AFGHAN president Hamid Karzai yesterday said a new law that critics claim made it legal for men to rape their wives would be studied and possibly sent back to parliament for review if women's rights were violated.
Karzai said he had ordered the justice ministry to review the law and if it contravened the country's constitution or sharia law "measures will be taken".
The legislation is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shi'ite community.
But the UN Development Fund for Women said it "legalises the rape of a wife by her husband".
The United States has urged Karzai to review the law and he revealed the matter had been discussed with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
The law stipulates the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires... As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."
One provision also appears to protect a woman's right to sex, saying the "man should not avoid having sexual relations with his wife longer than once every four months".
Critics claim Karzai signed the legislation in the past month for political motives, with one eye on the country's presidential election in several months.
Brad Adams, the Asia director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: "The law directly contradicts the freedoms enshrined in the Afghan constitution and the international conventions that Afghanistan has signed up to that guarantee the rights of women."
Safia Sidiqi, an MP from Nangarhar province who condemned the legislation, said she could not remember parliament debating or voting on the law and she did not know how it came to be signed by Karzai. She called for the law to be recalled for debate.
Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, a Shi'ite MP involved in drafting it, defended the legislation, claiming it gave more rights to women than did Britain or the US. He said it made women safer and obliged the husband to provide for her.
