Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights: Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands
Categories: International,Cultures,Human Rights,Conflict,Politics,news
Women wearing the burka in Baharak town, Afghanistan. Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 14.17 BST
- Article history
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.
Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women's rights groups remain, including this one: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."
The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday.
Human Rights Watch, which has obtained a copy of the final law, called on all candidates to pledge to repeal the law, which it says contradicts Afghanistan's own constitution.
The group said that Karzai had "made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election".
Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director, said: "The rights of Afghan women are being ripped up by powerful men who are using women as pawns in manoeuvres to gain power.
"These kinds of barbaric laws were supposed to have been relegated to the past with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, yet Karzai has revived them and given them his official stamp of approval."
The latest opinion poll by US democracy group the International Republican Institute showed that although Karzai was up 13 points to 44% since the last survey in May, his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, had soared from 7% to 26%.
If those numbers prove accurate, it would mean the contest would have to go to a second round run-off vote in early October. In that scenario, 50% of voters said they would vote for Karzai and 29% for Abdullah.
The survey was conducted in mid to late July, so it is not known whether Abdullah has made further gains on Karzai.
He could further increase his chance of victory by joining forces with Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister who is also running on a platform fiercely critical of Karzai.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 2,400 people polled by IRI said they would like to see an alliance between Abdullah and Ghani, who is polling in fourth place.
Article: HERE
This is so horrific it is beyond words. I know what this kind of life is for a woman and it is no life. I have known Afghan women. I pray for them, now.
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I very much agree... they need all the prayers, and efforts on their behalf, that people can muster.
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Thanks for posting this.
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Thanks Meghan, glad to raise awareness about this...
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This is truly horrible but we have to also remember that it is easy for us to condemn the same kind of sub-human practices which were enforced until very recently were part of Western forms of patriarchal monotheism and which were based on interpretations of Saul of Tarsus.
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Spousal rape :
In particular, St. Paul's teaching,
"Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
(1 Corinthians 7:3-5, NKJV).
This can be seen in Common law, in force in North America and the British Commonwealth, where the very concept of marital rape was treated as an impossibility.
This was illustrated most vividly by Sir Matthew Hale, in his 1736 classic legal treatise, Historia Placitorum Coronae, History of the Pleas of the Crown, where he wrote that such a rape could not be recognized since the wife "…hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract."
As the concept of human rights has developed, the belief of a marital right to sexual intercourse has become less widely held. In December 1993, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women [3].
This establishes marital rape as a human rights violation.
This is not fully recognized by all UN member states.
In 1997, UNICEF reported that just 17 states criminalized marital rape.[2]
In 2003, UNIFEM reported that more than 50 states did so.[3]
In 2006, the UN Secretary General found "Marital rape may be prosecuted in at least 104 States.
Of these, 32 have made marital rape a specific criminal offence, while the remaining 74 [sic] do not exempt marital rape from general rape provisions.
Four States criminalize marital rape only when the spouses are judicially separated."[3]
Many United States rape statutes used to preclude spousal prosecution, including estranged or even legally separated couples.
In 1975, South Dakota removed this exception.[4]
In 1993, North Carolina became the last state to remove the spousal exemption.
However, as of 1999, 33 of 50 U.S. states regard spousal rape as a lesser crime [Bergen, 1999].
The perpetrator may be charged with related crimes such as assault, battery, or spousal abuse.
It is also known that even if a spouse has an illness causing an inability to sexually respond, the other spouse may engage him or her in conjugal relations without criminal liability.
There are other criminal charges that may be inapplicable to married couples.
For example, in the U.
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For example, in the U.S., there is a marriage exemption to the charge of statutory rape even if one of the spouses is under the age of consent in the jurisdiction where the sexual act takes place.
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I find it hard to understand how such attitudes could have ever been regarded as legal let alone spiritual in the first place and however much I may find them to be repulsive and unacceptable it is still worth looking at what is going on in our own backyard before always pointing the fingers at other cultures.
Thank you for at least raising the profile of this important human rights issue.
As is evident from the patterns of violence in Afghanistan the real threat to the patriarchs comes from education which is why there is so much effort to "dumb-down" the culture by the violent attacks of the young girls who risk their lives to attend school.
At least that aspect of monotheistic bigotry is less overt in the "developed" world although it certainly seems to exist as a social undercurrent.
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Thanks for making a comment... I, and many other women, are quite aware of the history of subjugation of females in the Western traditions, and we are not merely pointing a finger at other cultures whilst ignoring the same problems in our own backyards. It simply makes us very angry that it is exists anywhere, and if we do not speak out against it because of the legacy our fore-mothers suffered, then we are doing an injustice to all humans everywhere.
I agree with you that it is hard to understand how such attitudes could ever be considered "legal and spiritual." Not to worry, though; I doubt any of us are failing to look at what is going on in our own backyards and then taking issue with these problems elsewhere. This ongoing overbearing and ignoble threat and destruction of basic human rights and compassion is something I think we can all agree needs to not only be fought everywhere on an ongoing basis, but that any number of us have fought against these strictures here in the West.
Thanks, I am more than happy to raise the profile of these very important human rights issues. The best we can do is to not just let others languish, but to use what power we have as individuals who have more rights in our lives, such as the right to vote and speak out, so that we can hopefully bring political pressure to bear in order to make the lives of any individual better. It is more than worth the effort! (While also realizing not only how far we have come insofar as women gaining more rights in the West, but how far we still need to go to true equality and protection of all.)
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The point I was trying to make was the problem of gender-prejudice that seems to be diverting attention from the original source of these problems.
It begins with the assumption that these are only issues which are of concern to women rather than to society as a whole and your opening sentence reveals something of that thought-process:
Thanks for making a comment... I, and many other women
Why did you not simply put, I, and many other people?
Can you see what I am getting at? The discussion of these issues of basic human rights tends to reinforce gender-separatism rather than focus on the issues of patriarchal religious attitudes which are the main reasons why it has been so difficult to remove such barbaric attitudes from our legal systems.
The misogyny preached by Saul of Tarsus had very little in common with those of either Yeshua (in whose name the Roman citizen and collaborator Paul presumed to preach) but it also had little to do with the kinds of schools of humanitarian mainstream Judaism of the time.
Paul's attitudes towards women (and his hatred of the Jewish tradition) seems to have been part of the secular macho mindset of the corrupt Roman Empire just as his spiritual teachings are known to be drawn secondhand from the Greek schools of philosophy rather than the beliefs of either the earliest Christian communities or what was being preached by prominent rabbis such as Hillel at the time.
Paul managed to subvert the teachings of Yeshua and make misogyny an acceptable part of mainstream religion.
This, in turn, had a knock-on effect which promoted similar social attitudes in the Middle East and which turned the egalatarian matrilineal communities of the Middle East and Arabia within a few centuries into the strict patriarchal lands they are now.
If we do not make an effort to explore the root-cause of a disease then we will only ever manage to treat the symptoms.
By simply looking at examples of patriarchal marriage laws in Islamic countries without pointing out that similar laws still exist in the States and in other parts of the world we are only going to make matters worse and will make things look much more like some Western Crusade rather than a movement for genuine social change based on secular humanist ethic and un-common sense.
Just as there are many women who support the worst aspects of patriarchal oppression there are also men who actively campaign against gender-inequality.
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"Thanks for making a comment... I, and many other women"
I fully well know the point you are trying to make, and as you do not know me in the least, you have no idea that I have worked with men on these same issues. Seeing as the only other person besides yourself who left a comment at that time was a woman, and that you left a comment about how we should not point fingers when we have problems in our own backyards, I spoke in a more specific manner whilst you were speaking in a more general manner.
I welcome your comments about this issue and on this blog, but do not fail to remember that you and I do not know one another, and much in your comment is presumptuous on your part. As far as "reinforcing gender-separatism," flame and I were commiserating on the plight of the women in Afghanistan, and you came on with a list of problems and a 'reminder' we should not point fingers. Your comment, and admonishments about my comment, can come off as a bit 'patriarchal' in its tone insofar as you are making a great many assumptions about our views on the issue and attempting to 'teach' us the error of our ways (though I welcome the discussion about what is wrong human rights-wise anywhere, your tone is not so much that you are talking with us, but "at" us. That is rather patriarchal).
In general I would say "I and other people," but she and I are women. And as women, I am sure we both have many experiences (I know I do) of speaking out about these kinds of issues to a less than responsive male audience.
We do indeed need to be aware of such problems existing in the West. In fact, I have seen some heated discussions on here when I posted things about such problems here in the U.S. And much of it was not receptive to shining a light on these issues here. Most of us women who bring up anything about these issues are still labeled "b*tches*, so if you are a male willing to discuss these problems, more power to you.
And as I specifically said many times after once saying "I, and other women," this is something we speak out about in order to protect all human beings. Read the rest of what I said: "The best we can do is to not just let others languish, but to use what power we have as individuals who have more rights in our lives, such as the right to vote and speak out, so that we can hopefully bring political pressure to bear in order to make the lives of any individual better. It is more than worth the effort! (While also realizing not only how far we have come insofar as women gaining more rights in the West, but how far we still need to go to true equality and protection of all.)"
That does not smack of gender-separatism to me.
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PS)
"Just as there are many women who support the worst aspects of patriarchal oppression there are also men who actively campaign against gender-inequality."
You are quite right in this, and thank goodness for those men who actively campaign against gender-inequality
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This is unacceptable. We have a responsibility to speak for them and tell their stories as much as possible, so as to shine the worlds eyes on this barbaric inhumane behavior. Any society that would condone such acts of violence against it's women has reached the very limits of depravity. Praying may give us the comfort denied our sisters, but writing their stories is the only thing that WE CAN surely do to increase pressure on their abusers. Thank you for posting this and raising consciousness.
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I very much agree Christine! We must speak out, and keep these issues as much in the light as possible.
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You are most welcome as I have traveled this road in the "western civilized culture", becoming the first woman in the State of Colorado to have gained a successful prosecution of her husband for Martial Sexual Assault and then to win a civil suit for the same. He picked on the wrong girl and the State picked the right one to test the exemption clause to the sexual assault statute. Which states that a husband cannot use marital status to shield him from prosecution.
I will add that it was easier to get through the Criminal Justice System, which is no easy task, than to get through the Church and the Medical and Psychiatric communities. We must change not only our laws but our hearts and remember if you must.
Ephesians 5:22-27 "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her and make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with the water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle, or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." NIV
The above is still a variation of an older interpretation given to me by my Priest, which states "that a husband is to treat his wife as he would treat Christ's church." RSV
Reading Paul's entire thought on the subject is critical if one is to use the Bible to direct their behavior towards their wife. Too often the words of the bible are taken out of context and used against the very persons they were intended to protect.
Illumination of hearts and minds by writing about this, is the only way we are going to successfully change this depraved behavior towards women.
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Wow, Christine. I am both stunned, and cheering you on with a mighty gust. That is impressive. I am very proud of you and the prosecutors. Hoorah for Colorado too! You are awesome, in the truest sense of the word.
hugs
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To me it's just horrific that a man is so self centered as to actually starve his wife for not having sex with him as well as custody laws spoken of in the article. For a woman to lose consent of her own body is for her to lose consent of her whole self. She becomes a slave.
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Precisely ! The violent oppression of women and slavery are both associated with the rise of the patriarchal war-cults which had an economy and militaristic social structure which was based more on the conquest and exploitation of nature and the people of other tribes or races rather than on production of wealth and fair-trade.
These things emerged from an extreme form of secular materialism and enabled by the technologies which fuelled armed conflict but were given divine sanction and a far greater scope once they became part of the "spiritual values" of the established patriarchal religions which provided a basis for further oppression that could not be questioned.
The more our awareness of prehistory grows - the more we can begin to understand that, as a species, we existed for millenia without such highly structured forms of sub-human injustice and that to follow such divisive, bloodstained blueprints into the future is simply no longer sustainable.
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Thanks very much for your comment; I agree that it is high time for people to realize that our human history actually included cultures that behaved in a far more egalitarian manner than we ever as a whole give them credit for. Thanks for your thoughts!
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I really agree Debbie. Thanks so much for your comment. Nice to 'see' you again!
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