By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Afghan women are taking to the streets to demand that Parliament repeal a draconian new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on their activity and permits, among others things, marital rape.
The law, approved by both houses of Parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai, applies to the Shiite minority only.
Three parts of the law are especially egregious and are being protested by women within Afghanistan as well as international human rights groups. One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband’s sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband’s permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to “make herself up” or “dress up” if that is what her husband wants.
“Whenever a man wants sex, we cannot refuse,” said Fatima Husseini, 26, one of about 300 women who risked an angry mob to walk the streets of Kabul in protest. “It means a woman is a kind of property, to be used by the man in any way that he wants.”
President Karzai, who relies on vast support from the United States and other Western governments to stay in power, has come under intense international criticism for signing the bill into law. Many people suspect that he did so because he is up for re-election this year and wants to gain the favor of the Shiite clergy.
In response to the international outcry, however, Mr. Karzai claims to be looking for a way to remove the most controversial parts of the law. According to The New York Times, his spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said that the legislation was not yet law because it had not been published in the government’s official register. That, Mr. Hamidzada said, means that it can still be changed. Mr. Karzai has asked his justice minister to look it over.
“We have no doubt that whatever comes out of this process will be consistent with the rights provided for in the Constitution — equality and the protection of women,” Mr. Hamidzada said.
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