By Brendan Sweeney
Civil society groups say that the new law, which regulates the personal affairs of Afghanistan's minority Shia community, has not deleted clauses which allow rapists to marry their victims as a means of absolving their crime and that the new legislation tacitly approves child marriages.
In March 2009, President Karzai signed a law guaranteeing men from Afghanistan's Shia minority, which constitutes about 15 percent of the population, the right to marital sex without consent. UN development agency UNDP estimated that the law would actually legalize rape, and international pressure on President Karzai grew.
The law sparked riots in Kabul where hundreds of Shia women protested in the streets and were then attacked by angry mobs of men defending the new legislation.
US President, Barack Obama, described the law as "abhorrent" while the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, stated that Britain would "not tolerate" it. In the wake of international condemnation Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, ordered a review of the legislation.
Malek Sitez, lawyer and Afghanistan expert at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) told the Danish daily newspaper Information that although there are a number of improvements in the new version of the law, he agrees with other human rights critics that the law still allows husbands to violate the rights of their spouses. This is undoubtedly a consequence of negotiations with Shia religious leaders, stated Malek Sitez.
President Karzai was in the middle of an election campaign and he didn’t want to alienate the Shiites, he continued. Elections were held in Afghanistan on 20 August, and during the last election Shia parties accounted for around 15 percent of the vote.
"During the international conference on Afghanistan, which was held at the Hague this year, there was a huge reaction from key figures such as the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, the General secretary of NATO and many foreign ministers against the legislation. I believe that this international condemnation prevented the original family law from being passed, but pressure from Afghan civil society also played an important role. The process shows that supporting groups working for human rights is an effective strategy," stressed Malek Sitez.
However, the new version of the law has attracted far less attention from the media and the international community, according to Mr Sitez. “The critics this time round have been far more muted,” he said.
Malek Sitez attended a meeting with President Karzai on the law along with representatives from several other human rights organisations. The President explained that he had not read the text before he signed it.
"He told us that had he read it, he would never have signed it. And it seems likely that this is indeed true, that his advisers had simply said that he could just go ahead and sign. He was therefore very surprised that the case became so controversial," says Malek Sitez who now hopes the new version of the law will also encounter resistance. "I think many members of parliament will refuse to support it," concluded Malek Sitez.
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