| As much as I'd like to help the average, ordinary people of Afghanistan, I have my limits, and Karzai is seriously testing them. Perhaps it's time for the north and west of that country to secede and let the Pashtuns sink on their own. |
A leaked copy of the laws obtained by The Times details new strictures for Afghanistan's Shia minority. Women are banned from leaving the home without permission. A wife has the absolute duty to provide sexual services to her husband, and child marriage is legalised.
Details of the legislation emerged as President Obama and other world leaders wrapped up the G20 summit to fly to a Nato summit marking 60 years of the alliance. Mr Obama is pushing for an increase in Nato troop numbers in Afghanistan, but many allies have already rebuffed his calls. The new laws may provide an excuse for remaining waverers to join them.
Canada, which is the third largest contributor of forces to the Nato mission in Afghanistan, has already warned that it may rethink its troop contribution if the law was not repealed.
Opponents of the Afghan President accused him of selling out basic human rights for women in return for the votes of hardline Shia conservatives for the presidential election in August. Although the Shia minority, which comprises 20 per cent of the population, is considered religiously moderate, their political leaders are conservative. Community leaders are relied on to deliver their people's votes and women are presumed to vote in accordance with their husband.
International reaction has been slowed by secrecy surrounding the law, which was passed without a formal debate and signed off by President Karzai this week, but is yet to be made law.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, became aware of it only when it was raised by her Finnish counterpart at the Afghanistan conference in The Hague on Wednesday. She is said to have raised the issue with him but without the full text President Karzai was spared her opprobrium.
Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said he was troubled by the law and would lobby other leaders to support him in seeking to have it repealed. "This is antithetical to our mission in Afghanistan," he said. Stockwell Day, the Canadian Trade Minister, who is chairman of the Cabinet committee on Afghanistan, warned that if Kabul did not back down Canadian support for the Government could be imperilled. "If there is any wavering on this point, this will create serious difficulties, serious problems for the Government of Canada," he told reporters in Ottawa.
Canada has 2,800 troops fighting in southern Afghanistan and has suffered the highest relative number of casualties of any contingent with 116 of its soldiers dead. Britain, with 8,000 troops, has lost 152 in Afghanistan.
Mike Gapes, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, called the law deplorable. "We did not go into Afghanistan to remove the Taleban only to have Taleban-style policies reimplemented by the Government," he said. "But this raises big question marks about the nature of the Afghan Government."
The Afghan Government refused to comment until Saturday, which is after the Nato summit. Speaking yesterday both Mrs Clinton and General James Jones, Mr Obama's national security adviser, denied that they had given up on getting more Nato soldiers for the fight against a Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan.
The legislation is based on the Shia family code first brought before Parliament two years ago, to the horror of women legislators who make up more than a quarter of the assembly. Under the same constitution, each religious group is to have its own family law. Opponents said that it contravenes the founding charter in many ways -- not least Article 22, which enshrines equality of the sexes before the law.
One of the most controversial articles stipulates that the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires".
Later it explicitly sanctions marital rape. "As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,"
Article 132 says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."
| How old were the 'men' who wrote this? |
Article 27 endorses child marriage with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate.
Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, a Shia lawmaker involved in drafting the law, defended the legislation, saying that it gives more rights to women than even Britain or the US does.