A NEW law is on the anvil in Afghanistan which will make it effectively impossible to prosecute men for committing violence against their wives, sisters and daughters. Passed by parliament and awaiting only the signature of President Karzai to become law, the bill bans the relatives of an accused, and his children, as well as defending lawyers and doctors from being questioned as witnesses. Where violence against women is concerned, this translates into a carte blanche for men in a country with a well-established trend of gender-based violence. Forced marriages and honour killings are endemic; several cases of domestic abuse have made international headlines for the extreme cruelty that was involved.

If the bill is signed into law, it would be a tragic rollback in the fortunes of Afghan women. One of the enduring images of Afghanistan during the Taliban times was that of women shrouded in blue burqas, begging on the streets. Nameless and voiceless, they were at the mercy of a brutal regime that institutionalised their traditionally low status in society, denied them the right to work, get an education or indeed to exist as anything other than appendages to the men in their lives. When the Afghan war removed the Taliban from power and installed a Western-backed democracy in the country, many donors made aid contingent upon improvement in women’s rights, and the doors of opportunity opened for women. Record numbers enrolled in educational institutions and many acquired a higher public profile in fields as varied as television and the police force. In recent years though, that progress has come under threat as security issues become paramount in the run-up to the Nato withdrawal and hardline elements gain ascendancy in the Afghan parliament while Mr Karzai retreats from his pledges to uphold even the limited progress made by Afghan women. By resorting to the well-worn tactic of appeasing regressive forces at the cost of women’s rights, the president is doing no service to his country’s standing in the world.