ICAR Student Opinion

Afghan President Hamid Karzai effectively legalized marital rape last week by signing a law that allows Afghan Shiite men to demand sex from their wives every four days. The Shia Family Law, widely considered a strategic move by Karzai to gain support from conservative clerics for his reelection in August, also forbids women from venturing outside of the home without the permission of a male relative. President Obama has decried the new Afghan law as “abhorrent,” and Secretary Clinton expressed her concern both in a private meeting with the Afghan president and in an interview with Radio Free Afghanistan. They were not alone in their condemnation; after worldwide government and civil society leaders expressed their vehement disapproval, Karzai agreed to place the law under review. Under current policy, however, the firm statements by U.S. leadership will likely amount to little more than a slap on the wrist for Afghanistan. The Obama administration has made no indication that U.S. aid to Afghanistan would be affected if President Karzai were to implement the repressive law. In an interview last week, Vice President Biden made it clear that the United States’ main reason for engaging in Afghanistan is to protect our country from terrorist attacks by defeating Al-Qaeda. Few Americans would disagree that keeping our country safe is of utmost importance, but many are justifiably outraged that our ally in Afghanistan has shown himself to have such repressive tendencies. Without a clear motivation from the United States to revise the law, it is possible that Mr. Karzai will merely delay its implementation until outcry from the press has died down. The United States should take a firm stance on women’s rights by making a portion of Afghanistan’s aid package conditional on the implementation of laws that respect and protect women. Moreover, such a policy should extend to other recipients of U.S. aid that are failing to do the same.

The plight of women in Afghanistan has been widely publicized in recent years, but Afghanistan is by no means the only country where women’s rights are denied and their abuse is condoned. Worldwide, one in three women will be a victim of violence in her lifetime, and the perpetrator is generally a man whom she knows, oftentimes her husband. Despite this, less than half of the world’s countries have instituted laws that specifically protect women from domestic violence. Many countries that do have domestic violence laws lack the mechanisms to enforce them.  A great deal of the billions of dollars in U.S. aid given every year is granted to countries that fall short of protecting women. This represents an enormous missed opportunity for the United States to promote a women’s right to live free from violence and repression. The Obama Administration, the Department of State, and Congress should move to make certain types of aid conditional on credible evidence that recipient countries possess and enforce laws that protect women, or are making steady progress towards this goal. Aid that explicitly advances our strategic interests, like strengthening the Afghan military and police, should be exempt from these sanctions, as should aid for humanitarian purposes. In the Afghan case, if President Karzai were to implement the Shia Family Law, the United States should withdraw aid for certain infrastructure and economic development projects. Defense aid, as well as projects to ensure food security and build hospitals, should remain unaffected.

Such a strategy should follow the model set out in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, first passed in 2000, and renewed in 2008, which mandates an annual study of countries’ progress in preventing, detecting, and punishing human trafficking. Countries found to be making unsatisfactory progress towards minimum standards are subject to sanctions that include withdrawal of non-humanitarian, non-trade-based aid. Barack Obama and Joe Biden campaigned on a platform that emphasized the importance of creating equity for women both at home and abroad. Hillary Clinton has consistently advocated for women throughout the course of her career, and many celebrated her nomination to Secretary of State as an opportunity for women’s issues to be heard at the highest levels of government.

It is time now for the United States to live up to its ideals and uphold women’s rights by requiring that countries that receive U.S. aid take strong steps to protect women.