Marital "rape"provisions removed from new Afghan marriage law.

Sections of a new marriage law that to many observers appeared to legalise marital rape have been revised or left out. No doubt there was a great deal of pressure from outside Afghanistan to revise the law. Now the wife does not have to agree to have sex every four days just to do any housework she agreed to do. I wonder if the hubby has to agree to do his share too? Provisions now allow the wife to use her property without the husband's permission and also a section requiring her to get her husband's permission to leave the house has been removed. This law applies only to Shia women.

This article is from the CBC.

Meanwhile back in Saudi Arabia a staunch US ally there is no prolonged outcry or demand for real justice it would seem. Oil can smooth relations even in the face of outrages such as this: from AFP (2007)

DUBAI (AFP) - Women in the ultra-conservative Muslim powerhouse of Saudi Arabia navigate through life amid harsh restrictions imposed by a rigid interpretation of Islam and stringent tradition. NOTE:The girl's sin was to be with a male who was not a relative unaccompanied. These constraints were highlighted again this month after a judge sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes of the whip a 19-year-old woman who was kidnapped at knife-point with a male companion and then gang-raped.