Right to Rape

Lately all the media is abuzz with the new law implemented in Afghanistan making it permissible for husbands to rape their wives. Or so the media and the international community tells us.

I caught a bit of Al-Jazeera's interview with a rep from the Qatar University who was asked to analyze and explain this new law. Unfortunately and almost absurdly the rep trembled and floundered while attempting to define the terms 'male needs' and 'female needs'. Suffice to say, he failed to give a concrete explanation and definition of the said law.

NY Times ran an editorial today disapproving of this new law. According to it, and I paraphrase, a wife unless ill has to give in to her husband's sexual desires. I wonder what symptoms can be regarded as signs of an illness. Does it only have to be a physical ailment, or can it also be emotional and/or mental conditions? Sometimes a wife maybe physically able but mentally and/or emotionally unwilling to engage in sex. Does that then negate the women's right to say no? Or does the law sanction the husband to engage in sex with the unwilling wife and not have it labelled as rape? When does a woman's right to say no end and a man's right to violate begin? Where does those lines merge and deviate?

This new law, whether conceived under political or religious guise, is indeed quite troubling. The law, effectively, silences the wife's voice regarding her own body and her own sexual rights. More international pressure and scorn must be applied to overturn such an abusive and horrific law from further marginalizing and suppressing Afghan women.