August 16, 2009 – 3:32 pm
Much like in Jordan, women in Morocco are at a watershed moment. Five years ago, they made headlines across the Muslim world when the legislature introduced a family law act that gave women basic rights. A woman could initiate divorce. Polygamy was banned except in cases in which a wife could not give her husband children. The legal age for marriage was raised from 15 to 18.
But legislation is not a silver bullet. American women won the right to vote with the 19th amendment in 1920. Yet, another 50 years passed before they were able to achieve unofficial rights, such as to advance in their careers, assert themselves as equals with their husband in careers and childrearing and sex (and are we really there yet?) The legislation helped, but true empowerment required a cultural awakening as well.
Similarly, five years after their victory, Moroccan women now face a backlash from Islamists who prefer to keep women subordinated. They accuse feminism of being a Western conspiracy to subvert Islam. They want “virginity tests” for brides. They keep pressure on local judges to rule in favor of child marriages– family court judges received 30,312 requests for marriages to minors in 2006 according to reporter Daan Bauwens.
Until the mentality is changed in Morocco, real reform won’t happen. How can we begin to do this?
30 July 2009
August 13, 2009 – 5:24 am
Check it out: Muslim women and men in Jordan are using Facebook, Twitter and other technology to create exactly the kind of social pressure needed to stop honor killings in their country.
Each year, dozens of girls are killed at the hands of their male relatives for “crimes” such as initiating divorce, adultery, having a boyfriend or- in some cases- being victims of rape.
“There’s No Honor in Crime” is a Facebook page gaining in popularity for trying to abolish the idea that a woman stain’s the family’s “honor” by her actions. Twitter is filled with pro-women Jordanian bloggers (go to Christinaasquit to find them). Technology has enabled young people to spread the message and connect with each other and see how women are treated in other parts of the world.
The goal is to repeal Jordan’s Article 98. I quote Jordanian blogger “The Arab Observer”.
“The Article stipulates a minimum of three months and a maximum of two years in prison for a murder that is committed in a fit of fury caused by an unlawful act on the part of the victim. A fit of fury is exactly what many Jordanians expects from a man who just found out that a woman relative has disgraced his family “honor”. Somehow this matching opened the doors to the murder of many Jordanian women.”
The Jordanian government is under pressure from conservatives to keep status quo, but recently government officials such as Minister of Justice Ayman Odeh have openly criticized honor crimes. A prominent religious council just issued a fatwa (religious ruling) banning ‘virginity checks’, a humiliating and invasive practice often employed before marriage or if premarital sex is suspected. Real change comes slowly, but this is what it looks like.
I believe that one day honor crimes will be a thing of the past in Jordan. But to make this happen, it takes the work of Jordanian men and women to keep exactly this kind of pressure up. Follow them on Facebook and twitter to show your support.
As US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton heads to Africa, it may shock many to learn that almost half of the Rwanda Parliament is women– the highest female representation in the world (that’s double the percentage of US women in Congress.)
They got their proverbial high heel in the door thanks to a mandatory quota of women in government was legislated after the 1994 genocide. Iraqi women also wanted a quota after Saddam fell, but the Bush administration refused to support them. As I detail in Sisters in War, the Iraqi women, with help from some US women’s groups, lobbied parliament and won a mandatory 25% representation in government anyway. OK, republicans have good reasons to oppose quotas in some instances, but they were wrong on Iraq. Women in Islamic countries need quotas to force back tribal and religious pressures that keep them out of government.
Rwandan women have since enacted legislation to punish perpetrators of sexual violence, to increase women in business and to allow women to inherit property. I don’t know if Madame Secretary will visit Rwanda, but she is planning to meet with Africa’s first female head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Send them our support, Hilary!
While we in the US usually only hear about human rights abuses against women in Muslim countries, the reality is that there is a vast diversity of opinions throughout the region on the issue of women. The latest example of that comes from Yemen, where the government banned child marriages (under 15 years old) in the early 1990s. Under pressure from Islamists, they reversed that, and now parliamentarians are currently trying to institute it again– and again facing opposition from conservatives. Terrible stories have emerged of girls as young as 9 years old being forced into marriages and raped.
As despicable as is the practice, any involvement by the US would only fuel the false argument that the practice is somehow “Islamic” and the US is trying to destroy Islam, (wrong on both counts!) Modern, educated forces in Yemen have raised the issue again and again and only they can move the country towards condemning this practice. While a marriage law would be a good first step, outside cities, government is a distant, powerless force in the lives of most young girls, anyway. They are married off due to poverty, circumstance or the will of their father, regardless of politics. The more effective way to reduce child marriages is to create a class of strong, educated and employed Yemeni women, who could work within their country to change a culture that condones such repulsive practices.
Welcome to my blog. Stay tuned for interesting news on women in the Middle East.
