Women's rights and moral failure in Afghanistan

    Afghan Shiite women

Human Rights Watch reports that Shiite men in Afghanistan now have the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met, and that Shiite women must obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their houses. The law is a huge blow for women's rights and a tragic moral failure in Afghanistan.

Last April, after international pressure and large protests by women on the streets of Kabul, the Afghan government promised to change a new law imposing severe restrictions on women in Shiite Muslim families. However, it appears that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was never serious about honoring concerns for the welfare of women. Instead, Karzai made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election.

This blatant misogyny should not be condoned or tolerated by the U.S. No one should be treated as property; no one should be forced into sexual bondage in order to eat. The fact that such behavior is sanctioned and encouraged by religion is disgusting.

It is time to rethink America's presence in Afghanistan. To prop up a government that is so backward, a government that fails to guarantee the most basic of human rights protection, is morally untenable.