Sex with the dead on Egyptian Parliament's agenda
From online dispatches
REUTERS photo
Egyptian Parliament is preparing to discuss a draft law that would let husbands have sex with their “dead wives” within six hours of their death, an Egyptian columnist from daily Al-Ahram has said.The draft law, which will reportedly legalize necrophilia, has caused an uprorar in the country. Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated Parliament not to approve controversial law, according to Al-Arabiya’s report.
Parliament was also said to be discussing another legal resolution that would allow women to marry at the age of 14.
According to Al-Ahram’s Amro Abdul Samea, NCW appealed to Parliament to avoid passing controversial pieces of legislation that would rid women of their rights to obtain an education and employment on alleged religious grounds.
“[The head of the NCW] tried to underline in her message that marginalizing and undermining the status of women in future development plans would undoubtedly negatively affect the country’s human development, simply because women represent half the population,” Abdul Samea said in his article April 24.
Prominent Egyptian journalist and TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty referred to Abdul Samea’s article in his daily show on Egyptian ON TV on April 24, criticizing the whole notion of “permitting a husband to have sex with his wife after her death under a so-called ‘Farewell Intercourse’ draft law.”
Many members of the newly elected and majority Islamist Parliament have been accused of attacking women’s rights in the country.
