I always get excited to see one of our promising youth. However, the moment I said hello it hit me that something was not right. To start with Sami was not supposed to be in the street that hour of the day. It was 11 AM, he was supposed to be at school. “sami, keefak?” I asked. He answered smiling, “good”. “Why aren’t you at school?” He showed me his left hand “well” he said, “I am going to the hospital”. The smile immediately left my face. His finger was in a weird position,  I asked unthinkingly “is it broken?”  He said “yes, my Arabic language teacher broke it!”

Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. I felt the anger forming in my stomach. “why? What happened?” I asked very seriously now. “He was angry at one of my class mates. He asked me to put my book on the desk. I turned my head to remove it from the bag. At that moment I saw my pen at my neighbor’s desk, I took it. Before I blinked, he hit me.”

I looked at sami, who was explaining to me a perfectly disturbing story with an embarrassed smile, feeling that he was the guilty party. It was a critical moment; a moment when one of our youth could learn that he mattered, that what happened to him was, as a matter of fact, important. Sami is the product of an educational system that strips children of their dignity.  Teachers peel off the first layer of children’s dignity because their mothers did not go beyond 6^th grade. They peel off the rest slowly over twelve years of pain because they have the wrong origins or religions, because they come from the wrong backgrounds, because the teachers themselves are not happy with their paycheck, because they are not pleased with their socio economic status.  The result is a broken generation that suffers of severe low self esteem.

I decided that I needed to do something, this was a rare opportunity that was presented to me for a purpose. I took Sami to my office and called the school.

One the supervisors picked up the phone. I told him that I had a child whose finger is broken because his teacher hit him. The supervisor said “oh, yeah, I saw him half an hours ago” I asked “and what did you do about it?” he answered  “I asked him what was wrong and he told me he fell and broke his finger.”  Sami explained to me later that the teacher was around therefore, he was afraid to say anything in front of him.

“Why didn’t you take him to a healthcare center to take a look at the injury?” I asked and he answered “Lady, I have 800 kids, I don’t have the energy or the time to run after each one of them!”

 This sentence summed it all up. It represented everything that is wrong with our educational system, actually it was a manifestation of the era of degradation that our world has sunk into… We are simply too selfish to care. It said it all… I could not remember last time I felt this angry… I decided to do the undoable… I pulled a string.

I called the most important person that I knew, explained to her what the situation was and begged her to do something about it… luckily, my wasta’s heart is in the right place…

To cut a long story short, a few hours later, Sami’s mother called me, she wanted to thank me, now that she was informed of all the details…She told me that the whole staff went to visit the family’s house to drink a cup of coffee… a “atwa” of sorts… Aparently my wasta managed to put them in their places. They felt they needed to do something to redeem themselves… or maybe they simply thought that Sami’s family knows people and therefore should not be touched…

 I laughed!

I am so terribly amused by the whole thing. I wonder what would have happened if I did not talk to sami, I wonder how many Samis are out there in Jordan… I wonder why the system fails…

 Why didn’t I believe in the system? Why did I need to call my wasta?

 Let me briefly mention another story here, hopefully it will shed the light to why we don’t believe in the system.  

A couple of years ago, we had a problem with one of the schools. It had snakes living in the walls. A colleague contacted the Ministry of Education. They sent an angry inspector. She took him around and showed him the size of our predicament… he asked one question.. “did the snake ever bite any child?” he asked…”No” answered a baffled teacher… “Then this is not a priority!”

I would only say  thank God for new media… at least today an inspector would think 5 times before he dares say something this horrid!

After a long meeting a couple of days ago, I attempted to get on an elevator on my out of a building only to find it packed. Taking a step back and allowing the doors to close and move on, I caught a glimpse the elevator’s passengers and who should be inside but my long lost friend Dina! As the doors closed I knew that she had seen me and made an effort to find her, while she, apparently, attempted to do the same. For a while we travelled up and down in opposing elevators, trying to meet on common ground, which we eventually and fortunately did, greeting each other with a nice hug. We gossiped all the way up to Mecca Street, where we had a coffee at Zataar wa Zeit.

I always liked Dina. She’s not spectacular, but steady and dependable. We attended the same university, she was one of the few girls I could share a laugh with during my university days. We started reminiscing, recalling our dear professors, and as the conversation progressed, we started sharing stories that we could not share when we were younger; mostly about abuse of power, mistreatment, unethical flirtations and injustice in grading.

I realized that my “bad” university experiences, which was defined by a few negative remarks I received from a certain teaching staff member, was not at all bad in comparison to what other girls went through. Dina’s experience included shouting and humiliation, comments related to her appearance, in addition to being asked to go to a certain staff member’s offices after school hours. I was not sure I wanted to know for what purpose.

Dina’s stories brought to my mind Rama’s story. A young woman I work with, Rama is a student in one of our respectable universities. In a drama workshop that took place this last Ramadan, participants were asked to act scenes from their lives that had left a mark on them. Rama chose to act out a scene that took place between her and a teacher at her university. She told the story innocently, oblivious to the fact that what she was detailing was in fact considered sexual harassment.

In a nutshell, her teacher asked her to go to his office and when she did not, he started making fun of her in front of her colleagues in class. She decided to drop the class, which required his permission. He assured her that she was a good student and was sure to pass. When her final result came out, she was surprised to find that she failed the class even though she did well in her exams. The professor did not shy away from telling her that “stupid girls” who do not go to his office don’t deserve to pass! Rama could do nothing and could tell no one, as her parents were not very happy that she was going to university to start with. They preferred her to settle down with a nice husband and live like a modern-day princess.

The parallels between these two women’s stories truly surprised me. I mean, things really take a long time to change in Jordan.

The thing is, girls in Jordan go through different kinds of situations that they can’t share, mostly because this means a scandal in a closed society where victims are the ones who get punished. Instead, they prefer to shut up, bite the bullet and live their lives.

After our long candid conversation, I confessed to Dina that for a while after I graduated, I regretted that I did not slash the tires of a certain professor who I felt had verbally abused me. His verbal flirtations were comments that I was too young and too inexperienced to deal with at the time, and I too received a very low grade in his class even though I did well in all my exams. I am happy for social media as at least now these stories can see the light of day. Dina pointed out that regardless of the number of tools that get created a voiceless woman remains voiceless as long she has to pay the price.

On a positive note, a few participants who attended the workshop were touched by Rama’s story. They decided to go to their own universities and try to give back voices to voiceless women by gathering their stories and taking collective action. They are still not sure how to do it, but they have been talking about a few ideas and I know they will find a way. For me, it is positive enough that they are aware of the problem at this age and that they can do something about it now.

Anyway, I found a report on the Internet regarding the prevalence of mistreatment and justice of grading system in five health related faculties in Jordan University of Science and Technology.

The report shares the following results:
• 61% of the students had experienced at least one form of mistreatment
• Perceived mistreatment most often (52%) had taken the form of psychological mistreatment (shouting and humiliation)
• Other forms of mistreatment such as physical harm (32%), mistreatment related to religion (36%), mistreatment related to external appearance (35%), Sexual harassment (33%), Mistreatment related to specialty (29%) were also common

Male students (66%) complain more than female students (56%);
• Perceived mistreatment was exceptionally high among the Israeli Arabs, 83% compared to 59% for the Jordanians and 65% for other non-Jordanian Arabs;
• Many students (66%) believe that grading system in JUST is unfair. Ninety seven percent of the Israeli Arabs did not trust the grading system compared to 64% of the Jordanians and 66% of the non-Jordanian Arabs.

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 took me a long time to convince Um Yazan to write about her problem.  She finally did.  You can read the article on 7iber.

I came across this lady in one of the lectures that have been organized through the project Citizen in my City project, in one of the local communities. I won’t mention what community, because she specifically asked me to keep all these details confidential.

I will go back to Um Yazan in a bit, but now, I will give a brief about the lecture, so that people understand the background.

The lecture was about violence in general. However, the lecturer spoke a lot about sexual harassment.  She was explaining to parents why their kids would not approach them if they were facing issues of this sort in their lives. 

“ if your kids tell you they did bad in an exam, and your reaction was to take the slipper and throw at it them, they would start thinking that if my mom did this with something silly, what would she do with there is something shameful involved?”

I thought she had a good point there. She encouraged women to get their children to talk to them, even if what they is childish and silly. This will increase the chances of children talking…. I am not sure how true this is… but I think children can slip when they are younger… however when they get older, it becomes more and more difficult to talk about things like that with parents…. but Ya3ni… it does not harm. On the contrary it definitely helps.

Um Yazan’s Predicament

Um Yazan happened to be in one of those lectures… she went blank in the middle of the lecture… she approached the lecturer afterwards in a panic mode… she had realized what was happening to her son yazan (an assumed name). 

For the longest time, she was not sure what to do about the change in his behaviour.  He stopped eating, became edgy and angry and became aggressive with his siblings… but what puzzled her most was his persistence on wearing very shabby clothes! She knew something was wrong but could never decipher the signs.

When she talked to the lecturer, she started crying helplessly… she said that she suspected something bad was happening to her son… she could not even bring herself to give it a name. ..

After that, things moved quickly, she launched an investigation at the school with the support of the right channels, and did what was needed…

It turned out that her son was being harassed by an older student … (a kid himself), whom in turn was being harassed by someone older somewhere in his own neighbourhood! The story was really shocking! Victims turn into predators… I think maybe it is a normal human outcome! And honestly, who know maybe that would have been Yazan’s future?

 Yazan is being helped by a counsellor now… and the other kid too…everyone is a victim in this story… and hopefully they will start leading normal lives now.

 Going public?

As I was involved in the story from the beginning, I was trying to convince um Yazan to go public with the story. Bring the issue into the spot light… but she refused stubbornly…

Honestly she had a good point.

 She explained that they come from a very conservative background. If this was happening to a girl, it would be a shame and end of story. But if it is a boy… (and here is the surprise)  it is double shame! He will be accused of not being a real man (which is silly, since he is only 11), he will start being bullied in the street and in the school… but worse… the family will start abusing them… I don’t even know where to start if I want to explain the complexities there… sisters in law, brother in law, cousins… competition, jealousy, favouritism, inheritance, gossip…

ya3ni… going public will only open Pandora’s box.

Heavy negotiations took place between her and her husband… she was angry and wanted to do something….the husband agreed to seek help, but refused to go public… his concern was that this will stigmatize their son. His opinion was that now that the boy is being treated, khalas they can move to a different neighbourhood, change schools, and start fresh. Basically, give the boy a chance to put this in the past and move on….

But if they went public…this will be the most important thing about their son forever…. and since their community is very small, he will never be anonymous, he will always be remembered as the boy who was harassed at school.

Yazan’s parents explained…that their duty is to help their son and not save whole world…they won’t be able to, they said realistically….

This is why I appreciate her writing the article.

I sympathize with them, and with the hundreds of families who suffer from similar issues in silence…

It is usually a pleasure to talk to schools kids. They are smart, funny and honest….this statement comes as a result of the workshop I was asked to give about violence in schools. The whole thing was organized by one of the workers that support us in the project “Citizen in my City“. A gem of a worker really… he is seriously the most useful person.

It is seldom that I pass a nuit blanche, but the night before the workshop, it seemed like settling world’s  troubles was easier than coming up with a creative idea that would keep my 50 young ladies engaged. I realize that the best-equipped adult mind in the world, can’t cope with the peculiar class of questions that originate in a thirteen-year girl’s brain.

The workshop was great. The girls were divided into five groups. Each representing a category in the educational process…. girls, boys, teachers, parents and ministry of education. I read them some of the typical opinions that average citizens in Jordan have, and asked them to comment on them within their groups…. they surprised me… I thought about “the worker”, who was panicking before the session and told me

If you want we can tell them what to say….

I was amused, and asked him to have faith in the brains of 13 year old girls…

Before the workshop, family protection unit gave the girls a lecture, and even though the person who spoke was very charming and smooth… her ideas were scary… highly moral, conservative and self righteous….

Among the things she said is that there is no rape in this country, no harassment, this happens abroad… in our country women are willing participants in the crimes against them… this made me think of the 10+ girls that I work with, and who suffer severe depression because close male kin harass them repeatedly and they have nowhere to go or no one to tell.  I thought of the 100+ women I know and who are so used to being abused; they no longer recognize it as abuse…

I am shocked at how conservative the public opinion is… lately I have been slapped time after time with the morality… Jordanians simply hold each other to higher standards… we are expected to be angels… even though we are all simply humans… it is scary!

On the positive side….  She gave a lot of information, which was wonderful,  as the girls hammered her with all kinds of weird scenarios revolving around sexual abuse… funny, eh?

Anyway… I realize this is a charming topic for Eid… so I will leave you with the video… I think it is cute… by the way, this is my first official video… I loved editing it… it is so amateurish… but I still love it J

I have been begging Diala (an assumed name) to go out for a quite a while now…. between her two children, her petulant husband and her demanding career, she has gone incommunicado… Diala’s husband (lets call him Fadi) is a nice guy. They met at work and they liked each other… when he proposed, her family scanned him closely, and found him perfect in every respect. Good family, good manners, good financial position, good looking. Even us, her friends, we simply adored him, he is funny, witty, helpful and smart…

However dark clouds started appearing over their marriage less than a year after they got married…

While he needs someone to serve him, she needs someone to spoil her. He is very domestic but she is clueless when it comes to cleaning and cooking… He has a streak of sadism that would stay dormant if a strong partner stepped in; she is simply weak. After a while concerning patterns appeared between them. His sadism has been feeding on her weakness… and her depression has been feeding her vindictiveness.

From an ordinary point view, they have the perfect image,… Their family portrait could be published  in a magazine!  but when someone digs deeper… oh boy!

She has been avoiding not only us (her friends) but also her family because Fadi humiliates her subtly in front of us; he makes fun of her and calls her names, he acts arrogantly, does not take part in family events… so she feels embarrassed and prefers not to see anyone. This is called Isolation.  She, on the other hand withholds affection. She puts him down, and discounts his accomplishments. This is part of emotional abuse. He controls money, does not give her access to their joint bank account, spends family income without her consent, registers everything in his name, even though they both work… Surprisingly enough this is also a type of abuse; it is referred to as economic abuse.  They both use children to relay messages, they use them to make each other feel guilty…

The one thing they don’t do is physical abuse…Diala regrets that fact…

His problem is that he does not beat me up! If he did then we both would be forced to acknowledge the problem …

I got so angry hearing Diala’s troubles that I had to go out and take a walk.  I understood exactly how she feels… I am just amazed at how many people are in abusive relationships without even being aware of it… and I am talking about both men and women…

On a relevant note… I was talking to my counterpart at Sahab… she was explaining that people are in love with the series “Nour”… because it made us see that we are emotionally barren …

I wonder if this is the result of our educational system? Culture? Society? Religion? What is it exactly?

I had a workshop that revolved around creating a community center there.  The discussion went into the direction of public gardens… since Sahab community was complaining about the lack of public spaces for children. A lady there said that the problem is not in the gardens themselves… even if there are gardens, she (as a mother) would not send her children to a public garden, since there is a lot of drugs activity going on there. …

Obviously that did not go well… people slaughtered her! They were so upset about her accusations for a number of reasons… maybe that she was a woman, maybe that we are not local and it felt like she was showing dirty laundry…. Does not matter…what matters is that public spaces have been used as ideal spaces for predators.

*********************
I got the idea in one of those days that my sisters and I took the kids to a local park… We try to take them to a park on daily basis… truth to be known is that we don’t take them because of any brilliant maternal skills… but that is the most effective way to exhaust the kids to make sure they are in bed as early as possible…!

The thing is… I had noticed that whenever I go to a public garden, ….the demography of adults is something like: 6 Indonesian women,  5 Philippians,  4 Srilankan, one or two Europeans… No Jordanian women what so ever… European women go to public gardens to spend quality time with their children, Arab women send their maids to spend quality time with their children.

That particular day, there was a suspicious teenager going around, he would look for young children that are alone and just come close to them… with the maids busy socializing with each other and the mothers busy elsewhere doing whatever that they are doing… very young children are left vulnerable to pedophiles, drug predators, and other kinds of predators…

That particular day, my sister, who noticed this guy went to him and yelled her lungs out, questioning him on what he was doing,  threatening to get the security guard… upon hearing this, the guy dissolved in oblivion… We never saw him again…

So basically, the presence of one responsible local adult, could save the future of a few children… whose duty or fault is it? Government? Predators? Children? Families?  Or us locals who lack any sense of social responsibility and sense of belonging….. ? I wonder….

Speaking of different nationalities and cultures, I have recedntly watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for the 18the time  probably… I still think it is the funniest movie ever made. It is sweet, hilarious and completely relevant.….

This lady is in so much trouble. Racisim, Abuse, Theft, Fraud she signed that they take 1000 $ but only gives them 100 minor exploitation and molest 7azha il m3atar the maids are 16 and 17! … you name it! I was surprised… actually I was so fascinated with the story that I caught myself jumping around saying Bravo 3aleihom!! She deserves it!

I mean come on… vive la revolution!

This reminded me of a something related. When I went to France last year. This French guy was telling us how he was horrified when he was in Beirut at how they abuse the maids… and he went into a detailed description how maids are being hit, sleep in balconies or in the kitchen floor, sometimes raped…how they work non stop for hours and hours and then get slapped or bashed if anything goes wrong… I remember seeing all those appalled expressions on those pretty French faces. I was so ashamed to say that these stories are very familiar in Jordan, so I pretended to be as surprised and horrified as the French and heard myself repeating words like “Really?! They do this in Beirut?! “ OH MY GOD!” “How could anyone be so cruel?” “How could humanity stoop so low!!?”

Maids in Jordan and other places apparently are treated like slavesor maybe worse! Even in the most CHIC families, where everyone is so elegant and refined, where the lady of the house is so busy with charity, the master is a very prominent member of society, the sons are successful and the daughters are beyond attractive and smart!… you would see the maids living in totally unstylish conditions… so if you have a maid, and your maid works more than 8 hours a day and she does not have her own bed and gets slapped or yelled at for only 100$ then …. BEWARE… Because you are just another person who fell into the hypocrisy and the trap of dehumanizing the maids and you are in contradiction with human rights, and amnesty international and international law and maybe… just maybe one day you will find yourself in as much trouble as our Saudi friend is!