The Rape Law is back in the news...

After being in the headlines for a week or so in April the international outrage at Afghanistan's "Rape Law" sort of died down. Back then I had written quite a few posts about it, so let's go over the basics of it for those who don't remember:

1- The law states that: "women must obey their husband’s sexual demands and that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least ‘once every four nights’ when traveling, unless they are ill." It also prohibits women from going to the doctor or leaving their home without their husband's protection.


2- "Article 132 legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband." (Unifem, the United Nations)

I could list a million quotes on this, or recount the reactions of many of the world's politician but the truth is that on April 7th when Hamid Karzai stated that he would revisit the law, but that the process would take 2 to 3 months.... (It's been almost three months now and there's an election coming up in Afghanistan in August)... the world's politicians were more than happy to see this issue disappear from the news. I can't believe that we didn't stay on top of this and that nothing new has come out of it.

Today in the Globe and Mail there's an article stating that Canada was warned in advance of this law, but that apparently our diplomats in Afghanistan didn't think that it was important enough to inform the parliament which still claims that it didn't know anything.

So there was a hearing and when asked one of our senior Canadian bureaucrats in Afghanistan said: “The law was not a focus of Afghan national political debate. We are unaware of any domestic media coverage in Afghanistan during this legislative process.” (Yves Brodeur)

If that were true then why did women who opposed the law and spoke out assassinated in the street?

And why did Soraya Sobharang, a prominent member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission say: "Western countries let down the women of her country"? (Canada is the country who is basically paying for Afghanistan's Human Rights Commission.)

In the end I'm glad the Globe and Mail had an article about this yesterday for a few reasons: it keeps our government on its toes knowing that someone is watching... But mostly because this is something that I want to be able to follow until the August election, this law was wrong in April, it is still wrong today, the International Community needs to pressure these governments to treat their citizens in an fair and equal manner. This isn't about public relations and photo opportunities, this is about the life of women for generations to come in a country that our friends and neighbors died (and are still dying) to protect.

Muchacho Enfermo

Afghanistan... why haven't we left yet.

The Afghan ambassador to Canada was appealing to Canadians to not react too sharply to Article 132 and to keep supporting the mission in Afghanistan. He stated that his government had made great strides in women’s rights and the protection of women over the last 8 years. He also stated that the NATO mission was meant to help in restoring democracy and that it’s clear that they now have a democratic process. I must also, to be fair, add that the Afghan minister of justice has agreed to meet with foreign policy makers and amendments may be brought forth in Article 132.

I’ve spoken to many people about this whole thing over the last few days and the opinions vary from: “screw that let’s just leave” to “Oust Karzai and let the UN run the country” to “this is a great step in the right direction for democracy.”

Over the years I’ve had some friends and family serve in Afghanistan, I currently have some there, they’ve always supported the mission, and they’ve always thought they were there to stop things exactly like Article 132. They’ve fought hard and lost friends for this belief, even with so much of the country not supporting them back home. They went to bed at night proud that they were making an actual difference.

Now it’s not exactly clear what kind of difference they’ve made... It seems that they’ve helped a country rid itself of cruel leaders that regarded women as nothing less than sex toys and baby machines, only to replace it with someone who does the same thing except that he does it behind our backs smiling the whole way.

If it wasn’t for Canada and the NATO mission Karzai would have never won an election and if he did, if it wasn’t for NATO guarding his city he’d have been assassinated long ago. I think that our actions in Afghanistan entitle us to some kind of forewarning if a bill that is so radically against our values is being tabled.

Let me be clear, for those who say Canada or NATO has no right to intervene with governmental affairs of a sovereign nation... The Allies intervened in WWII to stop Germany from taking over the Europe and to stop the killing of Jews. We intervened in Kosovo to stop the ethnic cleansing. We tried to intervene in Rwanda but the world would not listen. Western intervention should not always mean the implementation of western values, such as democracy and a freewheeling economy, but it should mean the implementation of certain values that should be shared by every nation on earth: basic human rights and civil liberties for everyone, period. I think Canada has every right to tell Karzai to change this law now or we leave Afghanistan today.

Muchacho Enfermo