Misogyny Watch In Afghanistan

The Afghan government has passed a misogynistic law that allows husbands to withhold food and sustenance if their wives deny them sexual satisfaction.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

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.

"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.

Hamid Karzai is on the hook for this, and there's no reason that he should have allowed this law to come to fruition.

Misogyny is one of the reasons that Afghanistan has been so backwards for so long and while the US liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban gave Afghan women a chance at seeing an improvement of their condition, this law shows that the tribal customs and Islamic law remain firmly entrenched. The systemic mistreatment of women means that half the population is subjugated and incapable of advancement. Women are cruelly treated, and this law institutionalizes that behavior.