The Jordan Times published a revealing first-person account of the sheer sexism of Jordanian law with regards to Jordanian women married to non-Jordanian men. (Reverse the situation: Jordanian men married to non-Jordanian women, and you shall have a smooth sailing). Read:

A Jordanian family of men?

Nermeen Murad

Almost two years ago I wrote my first column at The Jordan Times and expressed my incredulity at my family being denied membership of the Jordanian family.

My husband and children have not only been denied citizenship, they have also been subjected to a series of what I would call xenophobic legislation and directives that certainly ensure they could never claim that they belong here.

Two years on, I have become resigned to the fact that Jordan, with its current social and political mindset, will resist any attempt from my side to add my small family’s imported name to the list of Jordanian family names. This I do with regret for my children who will never comprehend why their mother’s country rejected them outright and without compromise.

But this doesn’t mean that I will give up the fight, at least for reduced bureaucracy in dealing with the affairs of the spouse and children of a Jordanian woman, regardless of their nationality.

Hence, here I go again.

Two weeks ago, the Jordanian Ministry of Education saw fit to allow the foreign children of a Jordanian woman to enrol in public schools. I don’t want to go on about how shocking it is that they had been kept out of these schools for so long. I will instead concentrate on welcoming the positive and calling for even more movement in that direction.

Let me please describe the situation. The husband of a Jordanian woman is treated exactly like any foreign labourer and has no special categorisation that even slightly improves his standing with the authorities in the country.

In plain Arabic speak, he has no wasta! He and every other menial worker who enters Jordan are given the same treatment.

So, therefore, when he buys a car, he needs security clearance. When he buys a house, he needs security clearance. He renews his driver’s licence every single year and every year he pays the fees again. He renews his visa every year and, of course, has to go through the same procedure as the domestic helper, registering his address at the local police station and then taking all his documentation to the different departments associated with the Ministry of Interior. My children carry an iqama, exactly like the contracted workers, and my husband has the added pleasure of also carrying a work permit.

The husband of a Jordanian woman cannot simply decide to live in Jordan without work because it is the work that allows him to have a residency and not his marriage.

I look forward to making arrangements for retirement in any other country in the world that will be happy to allow my husband and I to retire in peace without an annual hassle; my country has so far not made allowances for that possibility.

In fact, an anomaly appeared the other day when we began procedures to employ a domestic helper under my husband’s name, only to find out that he has to put JD2,000 deposit as a guarantee against the import of a house helper.

This is the same treatment allocated to passing foreigners in the country and does not begin to allow for the fact that he resides here in Jordan because he is the lifetime partner of a Jordanian citizen, albeit a women.

I asked the other day at a brokerage firm whether I could create small investment portfolios for my minor children only to find out that the law had a relapse against me in this regard.

Apparently I, their mother, cannot be the guardian of my minor children, because that is the father’s prerogative and therefore any funds invested on their behalf by me is under the control of their father.

If Jordan cannot bring itself to welcome our husbands and children as honoured citizens of the Jordanian family, then let it at least welcome them as honoured guests.

Directives such as the one that allowed the children of a Jordanian woman into schools are to be commended and encouraged. But they must be followed by other such steps that recognise the special status of this sector of society and seeks to make its members welcome in their adopted home.

One-year residency should be replaced with five-year residencies, followed by permanent residency for the relatives of a female Jordanian citizen. Sale or purchase of personal property, i.e., houses and cars, should be routine for the spouses and children of a Jordanian woman.

Irregularities in the law which favour male members of the Jordanian family over female siblings should be reduced and in time, removed. Then, we can honestly claim to be home to the one Jordanian family.

Nermeen34@aol.com

Source

This is truly a slap on the face of justice.

I got this press release in my inbox from a Jordanian gender equality campaign, as did other bloggers- I am sure, and I felt compelled to spread the word:

Gender Equality, Made in Jordan

Young Jordanians using new methods for new audiences

Amman 5th July 2008-As part of a local initiative, groups of young Jordanians have been seen in various areas of Amman handing out badges, stickers and posters. This is all part of the Gender Equality Campaign, which is just being launched in Jordan. A number of local Jordanian NGOs have cooperated with some individuals and companies from the private sector to help support this campaign and the young Jordanians working on it.

The Gender Equality Campaign was created as part of a homegrown initiative by a group of young Jordanians who are committed to the idea of justice and equality for the women and men of Jordan. The main purpose of this campaign is to educate the public in Jordan about women’s rights and to mobilize the community to take action to address this human rights issue in Jordan.

The main component of this campaign is to provide a channel for dialogue for people to discuss this issue in Jordan. The foundation of this new channel is to target all aspects of Jordanian society, taking the issue of gender equality outside the walls of conferences, workshops and offices.

This channel is being opened by the young campaigners, using the logo that they created. The logo of the campaign illustrates the wishes, hopes and ambitions of the young Jordanian campaigners. It is a symbol that represents the rights, duties, and dreams for us all, pink for women, blue for men.

As part of the Gender Equality Campaign, permission was gained by one of the supporting local NGOs from the Greater Amman Municipality to install two sets of monuments with its logo. One is on Tabarbour Circle, the other on Middle East Circle in Al-Wihdat. The hope of the young Jordanian campaigners is to gain permission to install similar monuments in other areas around Amman in the near future.

-The End-

Gender Equality Campaign

This campaign was created as part of an initiative by a group of young Jordanians who are committed to the idea of justice and equality for the women and men of Jordan. The main purpose of the Gender Equality Campaign is to educate the public in Jordan about Women’s Rights and to mobilize the community to take action to address this human rights issue in Jordan.

The vision for the campaign is to increase the level of awareness and commitment to women’s rights in Jordanian society. Furthermore, the mission is to create a channel for a broad based dialogue about the rights and roles of women in Jordan.

Contact Details:

Lulwa Al-Kilani Dina Liddawi

Gender Equality Campaigner Gender Equality Campaigner

Email: genderequalityc@gmail.com

Telephone: +962 77 90 6 90 40 Telephone: +962 77 9999 187

It’s positively refreshing to see a local effort being made by local women and men eager to improve the stereotypical gender images in Jordan. Oh and by the way, I saw one of the monuments the other day while I was driving: it is basically two columns, one blue and one pink, and the blue column is taller than the pink one. ” It is a symbol that represents the rights, duties, and dreams for us all, pink for women, blue for men.”

If you would like to get in on the fun, join the campaigners in downtown Amman on July 12th, where they will speak to people and spread the word, which is so groovy. You have the contact details of the campaign, so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need directions or have any questions!

Go, gender equality, go!

Just the other day I was thinking of the role that women in leadership must play to help society move towards gender equality by cooperating with women’s civil society organizations. This duty is often clouded by “differences” between women in various leadership posts.

At the call of the The Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW), women ministers, deputies, mayors, and others met last week to discuss ways to cooperate to lobby for women’s causes in the country. This is a good step forward I think, but I withhold judgment until something tangible comes out of it — like suggestions to achieve equality for women in the various laws.

Take this an example of legal and social discrimination against women in Jordan:

20-year-old kills his sister in so-called honour crime

By Rana Husseini

AMMAN – The criminal prosecutor on Saturday charged a 20-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister in the Jordan Valley for reasons related to family honour, official sources said.

The suspect reportedly confessed to stabbing his sibling to death at their family home a day after she was released from custody by the administrative governor, the source told The Jordan Times.

After the incident, the suspect waited for the police to come and arrest him and when they arrived at the scene, he claimed he killed his sibling, who was married at the age of 16 and had a one-year-old child, to cleanse his family’s honour, the source added.

His sister’s husband accused her of seeing other men and she went missing from his home a few days before the incident, according to the source.

“The authorities found the victim and she was detained for a while by the administrative governor, who handed her over to her family on Thursday after her father signed a JD5,000 guarantee that he would not harm his daughter,” the source said.

The victim went home with her father on Thursday and on Friday morning her brother murdered her, the source said, adding that the criminal prosecutor did not press charges against other family members, but ordered her brother detained.

The victim’s husband refused to press charges against the suspect, a source close to the investigation told The Jordan Times.

The victim became the seventh woman to be killed in a so-called honour crime in Jordan since the beginning of the year.

She is also the third woman to be killed for reasons related to family honour in May.

Source: The Jordan Times

Every time something as atrocious as this happens in my country, I feel a piece of me has died. When I think about it, I feel that I am powerless except to shout from the bottom of an abyss. There has to be something you and I can do about it, I hate to think we are so insignificant in the face of organized and legalized murder. What can we do?

Horrific news this morning, another woman killed for the sake of a myth called honor:

Criminal Prosecutor Amjad Kurdi on Saturday charged a 23-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister for reasons related to family honour, official sources said.

Kurdi also charged the victim’s father, mother and sibling of complicity in premeditated murder in connection with the drowning of the 22-year-old at dawn on Saturday.

The 23-year-old suspect, an electrician who got engaged a week before the murder, then placed his sister’s body in the trunk of the car, drove back to Amman, headed to the Jabal Hussein Police Station and informed officers on duty that he murdered his sister to “cleanse his family’s honour”, the source added.

The victim, who was married almost two weeks before the incident, was returned to her family home on Friday by her husband, who questioned “her fidelity”.

The victim’s family interrogated her and she allegedly told them that “she knew a man but was not involved in an affair with him” so they beat her until she almost fainted, the source told The Jordan Times.

The victim tried to resist and informed her brother that she did nothing wrong, but “he did not listen and killed her,” the source added.

Read the full story here

This is the second woman to be slaughtered in cold blood by a male sibling this week, the 6th since the start of 2008. Nobody knows if the husband’s allegations were accurate, the family never bothered and killed the girl anyway, and now how can we ever be sure what went on?* The woman was married so she must have lost her virginity, and the husband decided to report her “infidelity” after two weeks of marriage. At the sound of the word “honor” the victim’s family was taken by some demonic myth and butchered their own daughter.

Will this killer also walk and be hailed a champion of honor?

*Please note that the woman’s being or not being in an affair of sorts should not have spelled out her death sentence. There is no excuse for murder, and least of all for murder in the name of honor. All justifications for that, real or fabricated, should be made illegal.

A new atrocity in the name of female genitalia honor was committed in Jordan two days ago. Al Ghad reports that a man killed his 20-something, married and pregnant, sister by shooting her repeatedly in the head. The man then handed himself in and claimed his motive was defending the family’s honor.

The story in Al Ghad does not clarify exactly what the situation was that led to the young woman’s, and her baby’s, death. But there is mention that her brother suspected she was having an affair with a relative. That begs the question: how come the man who’s engaged in an improper relationship with a woman is rarely, if ever, treated with the same cruelty that the woman is subjected to, i.e. death?

In another story, a 19-year old girl was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison (originally to hang to death but the verdict was reduced) for poisoning four members of her family. The story goes that the girl poisoned her parents and two brothers because they had accused her of stealing some money, and let her brother beat her up, in the week prior to the murders. The girl felt she needed to avenge herself and stated that she wanted to “harm them” only and not to kill them when she presented them with poisoned juice, but they died.

There is no excuse for murder that a rational person would hide behind. But, given the situation in our societies, women are extremely marginalized and at the same time there are many doors open to them to pursue education and careers. The resentment resulting from prejudice against them when they have achieved just as much, if not more, than their male counterparts is bound to take shape one way or the other. You can only repress someone for so long, and then they’ll explode in your face and you won’t like it.

If that girl’s family had prevented her brother from beating her up upon accusing her of theft, she would not have been so angry and frustrated with her situation. If that other young woman’s family had cared to check the murderous brother’s actions and attitudes, there would not have been a woman and an unborn baby dead today. A large part of the reason many women are angry is because when they speak up they are violently silenced, when they dare to ask a question they are ridiculed, and when they demand their rights they are robbed of what little privileges they already have.

I am saddened by this current state of affairs. It makes my heart bleed to see the brutality of the patriarchal system that sees women not as companions and equals, but as followers and subjects. This won’t last, though, because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

In today’s news, the Jordan Times reported the following:

Criminal Prosecutor Tareq Shoqerat on Sunday charged a 70-year-old man with the manslaughter of his daughter during a family brawl in Karak at dawn, official sources said.

The 30-year-old victim, who was not identified by officials, was shot twice in the face and head, allegedly by her father, while she was attempting to stop a fight between him and one of her siblings, one official source said. The victim died instantly, the source added.

It’s definitely a good thing that the man’s crime was treated seriously, seeing as the victim is not only female, but also his daughter. These two conditions usually render crimes committed by male relatives against female family members extremely insignificant and very often legally and socially condoned.

The man was angry at his son, and shot his daughter (who stood between the two men) supposedly by accident. The criminal part of the affair is obvious, but how is this situation any different from a man shooting his daughter because he suspects she is damaging the family’s honor? In both cases the man is angry, the daughter is not proven guilty, and oftentimes is not at all guilty (think autopsy that proves she, and her honor/hymen, are intact). So how come legal authorities and society itself look the other way and let murderers out of prison after serving a modest 6 months when the word “honor” is mentioned by virtue of the infamous article 340:

Any man who kills or attacks his wife or any of his female relatives in the act of committing adultery or in an “unlawful bed” benefits from a reduction in penalty.

Is that not giving men a “license to kill” in the name of an imaginary term invented by men themselves? Any man can kill his sister in Jordan for reasons like taking over her finances or her share in inheritance, and he can simply cite honor as his motive, and it would not matter if this woman is not found “guilty” of adultery during her autopsy, and society would hail the murderer as an honorable man.

I am willing to bet that if that 70 year old man cited honor as his motive for killing his daughter, which might be his lawyer’s tactic in the near future — you never know, he would be allowed to walk free and celebrate his 71st birthday at home. The irony.

During class yesterday, a fellow student told me about a man who proposed to her. She said he told her “I am very ambitious and very achieving. What are your ambitions?” She told him she wanted to get a PhD (although in reality she doesn’t, but she was testing the waters so to speak), to which he said “A PhD?! I don’t like a woman who has many degrees.”

I felt disgusted and made a joke about that cave-dweller who boasted he had a 2008 model Mercedes. The girl even told the whole class about him, complete with his full name, and we all laughed and had a good time at his retarded expense. I have heard it and seen it time and again how many men in this society have a “thing” against highly educated women, how they would rather snatch a Tawjihi student instead of an MA degree holder.

It’s not only about the age of the Tawjihi student (a ripe, young girl), but also about her qualifications. In the minds and culture of these men, a younger woman with less education is far more obedient than a well educated one. They believe that they can shape and mould this younger, less educated wife as they please, while the other will most definitely be difficult to tame. By this token, they don’t think of their potential wives as partners but more as inferior servants who must, at all times, remain inferior. They will not opt for the ones that might equal or compete with them in education or other qualifications. It makes them less men (as if they are men to start with).

The question I have always had concerning this practice in Jordan is: how insecure can these men possibly get? Obviously, they feel threatened by a woman’s qualifications. They want to lord over their marital households not only because they are men (the classical justification for their superiority complex), but also because they are in fact better educated and therefore better breadwinners which adds an economical value to their social status.

Read these bits from an article by Linda Hindi of The Jordan Times:

Gender equality should be priority for economic development – UN

Gender equality

UN member states regard gender equality as an essential factor for the achievement of its priorities of peace and security, human rights and development, including the Millennium Development Goals.

* Investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth. Educated women have more economic opportunities and engage more fully in public life.

* Women who are educated tend to have fewer and healthier children, and those children are more likely to attend school. Education also increases the ability of women and girls to protect themselves against HIV.

* Women make long-ranging contributions to poverty eradication and development.

* According to World Bank estimates, an increase of one percentage point in the share of women with secondary education is associated with a 0.3 percentage point increase in per capita income.

* Educated, healthy women are more able to undertake productive activities and earn higher incomes. Investments in women, the primary caretakers of the future generation, provide returns for decades. Better educated women are able to benefit from new technologies and the opportunities presented by economic change.

* Increasing women’s access to land, credit and other resources increases their well-being, and that of their families and communities and reduces the risks of poverty.

Oh, and the student in my class rejected that caveman’s sorry ass, in case you are wondering.

I was reading a report by Human Rights Watch on so-called honor crimes in Jordan, and I got filled with resentment and fury. Read this:

Under article 340, any man who kills or attacks his wife or any of his female relatives in the act of committing adultery or in an “unlawful bed” benefits from a reduction in penalty.

…

The section of the penal code most frequently invoked on behalf of perpetrators of “honor” killings is article 98. This statute mandates reduction of penalty for a perpetrator (of either gender) who commits a crime in a “state of great fury [or “fit of fury”] resulting from an unlawful and dangerous act on the part of the victim.” It does not require in flagrante discovery or any other standard of evidence of female indiscretion. If the extenuating excuse is established for a crime punishable by death,such as premeditated murder, article 98 provides that the penalty be reduced to a minimum of one year in prison.

…

In murders for “honor,” given the family’s complicity in the crime, the family nearly always “waives” the right to file a complaint. Thus, “honor” killers may receive sentences of six months—and often do. If a killer has served that much time awaiting trial, the sentence may be commuted to time served and he may walk away a free man.

In my opinion, honour crimes are not prevalent in Jordan. The simple reason why they are not an “epidemic” is because women have learned their lesson. In the areas where honour crimes are a potential danger to their lives, they have learned to keep mum about their relationships with men. Note that by relationships I mean anything from talking to a man to kissing him.

In part, honour crimes have themselves acted as a restraint to the spread of the practice — because women are afraid they will be killed. Of course, this means a great degree of social hypocrisy and a great deal of limiting these women’s freedoms and putting them under tremendous pressure and making them live in constant fear. It also means ensuring the continuation of this practice, ensuring it has popular support in the areas where it is acceptable, and perpetuating the cycle of gender inequality in Jordan.

Good news for Jordanian women. As I blogged previously, Jordanian women’s organizations have been active in trying to improve Jordanian laws that affect women’s lives. A number of women’s organizations activists had started a campaign to organize a lobby in the House of Representatives last month. Now they met with Prime Minister Dahabi.

Check out this news from The Jordan Times:

Dahabi meets with women’s rights activists

AMMAN (Petra) – Prime Minister Nader Dahabi on Saturday met with a delegation representing the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW). During the meeting, JNCW Secretary General Asma Khader reviewed the committee’s priorities which focus on finalising women-related legislation and ending all kinds of discrimination in existing laws. Dahabi and the delegation members highlighted the importance of increasing women’s involvement in the workforce and examining reasons hindering their participation. Dahabi underlined the government’s efforts to boost women’s participation in the economy and amend related legislation. The delegation briefed Dahabi on amendments proposed by the JNCW on several laws, including labour, social security, nationality, elections and civil status.

The news in The Jordan Times is very brief, but you can read it in details over at Al Rai (in Arabic). I am hopeful things will change for the better for Jordanian women. I truly hope that our tribal and businessy House of Representatives will not overlook the importance of gender equality as its predecessors have.At any rate, that will only delay the legalization of our demands, and will not succeed in “erasing” them.

I was just doing my morning news round and I came across an important article in Al Rai newspaper. The article treats the subject of early marriage in Jordan, and why it will sap this country of its riches.

According to Jordanian law, the legal marriage age is 18, which is reasonable. But there is a special clause that basically says that a judge has the authority to marry off a 15 year-old girl whenever he sees fit, or when he sees that the marriage will be for her own good. Of course, a religious judge (which is the type of judges that does marriage procedures) or a Sheikh authorized to write the marriage contract (el ktab) seldom if ever object to marrying off an underage girl. I say this because I have heard from my mother, time and again, how the Sheikh married this girl or that girl although she was only 15-16. Beddo yostor 3aleeha, i.e. he believes he is doing good and preserving her honor (followers of this logic believe that a woman is a scandal waiting to happen).

Al Rai article details the health, financial, and psychological consequences for young marriages and criticizes the legal exception granted to judges to marry off underage girls. In essence, the exception annihilates the actual law, because like I mentioned, very few judges or Sheikhs would object to underage marriages because according to their religious views; they are saving society from the evils of adultery. Never mind the fact that they are helping perpetuate gender inequality and tens of social dysfunctions, not to mention literally endangering the girls’ healths and education and characters by marrying them off to, dare I say this, pedophiles who hunt young brides to “mould them” into the submissive wife-maids they wish. Never mind all that, they are saving society.

According to the article, the percentage of underage marriages is 14%, which translates to 7598 marriages. That is inaccurate, because judges and Sheikhs when they draft up the marriage contracts do NOT put the actual ages of the girls when they are underage, they simply write 18! So that 14% is only what got reported, but not the actual percentage.

Jordan has one million girls under the age of 15, who are alive right now. I did the math; this means that 140,000 girls between the ages of 15-18 WILL get married within the next 15-18 years. That is a huge number! Let’s assume that each one of these girls will only deliver three babies, that makes it 420,000 babies IN ADDITION to the other births from legal marriages. Naturally, the men who marry underage girls do not only want three babies. They want five, six, maybe more, and their child-wives are fertile enough to keep on popping kids for 15 years. And don’t forget, 14% is not the actual percentage of underage marriages in our society.

Can you imagine what will happen to the population of Jordan at this rate? Can you imagine the health bill that will come out of the birth complications and other child-related problems? Can you imagine the thousands of children who will be born to semi-illiterate mothers, what will become of them? Can you imagine what will happen when Almighty Daddy can’t take care of his dozen children?

He will marry off the girls at 15.

Good news; now we have women police officers, nurses, doctors, engineers, journalists, garbage-truck drivers, professors, teachers, mini-Sheikhs, nuns (obviously), managers, ministers, parliament members, and chiefs of court.

AMMAN — The first woman to hold the position of chief of court was appointed on Monday by the High Judiciary Board and described her new position as a big step forward for Arab women.

“This is a very important step for Arab women in the region; it is tough competition to be appointed as a decision-maker,” said Ihssan Barakat, who three years ago, also became the first woman judge to serve in the Appeals Court.

In her new post of Chief of the Court of First Instance in west Amman, Barakat will be in charge of 22 judges and 81 employees.

She told The Jordan Times yesterday that she is up to “the tough task” of leading the second highest court in Amman, adding that her number one priority will be to provide an efficient judicial system.

“The constitutional law gives every Jordanian citizen the right to obtain justice; my goal is to make it as hassle- free, fast and fair as possible… going to court should not be a punishment,” she said.

As a founding member and present vice chairman of the Arab Women Legal Network, Barakat’s appointment is in line with her determination to raise the capacity of women leaders in the region.

Formed in 2005 and headquartered in Jordan, the network is a nonprofit, nongovernmental regional entity that aims to facilitate the advancement of Arab women working in the legal field.

Link to original — Jordan Times

I have one reservation on something included in this article by the Jordan Times. Barakat is a chairwoman, and not a chairman, of the Arab Women Legal Network. Honestly, let’s be accurate and sex-sensitive — it’s the politically correct thing to do.

Oh, and good thing Barakat is veiled. So much for humbugs saying Muslim women are not allowed to lead or to be in positions of power. Check your references in context.

I hope Barakat and other leading Jordanian women would work to ensure that our laws do not contradict the constitution, like I found previously regarding women in the Jordanian labor law.