Why are Jordanian women abused while Maghrebi women empowered?
Last week, I was hanging out with my friends from 7iber in a conference they were organizing. And since I was not involved, I could enjoy sitting back and observing. That conference was attended by young people from 15 Arab countries.
I was extremely impressed by the 7 young women and 3 young men who made up the Tunisian Group… as a matter of fact a lot of people were. These women were all intelligent, intellectually inspiring and delightfully full of life. Their ideas were creative; you knew they would deliver when they promise… they were simply empowered.
During the last 5 years of youth work around the world, I have been puzzled at how advanced women from Arab Maghreb are in comparison to us… Jordanian women. I wonder why it is not that often that we meet Jordanian women who are empowered, intelligent and intellectually impressive… I am not saying there are no Jordanian women who are like that… on the contrary there are many… but they are the many exceptions of the rule.
The answer was in Al Ghad newspaper yesterday in a depressing article about domestic abuse. Let’s take a quick look at the numbers… from 2003-2008:
· 442 women were raped!
· 183 women almost raped
· 1379 women sexually assaulted ( different from rape and almost rape)
· 1099 physically abused
· 1200 young women had to go through virginity tests! (Last year only)! Am I imagining things or was this a jahiliya practice that forbidden by Islam?
I am not talking about honour crimes, or non-reported abuse. I am not even talking about the injustice of divorce or child custody or any of these issues…. I am simply talking about extreme cases that made it to the media, because they were extreme. The excuse we all use is Shari’a law… which ironically was designed to guarantee women’s rights…However the biggest problem is not Shari’a law.. it is the fact that that any progressive local laws that are designed to protect women are miraculously not reinforced… what is the point of having laws in a country when there is no rule of law? What stops us from becoming a lynching nation?
Let’s take a look at the Moroccan Mudawana just to see how they have given women rights but respected Shari’a law. Moroccan’s describe this law as follows:
It is a modern Family Law consistent with the tolerant spirit of Islam and “lifting the iniquity imposed on women, protecting children’s rights, and safeguarding men’s dignity.”
This law includes the following articles… which I found fascinating… but what is great about the mudawana is that it is enforced
Equality:
o Husband and wife share joint responsibility for the family;
o The wife is no longer legally obliged to obey her husband;
o The adult woman is entitled to self-guardianship, rather than that of a male family member, and may exercise it freely and independently;
o The minimum age of marriage is 18 for both men and women.
Divorce:
o The right to divorce is a prerogative of both men and women, exercised under judicial supervision;
o The principle of divorce by mutual consent is established.
Polygamy:
o Polygamy is subject to the judge’s authorization and to stringent legal conditions, making the practice nearly impossible;
o The woman has the right to impose a condition in the marriage contract requiring that her husband refrain from taking other wives;
o If there is no pre-established condition, the first wife must be informed of her husband’s intent to remarry, the second wife must be informed that her husband-to-be is already married, and moreover, the first wife may ask for a divorce due to harm suffered.
Enforcement of Law:
o The Family Law assigns a key role to the judiciary in upholding the rule of law and provides for the public prosecutor to be a party to every legal action involving the enforcement of Family Law stipulations.
Children’s Rights:
o The woman is given the possibility of retaining custody of her child even upon remarrying or moving out of the area where her husband lives;
o The child’s right to acknowledgment of paternity is protected in that case that the marriage has not been officially registered.
Maybe a couple of women should die for the laws are enforced… oops, they already do! I wonder if it is time for Jordanian women to fight for their own rights?
It is time wallah.
There is no honor in killing.
It is time to fix this black stain in the Jordanian Constitution and punish those who kill in the name of honor severly.
Peace
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Palforce, i think there are so many things that have to be changed … I mean these women who get abused on daily basis, why does not the law protect them? i think before fixing the law, we need to apply the laws we have…
But on a different note… I agree… it is time for punish those who kill in the name honour… the problem is that it is condoned by the society… people actually think it is honourable!
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You make a good point that Jordan should start applying their own laws before introducing new ones. Some of the rules in the Mudawana already exist in Jordan anyway, except for the Polygamy ones I think. I am pretty sure than Jordanian law at least stipulates that the Mothers retains custody of the children until they are in their teens, and then the kids are given the choice of living with their dad… and women can divorce their husbands, and I have never heard of them being ‘legally’ obliged to obey their husbands (ala Egypt style). Maybe it is not a case of Jordan not applying their own laws, but maybe people are not making complaints about spousal/child abuse even when it exists? Maybe there is a reason for this? Be it cultural or simply a perceived inaccessibility of the police force? I do remember that one of my Uncles neighbours son (in Jordan) was jailed for swearing at a young woman (he used a very deragotory term, and was imrpisoned under the honor crime law… so they do work for women! But maybe people fear reporting such cases of harassment for fear of being judged as loose women?
Another thought provoking post I may add
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Madas Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 08:17
Hey,
I agree with you on the fact that here we do not have the culture of complaining and asking for the law to be reinforced… I mean i know a bunch of women, who are abused and don’t even know they are! This is how bad things are here!
However, I think there are three steps for the people to have their rights: 1- for the law to exit 2- for them to be reinforced and 3- awareness! I mean people usually don’t know that there are laws that protect them.
However my point here is to retain sharia’ law but somehow regulate it so that it becomes fair for women. Ya3ni: men will still marry multiple wives, but at least deal with it as in Morocco… you need to marry… fine, bring your wife and we will inform both women… if everyone agrees… Allah ma3akom!
When a woman gets divorced here, she leaves the house with her tribe of children… and the man stays there happily and very soon starts a new family… my feeling is that when people get divorced and they have children… the man has to leave the house for the children BY LAW… and not make his family homeless… or force the wife to support his abuse just because she has no place to go!
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loolt Reply:
August 30th, 2009 at 01:12
totally agree
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Madas Reply:
September 1st, 2009 at 14:17
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one more thing, I like the polygamy laws in the Mudawana, it is in line with Islamic jurisprudence probably more so than in other countries, which is great! I always said that the rules of polygamy should be upheld by law if the right to polygamy is to be protected by said law.
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Part of the reason I think is the history of resistance (anti-colonial and revolutionary) in these countries. if you look at the revolutionary movements in Egypt, Tunisa, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, etc. you notice a common trend. Revolutionary movements that gravitated towards radical democratic ideas. Women were equally instrumental in these movements.
In Jordan however, you didn’t see these types of movements and thus you see less political involvement, much less activism. Having no tradition of impacting the government, not any hope of actually do so, many give up on attempting to impact or change the status-quo, and resort to small ventures to sustain themselves financially.
Jordan maintains a dangerous balance: keeping enough people economically viable, while keeping a tight control on media and opposition groups. As the middle class struggles and the rich appear more and more gluttonous, I think we’ll see a growing trend towards movements that demand economic justice, radical democracy, and more transparency.
The only question that remains is how the government will respond.
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Women are responsible for the majority of this, specially when they are mothers who love screwing their daughters lives!
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Madas Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 08:23
I don’t think this is fair… you don’t know what women go through in order to make this harsh judgment!
Tell me how are women responsible, when they are denied their education. When they are not, they are not allowed to work. When they do work and bring income, the man takes it away by force…
What should they do in case of divorce, they have to suffer the harsh judgment of society, their parents, who are starving themselves, would not take the children… so if a woman is decent and wants to keep her children she has to shut up and stay home with the bastard she is married to (probably her father married her off to)…
These are the women you are blaming….Please!
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Sometimes I think Jordanian women have to spend so much time to survive the system, they don’t have energy or hope to fuel begin thriving outside of it.
Someone had a thought provoking Noam Chomsky quote at Nas’ blog.
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Madas Reply:
July 21st, 2009 at 08:23
I would sadly agree…. but i think slowly we need to start… just like other women in other systems did it… we can do it
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[...] via House of Curiosity… « Why are Jordanian women abused while Maghrebi women empowered?. [...]
We’re our own worst enemy, I swear. I’m proud to be an empowered woman with a great post-graduate degree and a great job. Yet, other women try to make me feel bad about spending my time and energy focusing on myself and my career. In this time I should have been searching for a husband and having babies.
My sister is awesome, she’s an architect as well as a mother. SHE is made to feel bad (by other women, of course) for not dedicating more time to her job and also for not dedicating more time to her kids, not to mention not cooking enough for her husband. She was made to feel bad for only having one baby, and that the one baby was a girl. Then after she had her baby boy, other women made her feel bad that her baby boy doesn’t have a brother. They made her feel bad about having an emergency C-section after 22 hours of labour (they called her dalloo3a!) Other women made her feel bad about being over-weight after having a baby. She starved herself and got back to her original weight, and they made her feel bad about saying no to the big fat slab of knaffeh they offered her.
We need female solidarity.
So, I don’t think it’s the laws. I think women’s mentalities should change first, and then once the majority of women stop judging each other for their life choices and start to sincerely and genuinly believe that they are just as able to be independent as any man, that’s when our society will flourish.
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Madas Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 19:31
Agreed!
I don’t feel I can add anything to your comment… you articulated the thoughts of a lot of smart women very accurately…. I honestly don’t know where to start to get women to stop judging each other and to have female solidarity
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@Dr. Feminist—So TRUE. I’ve gotten the most guilt, pressure, prodding and shaming from other WOMEN. They’re always ready with their forked tongues to make me feel bad about living a somewhat progressive life (i.e., my husband helps me with the dishes–which is apparently, scandalous). When women stop pulling each other down, we’ll be most of the way there.
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