Afghan law legalizes marital rape, critics say

KABUL — A new Afghan law makes it legal for men to rape their wives, human-rights groups and some Afghan lawmakers said Thursday, accusing President Hamid Karzai of signing the legislation to bolster his re-election prospects.

Critics worry the legislation undermines hard-won rights for women enacted after the fall of the Taliban's Islamist regime.

The law — which some lawmakers said was never debated in parliament — is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up about 20 percent of the country of 30 million people. The law does not affect Afghan Sunnis.

One key article stipulates the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."

"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law 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."

One provision also appears to protect the woman's right to sex inside marriage saying the "man should not avoid having sexual relations with his wife longer than once every four months."

The law's critics said Karzai signed the legislation in the past month only for political gains several months before the country's presidential election.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM, said the law "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband."

The United States is "very concerned" about the law, said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "We urge President Karzai to review the law's legal status to correct provisions of the law that limit or restrict women's rights."

Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay said he will use this week's NATO summit to put "direct" pressure on his Afghan counterparts to abandon the legislation.

The Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 banned women from appearing in public without a burqa and a male escort from her family.

Much has improved since then. Millions of girls attend school and many women own businesses. Of 351 parliamentarians, 89 are women.

But critics fear those gains could easily be reversed.

Fawzia Kufi, a lawmaker who opposed the legislation, said several of its articles undermine constitutional and human rights of women as equals and take the country backward.

Karzai has not commented on the law. A spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the president is "aware of the discussion surrounding the law and is looking into the matter."

Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, a Shiite lawmaker defended the legislation, saying the law makes women safer and ensures the husband is obliged to provide for her.