Karzai to review 'Shia Women' law

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has ordered a review of a new law that critics say effectively legalises the rape of women by their husbands.

Western leaders, including Barack Obama, the US president, and Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, have criticised the law which grants Shia husbands the right to have intercourse with their wives every fourth night.

"I ordered the justice minister to review the law, and if there is anything that would contravene ... the freedom our constitution gives to Afghan women ... there will be changes in it," Karzai said on Saturday.

The law, signed by Karzai last month, seeks to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shia minority, which makes up about 15 per cent of the population.

It was drafted upon their request because of differences with Sunni Muslims about Sharia, or Islamic, law, the AFP news agency reported.

'Ban on education'

The United Nations Development Fund for Women has said it "legalises the rape of a wife by her husband".

Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief in Afghanistan, has called on the Afghan government to revoke the legislation, saying it is "reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime".

Under the new measure, Shia women would be banned from working or receiving an education without their husbands' permission, the UN agency said.

They would also be forbidden from leaving their homes except for "legitimate purposes," the agency said.

Western criticism

Asked about the law at a news conference following the Nato summit on Saturday, Obama said the law was "abhorrent" and the US was communicating its views to the Afghan government.

"We think that it is very important for us to be sensitive to local culture, but we also think that there are certain basic principles that all nations should uphold, and respect for women and respect for their freedom and integrity is an important principle."

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said he had phoned Karzai to express his "grave concern".

The law "risks putting Afghanistan back to its past, rather than towards it democratic future, where men and women are treated equally," Brown said.

'Mistranslation'

In Kabul earlier on Saturday, Karzai said he had studied the law and did not see any problems with it.

He said Western media outlets had mistranslated the legislation, but he said the law should be reviewed in consultation with scholars and religious leaders.

Fawzia Kofi, a member of the Afghan parliament, said that the law undermines all advances for Afghan women in the last seven years.

She told Al Jazeera that the main victims are women and children.

Critics have accused Karzai of signing the law to court Shia votes in the country's August presidential election.