New Law Poses Severe Threat to Afghan Women

A new Shia family law signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai sometime last month, but not yet published, would severely restrict women's rights in Afghanistan. Karzai, according to news sources, signed the bill to court the Hazara vote in the upcoming presidential election. The law has not yet been published, but according to The Guardian contains provisions that would restrict women from leaving their homes, working, going to school, or obtaining medical care without their husbands’ permission. The law also includes a provision that women cannot refuse their husbands sex and a provision that grants child custody only to men. Ustad Mohammad Akbari, leader of the Hazara party, told The Guardian that the law gives women the right to refuse sex with their husbands if they are ill or have a "reasonable excuse" and allows women the right to leave their homes without permission in an emergency.

Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who worked against the legislation, told The Independent UK that the law "is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century….It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."

The Globe and Mail reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that the law "is an area of absolute concern for the United States….My message is very clear. Women's rights are a central part of the foreign policy of the Obama administration."

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=11613

living in this century who think this right.

and are afraid that the woman might have a say if allowed the normal human rights of anyone. They are pigs. Saudi Arabia is the same way...most of these women are just slaves plain and simple. I wish the women could revolt with guns .........and shoot these men you know where.

For some reason, when it comes to the horrors the women of that country experience every day, nobody seems to notice.

I'm definitely no expert, but I remember reading that Afghanistan is the worst place to be a woman.

Saudi Arabia is repressive towards women, but you should check out the No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain episode and travels to Saudi Arabia to see what it's like first-hand. There are many restrictions on women, but Afghanistan has been much worse under the Taliban, and may return to those horrific days with Karzai's betrayal of Afghan women.

I think every Afghan woman needs to buy an AK-47 and stock up on ammo while she still has the chance. It's gonna get ugly.

barbaric towards their women. It has to stop.

without a male relative accompanying them, are punished with prison and lashings for being raped, forced into marriage as children, etc... A tightly-controlled travel show about Saudi Arabia is certainly not dealing with the daily reality of the women of SA. Film crews are not allowed any freedom when in SA. It is rare to even see inside the country at all, and when they allow anyone in to film, everything is controlled and censored.

that the Pashtuns (the ethnic group that the Taliban come from) are actually Sunni. This person surmised that the reporter was confused somehow. He noted that women in Iran, a Shiite state, have more rights than women in the Taliban areas.

Our tax dollars at work, let's hope Hillary gets to work on this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR2008122500931.html

Mustn't be prejudiced

Sharia law is horrendously brutal to all the citizens under it and especially to women. The case recently (I believe in Somalia) of a 13 year old child who was raped and stoned to death for being the victim should have every human being on the planet screaming for the overturn of this archaic and abusive system that is such a cruel parody of law.

Most Muslims do not believe in this brutal and archaic system of laws. Most Muslim nations have a more moderate and modern system of justice that recognize that the world and human rights have advanced in the last thousand years, rather than regressing and becoming more and more restrictive.

To just shrug it off as "Different countries, different customs" is asinine or purely evil, just as the people who shrugged off the treatment and killings of Jews and other minorities in Nazi Germany. Our country should be better than this. We should not be supporting the Afghan government if they follow Sharia law since it is against everything that we claim to be fighting for.

It's like a mossy smell, but less pleasant.

It was just a bit too tempting to flame it up with the sarcasm for this one ;-)

leave mine out of it.psst, the usa armed the taliban in the 80s and gave them 40 million dollars. we created it.
its not our job to police the fucking world.

Get those women some guns and knives! Sharp ones!