Sex-Starved Afghans Can Reject Food to Wives

Afghanistan has silently passed a law that allows Shia men to decline their wives food and edibles if they refuse to follow their husbands’ sexual anxiety.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of kids entirely to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get agreement from their husbands to work.

In April, US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of disapprovel over an previous edition of the regulation, which legally recognized rape within marriage. But aides to President Hamid Karzai had insisted the regulation provided extra protection for women.

Karzai appeared to back down but activists say the revised rule is repressive and contradicts Afghanistan’s formation and the international treaties it is signed up to. The rule is thought to be backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who may have control over the voting intentions of Shias who make up twenty per cent of the population.