Kabul - Afghan lawmakers Friday defended a new family law signed by President Hamid Karzai, saying it included key changes to draft legislation despite UN and Western concerns about restrictions on women.

    Karzai signed the law last month, incorporating several changes to a controversial bill drafted by representatives of the Shiite minority, but the complete, final version of the legislation has yet to be made public.

    A copy of the draft bill, seen by AFP, said: "It is the responsibility of the wife to prepare for sexual satisfaction of her husband and not leave the house without permission, unless there is the need or difficulty."

    Critics interpreted this as making it illegal for a woman to refuse her husband sex and only in an emergency leave the house without permission.

    They also said that had it been passed, it would have made it legal for a man to rape his wife.

    But the version signed by Karzai says a wife can refuse sex on the basis of "lawful or logical excuses or with permission of her husband," influential Shiite parliamentarian Sayed Hussain Alimi Balkhi told AFP.

    The changes, which have been seen by AFP, also allow her to leave home without permission "for any lawful purpose within the boundaries accepted by custom," said Balkhi, who has been involved in drawing up the law.

    The Shiite minority, which called for their own family law distinct from that of the Sunni majority, had campaigned to scrap the legal age of 16 for a girl to marry, but their demands were rejected, Balkhi said.

    Demands for a separate family court and short-term marriages were also rejected, he said. Short-term contracts allow a man to "marry" a woman for as little as overnight.

    Shiites make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan's population.

    Prominent woman MP Shukria Barikzai, who said she had worked on the bill for more than a year, said: "The new law, after amendments, has become much better, has been very much civilized."

    "I don't know why this has created such a fuss," she told AFP.

    But the UN women's agency, UNIFEM, expressed concern saying that the final legislation - which it had yet to see - needed close examination.

    "The final version of the Shiite Personal Status Law reflects both changes in language requested by the upper and lower houses of parliament and amendments that seem to await further incorporation into the text," it said.

    "A studied approach of this final version is therefore now required to determine the exact contents of the law and UNIFEM-Afghanistan remains seriously concerned about the potential impact of this law on the women of Afghanistan," it added in a statement.

    On Thursday, Canada officially voiced "deep concerns" about the law, but Afghan lawmakers rushed to defend the final version signed by the president.

    The British embassy in Kabul said it had been "gravely concerned" about some provisions of the draft bill but had yet to see the final version.