Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights

[AsahinaKimi]

Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands.


Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/14/afghanistan-womens-rights-rape

[WinkyDink]

1. Not to mention the child-"bride" nature of some of those "marriages" (crimes against children).

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Is the "no fuck, no food" rhetoric in Karzai's platform?

[Orsino]

3. Remind me why we are still defending that regime? n/t

[cliffordu]

4. I just LOVE our allies in the war on ter'r

Our drug dealing mysoginistic psychotic 13th century allies.

:puke: