Canada Expresses Outrage over Afghan Women's law

[ltmaverick25]

Came across this article on CTV.ca just now and I didnt see it posted anywhere else so I thought I would toss it up here.  Im not sure if this is the right section, or if ive followed the right format for a news post.  But here it is anyway.


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090331/afghan_women_090331/20090331?hub=TopStories

Canada expresses outrage over Afghan women's law
Updated Tue. Mar. 31 2009 7:35 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Canadian officials contacted the Afghan government Tuesday to express concern about controversial new legislation that would reportedly allow men to rape their wives.

The Canadian government reacted with outrage following reports that the Karzai administration has approved a wide-ranging family law for the country's Shia minority.

Various reports say the legislation would make it illegal for Shia women to refuse their husbands sex, leave the house without their permission, or have custody of children.

Canadian officials contacted the office of President Hamid Karzai, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon spoke to two Afghan cabinet ministers Tuesday seeking clarification.

Karzai's office has so far refused to comment on the legislation, which has been criticized by some Afghan parliamentarians and a UN women's agency but has not yet been published.

Critics say Hamid Karzai's government approved it in a hurry to win support in the upcoming election from ethnic Hazaras -- a Shia Muslim minority that constitutes a crucial block of swing voters.

Canada, which has lost 116 soldiers in Afghanistan and spent up to $10 billion propping up the Karzai government, has demanded more information about the law.

"If these reports are true, this will create serious problems for Canada," said International Trade Minister Stockwell Day.

"The onus is on the government of Afghanistan to live up to its responsibilities for human rights, absolutely including rights of women. . .

"If there's any wavering on this point from the government of Afghanistan, this will create serious problems and be a serious disappointment for us."

Day was fielding questions in the House of Commons about the reported law while his colleague, Cannon, was in Europe attending an international summit on Afghanistan.

Cannon asked for more information from Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta and Interior Minister Mohammad Atmar.

Late Tuesday, Canadian officials said they had learned the law was not yet in effect but that they remained "very concerned."

The Afghan constitution guarantees equal rights for women, but also allows the Shia to have separate family law based on religious tradition.

Some international monitors have avoided discussing the issue, for fear of feeding the impression that exists among Afghans that their government takes its marching orders from the West.

But female parliamentarians in Afghanistan have condemned the legislation, as has the United Nations Development Fund for Women. They were joined Tuesday by the NDP, which has opposed the Afghan military mission.

"How can we say that our soldiers are there to protect women's rights when the Western-backed leader of this nation pushes through laws like this?" said NDP MP Dawn Black.

"Allowing women to be treated like a piece of property . . . is this what we're fighting for? Is this what our people are dying for in Afghanistan?"

 

[mr.rhtuner]

Seems like Afghanistan's government and their military/police are a lost cause, it seems like they want to keep living in their mud huts with their barbaric ways.

:-\

 

[ltmaverick25]

It looks to me like politics of the worst kind.  Karzai appears to be selling out women's rights to win a block of votes.  To be honest, I was at a loss when I read this.  I have always been a stalwart support of our missing, and being there ect...  But news like this just kicks that positive outlook right in the balls.

 

[combat_medic]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/31/hamid-karzai-afghanistan-law

Text:

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.

The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.
Jon Boone reveals Afghanistan's new law denying women's rights Link to this audio

The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.

Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam," she said.

The Afghan constitution allows for Shias, who are thought to represent about 10% of the population, to have a separate family law based on traditional Shia jurisprudence. But the constitution and various international treaties signed by Afghanistan guarantee equal rights for women.

Shinkai Zahine Karokhail, like other female parliamentarians, complained that after an initial deal the law was passed with unprecedented speed and limited debate. "They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation," she said. "There were lots of things that we wanted to change, but they didn't want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election."

Although the ministry of justice confirmed the bill was signed by Karzai at some point this month, there is confusion about the full contents of the final law, which human rights activists have struggled to obtain a copy of. The justice ministry said the law would not be published until various "technical problems" had been ironed out.

After seven years leading Afghanistan, Karzai is increasingly unpopular at home and abroad and the presidential election in August is expected to be extremely closely fought. A western diplomat said the law represented a "big tick in the box" for the powerful council of Shia clerics.

Leaders of the Hazara minority, which is regarded as the most important bloc of swing voters in the election, also demanded the new law.

Ustad Mohammad Akbari, an MP and the leader of a Hazara political party, said the president had supported the law in order to curry favour among the Hazaras. But he said the law actually protected women's rights.

"Men and women have equal rights under Islam but there are differences in the way men and women are created. Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the west you do not see women working as firefighters."

Akbari said the law gave a woman the right to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband if she was unwell or had another reasonable "excuse". And he said a woman would not be obliged to remain in her house if an emergency forced her to leave without permission.

The international community has so far shied away from publicly questioning such a politically sensitive issue.

"It is going to be tricky to change because it gets us into territory of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture, which is always difficult," a western diplomat in Kabul admitted.

Soraya Sobhrang, the head of women's affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said western silence had been "disastrous for women's rights in Afghanistan".

"What the international community has done is really shameful. If they had got more involved in the process when it was discussed in parliament we could have stopped it. Because of the election I am not sure we can change it now. It's too late for that."

But another senior western diplomat said foreign embassies would intervene when the law is finally published.

Some female politicians have taken a more pragmatic stance, saying their fight in parliament's lower house succeeded in improving the law, including raising the original proposed marriage age of girls from nine to 16 and removing completely provisions for temporary marriages.

"It's not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it's a huge improvement," said Shukria Barakzai, an MP. "Before this was passed family issues were decided by customary law, so this is a big improvement."

Karzai's spokesman declined to comment on the new law

 

[1feral1]

I wish I had more encouraging things to say.

It just goes to show you that as long as the sun rises, the sky is blue and the rivers run, nothing will ever change in that neck of the woods.

No matter how are we try by whatever western influence, we cannot expect them to change to our way of mentality, or expect  them 'over there' to tow the line via western standards, or a mininum democratic (joke) society, with basic human rights, and a gentle push into the 21st century.

A leopard can't change its spots.

Nothing that happens 'over there', no matter how obcene or graphic shocks me anymore (or did it really anyways - outragous violence is as normal as a hockey fight in the 1st period), for that has become the normal way of life, and 250 yrs from now, it will be the same old story.

Women with no rights, tribalism to the extreme, barbaric sharia law, and home to international terrorism, plus that cancer called radical islam will continue to flourish.

We just got to keep it on their shores, and FIGHT to make sure it stays there.

How long will the west tolerate the slaughter of it Sons is yet to be determined.

Then what?

OWDU

 

[Kat Stevens]

116 people just all rolled over in their graves.

 

[geo]

Well... regardless of how much we spend, how much effort we expend to bring liberal thought to masses of the proletariat who, until only a couple of years ago, were living in the dark ages - following illiterate religious leaders... Rome wasn't created in a day AND there are probably as many steps backwards as there are foreward.

 

[NL_engineer]

Just another reason I support the UN [read US Gov] decision to appoint someone to the Afgan Government to limit Karzai's power  :

 

[logairoff]

We fight this fight to hopefully make things better for the next generation and not necessarily this one. People that grow up thinking a certain way and believing in certain things no matter how stupid they may be are hard to change. This is why I strongly think that a focus on development and education is so important. Hopefully the young afghanis can change their country and bring in a "better" perspective to the way things are done there. I think education and exposure to democracy/beliefs/ideology is the best weapon to fight radical islam esbecially for the young kids growing up ignorant in a society that doesnt expose them to different thoughts/beliefs. They see the foreign troops, they see Canadian soldiers and American soldiers and have heard of the countries but do they know what these countries stand for? Let's hope we're investing the necessary resources in that aspect.

 

[Fiver]

There is much discussion these days about the mission in Afghanistan and the efficacy of our involvement there. I believe that the answer lies not with the adults - who are already entrenched in their views of the world - but with the children. The children will be the ones to inherit the nation that we are helping to build, and it behoves us to make sure they receive the best possible preparation for the job.

-Capt Martin Anderson, Outside the wire p. 174.

It took many, many decades for Europe to get out of the Dark Ages, and given the nature of our psyche, it is folly to think that, overnight, all the Afghanis will part with the traditions and ways of living that were ingrained in them since childhood. For them, it is right, just as slavery was right in the opinion of most Europeans and their colonies centuries ago. So it's up to us to make sure this nation' youth will grow up with minds more open to the world than their fathers.

 

[ltmaverick25]

While I agree that with the argument that old habbits die hard, and that we essentially have to rely on children to build the Afghanistan of tomorrow, I question weather or not these children will turn out any different then their parents if they are being bred and raised by these very same hard liners.

Where are they going to get these new ideas from.  Grated more of them are attending schools, but whats being taught there?  And what will they teach them after we are no longer there?  In order for the generation of tomorrow argument to hold up, we have to have a legitimate way to expose them to other cultures/societies.

 

[FastEddy]

-Capt Martin Anderson, Outside the wire p. 174.

It took many, many decades for Europe to get out of the Dark Ages, and given the nature of our psyche, it is folly to think that, overnight, all the Afghanis will part with the traditions and ways of living that were ingrained in them since childhood. For them, it is right, just as slavery was right in the opinion of most Europeans and their colonies centuries ago. So it's up to us to make sure this nation' youth will grow up with minds more open to the world than their fathers.

Very Fine and Noble Sentiments, just out of curiosity, you as a individual, what are you planning to do personally to entrench these new ideologies.

I know what our Brave young Men and Women of the CF's are doing, giving their Precious Lives.

Cheers.

 

[1feral1]

-Capt Martin Anderson, Outside the wire p. 174.

It took many, many decades for Europe to get out of the Dark Ages, and given the nature of our psyche, it is folly to think that, overnight, all the Afghanis will part with the traditions and ways of living that were ingrained in them since childhood. For them, it is right, just as slavery was right in the opinion of most Europeans and their colonies centuries ago. So it's up to us to make sure this nation' youth will grow up with minds more open to the world than their fathers.

Sorry there Fiver, but I have to disagree. I don't buy the bit about the Dark Ages comparison, for this was centuries ago, and it is now 2009 everywhere on this planet.

Children are products of their environment, and where we learned our basic values was at home, yes from our parents and other adults.  We can see this in our own cities, with the new blood line of welfare recipents. What did their parents do? Sat at home, refused to work, drank Bohemian, ate KFC and smoked Export A, while their kids ran amuk on the street all too often. A broad spectrum, but in all too many cases the truth. See where I am coming from?

Many children 'over there' will grow into AK carrying, IED laying young men, and considering this war has been ongoing since 2001 (when you were just 11), many young men who were kids then, are now fighting against the West as you read this.

We got a long row to hoe, and going on 8 yrs later, I don't think we (the West) have reaped a decent bushell of sustained long term success.

All IMHO of course. Its pathetic, but thats how I see it.

OWDU

 

[Fiver]

Sorry there Fiver, but I have to disagree. I don't buy the bit about the Dark Ages comparison, for this was centuries ago, and it is now 2009 everywhere on this planet.
Time is a measure, it does not convey any standard as far as societies go. It is year 4706 in China, and look at the state of human rights there. What about the many isolated tribes and cultures around the globe? Should we hold it against them that they are not at our level of development?

Children are products of their environment, and where we learned our basic values was at home, yes from our parents and other adults.  We can see this in our own cities, with the new blood line of welfare recipents. What did their parents do? Sat at home, refused to work, drank Bohemian, ate KFC and smoked Export A, while their kids ran amuk on the street all too often. A broad spectrum, but in all too many cases the truth. See where I am coming from?
Yes, parents play an important role concerning the process of shaping the way a kid will see the world around him/her. However, it doesn't stop there. Kids, especially teenagers, will learn a lot and start to question everything around them with a good education and access to a broad range of literature. Otherwise, ignorance will only let them see the world through the eyes of their ignorant mentors. As for your example, I wonder, what kind of outside education did the kids with parents living off welfare got? What kind of teachers end up in the schools that these parents sent their kids to? There's also the lack of proper a education to blame, failing educational systems that set lower and lower standards because of punitive measures against schools when their protégés fail, teachers only teaching for the tests, tests that are standardized, and so encouraging teachers to... well, all this is a whole other issue.

Many children 'over there' will grow into AK carrying, IED laying young men, and considering this war has been ongoing since 2001 (when you were just 11), many young men who were kids then, are now fighting against the West as you read this.
However, schools only started to spread around 2005, with teachers missing proper training and bad infrastructures. Seminars are being offered to the educators, schools have been improved to accommodate more children and better children/teachers ratios, but all this is still a work in progress. And with school not mandatory and a lack of travel system, many pupils miss many days to work with their parents or because the schools are too far. And many children aren't even allowed by their conservative parents to learn scaringly strange, new stuff.

We got a long row to hoe, and going on 8 yrs later, I don't think we (the West) have reaped a decent bushell of sustained long term success.
Can't argue with the progress being slow and hard to see. People are impatient, and can't work if they don't see instant results. Thinking about the distant future, even only 2 decades ahead, if very difficult because we live so short lives. I wonder, if we in the "West" could easily live to be 200 years old and healthy, what kind of outlook people would have on such endeavours as transforming a whole society whose individuals live a much shorter life.

All IMHO of course. Its pathetic, but thats how I see it.

OWDU

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

 

[1feral1]

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

Fiver,

I am not a cynic, just basing my thoughts from real life experience (and global history) in well over 33 yrs of military service in two nations during peace and war, not out of some text book in a library. I will be 50 in October.

WRT the Chinese human rights etc. Currently, its not the Chi-Coms who are killing us. Its been since the Korean War since we fought Chinese soldiers.

I buy Kraft crackers and orange flavoured tang made in China. The PRC may violate many of the rules by our standards, and have some isolated areas, but overall it is in the 21th century, and is excelling in trade strength. The PRC is Australia's largest trading partner, and today in your home there are many Chi-Com made products you use.

Taliban and radical islamic insurgents/supporters cannot be compared to anything going on in the PRC (they too have issues with radical islam). Overall though, its apples and oranges in comparison.

Medrassas (spelling?) flaunt enough hatred for the west in their islamic teachings with young impressionable muslim youths, and these schools teaching this anti-western ideals have been found in our own countries. Plenty 'over there' to flourish and impregnate young eager minds. Many teenagers readily turn to radical Islam.

We all know how resentful the culture is when it comes to educating women, and  basic rights, we take for granted here in the land of the Great Satan. Recently in the KSA, a woman in her 70s was sentanced to 40 lashes and gaol time for having two males in her home who were not relatives.

The whole region has issues which most Canadians citizens cannot even comprehend, aside from hearing it on the news over dinner as they shake their heads, simply try living in it, I endured for 3 days shy of 7 months, and I was happy to get home.

The problems 'over there' will not be rectified in 50 yrs let along a century or two. Thats just how it is.

IMHO, your solutions do not equate the reality of real life, but it would be nice if it was so easy.

OWDU.

 

[Fiver]

Well, screw the world then. You convinced me. After all, it is a proven fact that unquestionable faith only grows stronger as each generations expand their knowledge of the world. We are still burning witches and executing people questioning the Bible. Not to mention that we keep building new churches to keep up with the demand.

And the fact that education was up until recently almost nonexistent over there has nothing to do with the radical religious beliefs held by most of them. Also, it is only a coincidence that every radical regimes in history have restricted access to education.

I don't understand why you bring up all these things about China though. I was merely pointing out the fact that even though most of the world lives in the "21st" century, it doesn't mean that everyone inevitably should hold the same values everywhere. And that the number of the centuries in the calendar of a culture doesn't make it a better place to live.
Were you born in Afghanistan 49 years ago, with the same body, the same brain, you, too, would very probably not think highly of women's rights, and you would have 2 wives, maybe one of those a cousin of yours, and many kids. And you would resent the Westerners for telling you what you should think, because all your life you wouldn't had known better.

Not saying that our views are perfect either.

 

[TimBit]

Sorry there Fiver, but I have to disagree. I don't buy the bit about the Dark Ages comparison, for this was centuries ago, and it is now 2009 everywhere on this planet.

Children are products of their environment, and where we learned our basic values was at home, yes from our parents and other adults.  We can see this in our own cities, with the new blood line of welfare recipents. What did their parents do? Sat at home, refused to work, drank Bohemian, ate KFC and smoked Export A, while their kids ran amuk on the street all too often. A broad spectrum, but in all too many cases the truth. See where I am coming from?

Many children 'over there' will grow into AK carrying, IED laying young men, and considering this war has been ongoing since 2001 (when you were just 11), many young men who were kids then, are now fighting against the West as you read this.

We got a long row to hoe, and going on 8 yrs later, I don't think we (the West) have reaped a decent bushell of sustained long term success.

All IMHO of course. Its pathetic, but thats how I see it.

OWDU

Exactly! Look at it this way (which will be simplistic, but...): Islam was founded 500 years after Christianity. Religions, like States and cultures, go through various stages of maturation through which their thinking evolve on issues including human rights. Well 500 years ago Christianity wasn't much better off, burning people at the stake, priests living in luxurious monasteries while poors were dying everywhere.

Saying that our values right here, right now are better, is moral blindness at its best. For a lot of people in radical islam, our treatment of elderlies and of the poor are inacceptable. Pornography is inexcusable and the breakdown of our social institutions and networks (ever read "Bowling alone"?) are signs of western decay.

So while I am not too fond either of the treatment of women in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, or children for that matter, or the place of religion elsewhere, it is a fact of life that their beliefs are, in their mind, better than ours and will always be, and the only way that you can judge them to be right or wrong is by claiming some form of dubious moral high ground, probably derived from our belief that the Enlightment period and its philosophical child, liberalism, are the be-all of history. Now some people already claimed that in the past (Fukuyama for one) and retracted eventually... simply put, it is not.

Anyway I'm wandering here. In a nutshell, I don't think any intervention, be it pure military or 3D, will ever replace some country's "backward" beliefs with our "modern", "humane" ones. Besides, even if it were, we would have to intervene in about 60% of the world to spread our moral superiority... Crusades, anyone?

That said, before anyone stomps me, I am professionnally 100% behind the mission. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

116 people just all rolled over in their graves.

Interesting you should mention that - from the Canadian Press:

.... Several members of Harper's cabinet voiced similar outrage, as did opposition politicians and one military family.  "My son gave his life up for all these causes and to have President Karzai's government bring in a law like that, that's insulting," said Jim Davis of Nova Scotia, whose son, Cpl. Paul Davis, was killed in Afghanistan in 2006.  However, he agreed Canada must continue working to modernize the country ....

 

[OldSolduer]

I'm p*ssed. Really. I'm speechless right now. I'll post later when I'm a bit more coherent.

Thanks :rage:

 

[tomahawk6]

Lets not confuse the mission being synonymous with us imposing our beliefs on the local culture. People preach the gospel according to COIN and yet get angry when the locals dont share our cultural beliefs. Our mission in Afghanistan is to kill taliban/al qaeda thus buying time for the Afghan security forces to standup, exactly as we have done in Iraq. The men and women that have given their lives in this endeavor did so in a much higher cause than women's rights or other similar western beliefs that are not shared in the third world.