KABUL – A NEW Afghan law makes it legal for men to rape their wives, human rights groups and some Afghan lawmakers said on Thursday, accusing President Hamid Karzai of signing the legislation to bolster his re-election prospects.
Critics worry the legislation undermines hard-won rights for women enacted after the fall of the Taleban’s strict Islamist regime.
The law – which some lawmakers say was never debated in parliament – is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan’s Shiite community, which makes up about 20 per cent of this country of 30 million people. The law does not affect Afghan Sunnis.
One of the most controversial articles stipulates the wife ‘is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires.’ ‘As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,’ Article 132 of the law says. ‘Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.’ One provision also appears to protect the woman’s right to sex inside marriage saying the ‘man should not avoid having sexual relations with his wife longer than once every four months.’ The law’s critics say Karzai signed the legislation in the past month only for political gains several months before the country’s presidential election.
The United Nations Development Fund for Women, or Unifem, said the law ‘legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband.’ ‘The law violates women’s rights and human rights in numerous ways,’ a Unifem statement said.
The U.S. is ‘very concerned’ about the law, said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. ‘We urge President Karzai to review the law’s legal status to correct provisions of the law that limit or restrict women’s rights.’ Mr Wood added that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had met with female Afghan lawmakers in The Hague and had assured them that ‘women’s rights are going to be paramount in this administration’s foreign policy, not an afterthought.’ Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay said he will use this week’s NATO summit to put ‘direct’ pressure on his Afghan counterparts to abandon the legislation.
The issue of women’s rights is a continuous source of tension between the country’s conservative establishment and more liberal members of society. The Taleban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 banned women from appearing in public without a body-covering burqa and a male escort from her family.
Much has improved since then. Millions of girls now attend school and many women own businesses. Of 351 parliamentarians, 89 are women. But in this staunchly conservative country, critics fear those gains could easily be reversed.
Fawzia Kufi, a lawmaker who opposed the legislation, said several of its articles undermine constitutional and human rights of women as equals and take the country backward.
Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, a Shiite lawmaker involved in drafting it, defended the legislation saying it gives more rights to women than even Britain or the United States does. He said the law makes women safer and ensures the husband is obliged to provide for her. — AP
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