Monday, May 4, 2009

Women Protest Legalized Rape

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has backed a law that the United Nations Development Fund for Women claims legalizes rape within marriage and forbids women from leaving the house without permission.

Afghan women protested the law and were attacked by a larger counter protest





Afghan 'anti-rape' women attacked

Afghanistan 'rape' law puts women's rights front and center






Women police linked arms and created a barrier around the protesters to protect them


April 15: Afghan police officers stop Shiite counter protesters in Kabul, Afghanistan. The group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration by 300 women Wednesday protesting against a new conservative marriage law. Some counter protesters pelted the women with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart.

1 comment:

Charita said...

This might hit closer to home--it wasn't so long ago spousal rape was also legal in the US.

"Until the late 1970s, most states did not consider spousal rape a crime. Typically, spouses were exempted from the sexual assault laws--laws traceable to a seventeenth-century judicial pronouncement that a husband cannot be guilty of rape of his wife 'for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto the husband which she cannot retract.'

In the late 1970s, however, feminists began efforts to change these laws. Currently, rape of a spouse is a crime in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."
"While spousal rape is now considered a crime, victims often have to overcome additional legal hurdles to prosecution not present for other victims of rape. These include time limits for reporting the offense, a requirement that force or threat of force be used by the offender, and the fact that some sexual assault offenses still preclude spousal victims."

You can read the full article here:

http://tinyurl.com/spousalrape