Afghanistan has effectively legalised domestic violence by changing a law so it will become impossible for anyone to testify against relatives.
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The legislation would allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without the fear ofpunishment.
It would ban relatives of the accused from bringing evidence against them.
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The legislation will allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without the fear of punishment
The change to the law has been passed by parliament but still has to be officially signed off by president Hamid Karzai.
Manizha Naderi, director of the charity Women for Afghan Women, told The Guardian: 'It is a travesty this is happening.
'It will make it impossible to prosecute cases of violence against women. The most vulnerable people
won't get justice now.'
won't get justice now.'
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The law has been passed by parliament but is waiting to be officially signed off by the president Hamid Karzai
Those who carry out honour killings would be impossible to prosecute.
Cases such as that of Sahar Gul would never get to court.
The child was chained in a basement where she was starved, burned and beaten after refusing to prostitute herself to make money for her family.
A heroin addict who told his wife to sell her jewellery so he could buy drugs hacked off her nose and lips when she refused to do so.
Despite life for women improving since the end of Taliban rule, domestic abuse is still rife andforced marriages are the norm.
Women are not encouraged to go to school and suicide rates for women are among the highest in the world.
Afghanistan brought in the Elimination of Violence Against Women law in August 2009.
The law criminalised child marriage, selling and buying women to settle disputes, assault and other acts of violence and abuse against women.
But according to the UN, prosecutions of such cases have increased by only two per cent.
In 2010, an Afghan teenager called Aisha featured on the front cover of Time.
Her husband hacked off her her npse after she tried to run away from home.
President Karzai will now have to decide whether to bring the law into effect.
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Shocking: In 2010, an Afghan teenager called Aisha featured on the front cover of Time magazine
