
20 August 2009
Herat, Afghanistan
Afghan citizens go to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to vote in presidential and provincial council elections. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), have congratulated the people of Afghanistan and paid tribute to all those who made the largely peaceful polls possible.
20 August 2009
Herat, Afghanistan
Afghan citizens go to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to vote in presidential and provincial council elections. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), have congratulated the people of Afghanistan and paid tribute to all those who made the largely peaceful polls possible.
20 August 2009
Herat, Afghanistan
An official from Sudan’s National Elections Commission (left) assists a voter at a polling station in Juba, Sudan. Originally set for 11 to 13 April, the date to vote in Sudan’s general elections has been extended by an additional two days.
12 April 2010
Juba, Sudan
Afghan citizens go to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to vote in presidential and provincial council elections. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), have congratulated the people of Afghanistan and paid tribute to all those who made the largely peaceful polls possible.
20 August 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan
Afghan citizens go to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to vote in presidential and provincial council elections. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), have congratulated the people of Afghanistan and paid tribute to all those who made the largely peaceful polls possible.
20 August 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan
Voters came in large numbers, especially among women, to exercise their right to elect new regional, parliamentary, and presidential representatives in the notably orderly and peaceful Parliamentary and Presidential elections in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. UN election observers from the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) organized and carried out the elections.
Voter at polling station in Erbil.
25 July 2009
Erbil, Iraq
Iraqi women voters stand in line, waiting to enter a polling station.
31 January 2009
Ramadi, Iraq
Melanie Ramjoue (right), a United Nations Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), sensitizes the women electorate of Mongwalu on good governance ahead of the second round of presidential and provincial elections in Bunia, Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
27 October 2006
Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo
A local Macamba woman gets marked with permanent ink after voting in the national referendum on the draft of post-transition constitution, marking the first step in the electoral process to end the transitional period.
28 February 2005
Macamba, Burundi
Voting at a rural polling station in Catembe on the second day of the elections.
28 October 1994
Catembe, Mozambique
A woman casting a vote in a polling station in a suburb of Maputo.
28 October 1994
Xipamanine, Mozambique
A United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) staff member (left) is examining the hand of a woman attempting to vote (right). Using an ultraviolet light, the UNTAC worker is looking for signs of the “invisible” ink which is applied to the right hand index fingers of all voters. The woman will be allowed to vote if her voter registration card is in order, and her finger is free of any previous inking.
23 May 1993
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
A Cambodian voter and her child at a polling station in Phnom Penh on the first day of voting. The election, for a national constituent assembly, is being carried out under the supervision of UNTAC.
23 May 1993
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
This woman’s hand is being examined under an ultraviolet light for signs of the invisible fluorescent ink which is applied to the right hand index fingers of all voters. She will be allowed to vote if, her voter registration card is in order, and her finger is free of any previous inking. The election was held from 23-28 May 1993 under the supervision of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
23 May 1993
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) electoral staff showing a video on voting to the residents of a village in Ratanakiri.
04 March 1993
Ratanakiri, Cambodia
Namibians lining up at a voting registration centre in Katatura to register to vote in the upcoming elections. United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) staff supervise voter registrar.
01 July 1989
Windhoek, Namibia
A woman voter checks in before casting her vote in the second round of presidential and provincial elections in Bunia, Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
29 October 2006
Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo
A Korean woman with her baby strapped to her back and an elderly Korean gentleman, each cast a vote into the ballot box, exercising their newly-acquired right to elect representatives to government posts, a right that has been forbidden to the citizens of Korea for four thousand years of its history.
10 May 1948
Pusan, Republic of Korea
Sierra Leoneans take to the polls in Freetown, the capital of the West African nation, to vote in the third presidential and parliamentary elections since the end of civil war in 2002.
17 November 2012
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Potential Liberian voters and the curious young stand in knee deep water waiting to cast their vote on election day, today in Doe Township, Liberia.
12 October 2005
Doe Township, Liberia