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Afghans Debate Unchaperoned Female Trips

When Afghan parliamentarians went to London earlier this month to participate in a major donor`s conference, it was a milestone of sorts, with a presidency and Parliament working side by side to solve the nation`s problems. Some Afghan legislators however found the participation of two Afghan women parliamentarians - who traveled without their husbands - as a breach of the law.

"Our country is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and the Constitution says that nothing can be done in Afghanistan that is against sharia law," says Shalgarai, recalling his statements in Parliament. "I don`t want to pass a new law into the Constitution, we already have a law, and it is in sharia." That the trip took place outside of Afghanistan wasn`t taken into account with the opinion.

Under Islamic religious law, or sharia, the notion of "mahram-e sharaii", or male chaperones, allows for women to travel for more than three days if they are accompanied with a male relative. But "mahram-e sharaii" has not been introduced as a bill. Still, an estimated 50 percent of members of the lower house of the Afghan parliament claim past experiences as anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters, and given their current affiliation with Islamist parties it`s clear that conservative interpretations of Islamic life have a strong political hold in the nascent democracy.