Informant38

Chicago Tribune: Afghan laws still repress women
Her crime: running away from the 45-year-old husband she was forced to marry.

In fact, the jail is filled with teenage girls accused of crimes ranging from falling in love to having illicit affairs, from leaving unbending parents to running away from abusive husbands.

Taliban-style executions may be gone, but Islamic law and rigid cultural traditions persist in Afghanistan. The country still relies on Islamic law dating to the 7th Century.

The U.S.-supported government of interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai says it still will uphold these laws, although perhaps not as strictly as the Taliban. Islamic laws allow women the right to turn down their parents' choice of husbands, but enforce harsh punishment for sex outside marriage.

Tribal laws, on the other hand, allow relatives to imprison and even kill young women who lose their virginity, bring shame to their family by falling in love with unacceptable suitors or even seek a divorce.