Women have long been considered second-class citizens in Afghanistan, but their situation became even worse under the Islamist Taliban. NATO has said that one of the aims of its mission in Afghanistan is that of improving the lot of women.

Souad Sbai, a lawmaker from the People of Freedom Party, holds a banner during a demonstration in Rome for Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalist who was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to death for blasphemy. His crime was downloading material from the Internet on the role of women in Islamic societies.

The new law regulating Shiite family life applies to roughly 10 percent of the women in Afghanistan. Under the Afghan constitution, Shiites can regulate their own family affairs according to traditional Shiite jurisprudence.

The new law requires women to submit to sex with their husbands at least every four days.