Associated Press
KABUL -- The young Afghan woman got her first inkling of a life beyond her abusive husband when friends mentioned a government ministry dedicated to defending women. Then she saw a TV show about women's rights. Finally, after four years of marriage, she grabbed some car fare and fled.
Arazo, 19, says she knew from the beginning that the beatings weren't right but it took years for her to realize she could leave. She decided she had to rescue herself, even though it meant leaving her 2-year-old son behind because Afghan law gives custody to the father.
Now, Afghanistan is poised to enact legislation that would allow her to prosecute her husband for abuse. Courts hold little sway in Afghanistan, but activists call the law a necessary step in the slow struggle for real rights for women here.
The Elimination of Violence Against Women Act comes on the heels of a marriage law for the minority Shiite Muslim community that sparked an international uproar in March because of wording that appeared to legalize marital rape.
The government changed the Shiite law to remove the most controversial phrases, but the revised version now in effect still allows a husband to withhold financial support from his wife if she refuses to have sex with him and limits women's ability to leave the home.
Arazo, a Sunni, says she will not press charges against her husband because local police would be unlikely to hold him long even if they arrested him. Speaking at a private aid office in Kabul, she gave only her first name and refused to say where she is from for fear that her husband might track her down.
But she said the legislation could give more women courage to stand up for themselves if it spreads the idea of women's rights into the countryside.
"I learned as a child that a husband is like a second God, that I should obey whatever he says," she explained. An orphan at 11, she was forced to marry a cousin by an uncle even though they did not like each other. The marriage was unhappy from the beginning, and then her husband started hitting her. Sometimes he would slam her head against the wall, she said.
Now that she has left, she can never return home, because she is sure he or his relatives would either force her back into his house or kill her.
The new legislation to protect women comes nearly eight years after the fall of the Taliban regime, which made women virtual prisoners in their homes. The measure, which was first proposed in 2004 and signed this summer by President Hamid Karzai while Parliament was in recess, outlaws spousal abuse along with acts like the bartering of female relatives and child marriages.
Parliament is expected to approve the legislation but the bill has already been watered down. University professors, lawyers, police officials and even some members of the human rights commission -- in a nod to social limitations -- asked for changes that made punishments less severe, said Shinkai Karokhail, a female lawmaker.
