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Afghanistan Passes 'Barbaric' Law Diminishing Women's RIghts
Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands
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.
Women wearing the burka in Baharak town, Afghanistan. Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters "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.
25 Comments so far
Show AllThis is an old story in the Middle East, where women have always been bought and sold as chattels, and still are. BUT this is NOT supported by the Koran. Nevertheless, this kind of oppression of women produces a sickness within the culture, akin to the sickness of violence which permeates my own country. The Russians have an old saying: U kazhdomu rodu urodu. Every people has its monster. Hope for the future should include elimination of these horrid attitudes about women there, and the horrid attitudes about violence and war here. [And, I am sure, some horrid attitudes in other places, as the Russian proverb indicates.] We cannot change one iota of what happened ten minutes ago. But we can change tomorrow. And all tomorrows.
MichaelC
Best thing to do is pull our troops out of Afghanistan and stop trying to tell them what to do. I'm sick of all the bs when this guy or that guy is supposed to be the bad guy and we go bomb them or cut their food off or shut down their markets. We got enough problems here as it is, let them kill each other or whatever they want to do. Long term, we could drop booklets from the air teaching their women how to castrate men in a safe and efficient manner.
It's not that simple. Don't forget the prospective oil pipelines and the question about who's going to control the opium trade.
There's no oil in Afghanistan. If they want to grow opium, let them - we just have to legalize it, and let's see if they can beat an opium farm in Nebraska.
The pipelines would be to bring gas from the 'stans' to the ocean without going through territory controlled by Russia.
i see. So they're gas pipelines, not oil pipelines. However, looking at Googleearth, I see that going from the stans to the ocean doesn't seem to be very practical. Once the gas gets to the Indian ocean in Pakistan, what do you do with it, blow up balloons? To me this pipeline idea is just one of those things people say to justify having our troops in Afghanistan. And I'm opposed to having our troops anywhere outside the US.
Wow! It sure is a good thing that the Soviets and the regime that they supported got kicked out along with its women's rights agenda.
Just image how barbaric Afghanistan would be if the U.S. and its NATO allies weren't there to ensure "freedom and democracy" -- and just incidentally a secure pipeline route.
Succinct summary.
Joe
You seem to have put it into a nutshell. Women WERE making progress under the Soviets. Our interference in that region of the world will haunt us for decades. We helped create Monster Afghanistan, and now must live with it.
Whatever. It beats being blown apart by a US drone.
When the US steps down as Barbarian King, we can talk about Afghan's political powers distorting Islamic Law to oppress women.
When will America's religious reich install this law in the US?
This is total bs, you know. We're sending soldiers to fight over there to keep in power a bunch of barbarians.
So much for liberating them.
For anyone to expect 'democracy' from any Islamic 'nation' is absolute ignorance of Islam. I have studied 'comparative religion' at the university level---and would love to debate with anyone 'out there' concerning the validity of any religion, but especially one that negate the women to a lower status than the men.
Islam does not lend itself to 'Democracy". In fact Islam, subordinated the Pagan Religion of the Medieval Arabs which were most likely "matriarchal" as opposed to the Judean/Christian/Islamic ---- "patriarchal"---"Barbaric" indeed
For those Americans out there who believe the propaganda that Egypt is an 'Islamic Democracy', they need only study Islam to understand that that 'lie' is so blatant as to be laughable.
The strongest Allie of the USA in the area is Saudi Arabia and they have the same 'Sharia' laws that the Afghanistan's have. Their women are not allowed to even drive automobiles.
Their women are slaves, for sex and reproduction, and most often are used for 'barter' in arranged marriages.
The real irony is that for most American women to be forced into such a 'marriage' would be unthinkable. Yet, for most American women, they do not seem to care if there are billions of US tax dollars being used there that could be used here---or their sons and daughters who are there wasting their lives fighting to support a Medieval Religion that they would not support here. No matter how often they had been told that it was 'the will of God'.............American women would not tolerate such treatment. How many of those same American women support the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan---supporting Islam, while they do not support Universal Health Care equating it to 'Socialism/Communism. Neither Socialism or Communism would support the same treatment of women.
The difference is the Islamic women are taught from the earliest age that they are inferior to the men--and it is the 'will of Allah'. They truly do not know any different, and it appears from this article that they will have little or no help from their 'sisters' here---in the Great Liberating Democracy---America.
Those Americans are some 'strange people'.
But then, one must take into consideration that the Americans are simply slaves themselves---some are slaves to a religion, some are 'slaves to fashion', some are slaves to other entities: but ALL Americans( with the exception of those '12 decent Americans') are slaves to the Plutocratic Oligarchy that 'feeds the need' to support what Americans would not tolerate--- in America.
Well for now anyway.
Don't forget. There are still millions of Americans that truly believed that "God wanted GW Bush" to be president.
As for me and my 'tribe': we do not worship a "God" or a "Goddess", but recognize our place in the order of nature, and know that without our women: we could never exist.
They are held in the highest respect and esteem, and expected to share the leadership.
We could not exist without them.
Most of us refer to the Earth as our 'Grandmother'.
The ending to your post was okay, but why do you single out Islam so strongly? Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity are predominantly misogynistic also. Not all Islamic nations are as oppressive as is Afganistan.
Please understand, I have very little appetite for any organized dogma, but the fact is that women in Iran had the vote before women in the U.S.A. The problems with religious fundamentalists in many Muslim nations (Iran, Iraq, Afganistan, Egypt, Indonesia,...) can, without much trouble, be traced to their interaction with (mainly from about the time of World War 1 and the rise of the petroleum-based economies), and support by, the Western imperialist regimes which were trying to manipulate them for monetary profit.
Most traditional agricultural and nomadic societies treat women and children as property that was handled by commerce and inheritance. Harsh, but remember "Grandmother Nature" only "cares about" or "counts" sufficient replacement offspring, not how individuals feel about their lot.
All three religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism have Leviticus as a "founding behavior code". Read it and "get it". All religions can produce altruistic reinterpretations and individuals... but environmental and social stress drives these populations back into regressive fundamentalisms as a way to regroup and retrenchment.
Blood (thus female) taboos and inequality of punishment is inherant in archaic faiths. You can't find modern proportion or reasonableness in Archaic Tabbo rooted religion - Just 2 examople of material form the "Infallible Text":
Lev. 15:18 The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even. ...
Lev. 15:20 And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. ...
Lev. 20:18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
and
Lev. 20:10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
...
Lev. 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
------------------------------
Gnosticism becomes despotism when it goes beyond the skin.
Good point about Saudi Arabia. How many articles do you see in the mainstream press about women's rights in Saudi Arabia? SA is our good buddy, so hey...
The anti-woman laws being passed in Afghanistan are barbaric and awful. Here is a question: What was the status of women before we intervened? Were they being educated and entering professions and positions of polical power? My recollection is that they were making major advances.
The first time we intervened we strengthened the religious right so they could oppose the Soviet Union. Our second major intervention post 911 we are strengthening any kleptocratic misogynistic male gang leader we can bribe. This does not help women.
As horrible as these laws are, the presence of a large violent ham-fisted imperialistic force will not help the Afghans to democratize their country.
Joe
You remind me of those Glenn Beck type wing nuts who blame Islam for every ill on this world. For my part, I condemn what is happening in Afghanistan to women, it is unislamic. It's even more of a reason that the US should be condemned for propping up the Karzai regime which allow for the abuse of women as payola to appease a certain sect or interest group. But you condemn a whole faith which is wrong. BTW countries with predominately Islamic populations like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Pakistan have had women as either Presidents or Prime Ministers. Also you might want to read up on Islamic Spain. It was a place of tolerance where Jews, Christians and Muslims interacted positively. Creativity, science, architecture and literature fluorished in Islamic Spain long before the so-called Rennaisance. It was the inquisition that brought on the new dark ages. There are more than a billion Muslims on this Earth, so you need not be so negatively stereotypical of a faith that you know nothing about. Oh but that's right, you studied comparative religion in college so that would make you an expert, huh?
I think that part of the reason there is not more outrage from the United States about this is that the U.S. has been hijacked by a cynical oligarchy that uses our own fundamentalists as foot soldiers and has thoroughly intimidated the seemingly more moderate politicians, such as Obama, who supposedly hold power at the moment. Fundamentalist Christian literature is full of language about how women must "submit" to their husbands, "obey" their husbands in all things, and not use birth control. For a really nauseating dose of this stuff, google the "quiverfull movement." It would make an Islamic fundamentalist proud.
It happens every day. It's no big deal: Female circumcision. They cut away the labia major and the labia minor and sometimes the clitoris.
Infection is likely both after the ceremony and recurrent throughout life. It's bloody and messy, never mind painful with no anesthetic, never mind dirty with no antibiotics.
Male circumcision is quite barbaric enough but this practice belongs in some lurid believe-it-or-not porno comic with the caption that it used to happen now and then in very backward societies.
I'd like to see some of our pious Christian brethren witness the spectacle and come back still secretly enthusiastic about the practice.
The whole idea is that women should never enjoy sex. How could they when forced to fuck when the pain of an infection is already driving them to the edge of insanity.
Please don't send me back here.
Are women allowed to vote or even to participate in a poll without fear of retribution? What a farce these elections are. Our young troops are being used to protect the right of corrupt, cult, war lords to continue to rule like tyrannts in Afghanistan. It is not a culture, it is a religious cult. We hear that US soldiers are fighting the bad guys. Are these lawmakers that permit the rape of women ( there is no difference with the change in the wording of the law using food as a weapon to force sex), suppose to be the good guys???
You exhibit much common sense.
Joe
Bring America Back !!!!
****Listen ! Well, why then dont we just spend 15 or 20 more years explaining to the Afghans, how we as an
enlightened society nation, obtained civil rights for our
women and people of color ???
**Or, is that what we are already doing ??
**Becuz, for sure we can't even convince the Talibanic
farmers of Afghan to stop growing and exporting Opium.
They clearly see poppys as a cash crop and their women
are not ! Maybe the new Bourkinis will help.
Warren Buffett would like to add some kind of burka manufacturing outfit to his portfolio.
Warren Buffett would like to add some kind of burka manufacturing outfit to his portfolio.