http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2C792397-AA9C-47A7-B633-60356974AAE4.htm
Arab women still discriminated against
By Ahmed El Amraoui
Sunday 19 March 2006, 4:39 Makka Time, 1:39 GMT
Amnesty International: Arab women deserve more respect
On 8 March every year, the world marks International Women's Day to highlight
how women are disadvantaged in most societies.
The event has become an opportunity to call for advancing the status of women
worldwide.
While some seize the occasion to call for tangible measures to improve women's
situation, others see it as merely a ceremonial event filled with the rhetoric
of sympathy and love for women.
According to Amnesty International, women in the Arab world deserve more
respect and dignity.
They are discriminated against and their potential and capabilities are usually
ignored.
Beyond the need to increase the involvement of women in politics, it is crucial
to create more economic opportunities for them and to strengthen social and
legal protections if Arab states seriously want to achieve effective
participation of women in public life.
Aljazeera.net spoke to Nicole Choueiry, Amnesty International's press officer
for the Middle East and North Africa, on the conditions of women in the Arab
world.
Aljazeera.net: How does Amnesty international assess women's rights in the Arab
world?
Nicole Choueiry: Women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa, as in the
rest of the world, are undermined by constant violations and acts of violence.
The experience or threat of violence affects the lives of women everywhere,
cutting across boundaries of wealth, race and culture.
In the home and in the community, in times of war and peace, women are beaten,
raped, mutilated and killed with impunity.
Amnesty International launched a worldwide campaign to Stop Violence Against
Women (SVAW) in March 2004.
One particular focus of the campaign is the link between discrimination,
particularly discriminatory laws, and violence against women.
Accordingly, one of its goals is to combat discrimination, particularly by
campaigning for the reform of laws that discriminate against women, including
in the Middle East and North Africa.
Do you think Arab women's problems are different from women globally?
The common factor of violence against women all over the world is that it is a
violence based on gender.
Every part of the world, including the Arab region, has its own characteristics
and is marked by its own problems.
How do you assess the feminist movement's work in the Arab world?
Amnesty International seeks to support the efforts of civil society
institutions in the Middle East and North Africa and enhance their capacity to
undertake more effective campaigning and lobbying on the rights of women.
Women's rights movements and human defenders are to be credited with a lot.
It is thanks to this movement that women have been able to progress and win
some rights.
Amnesty International believes that for real change to be effective it should
come from within.
It is important to recognise and join forces with women's groups and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who have been playing an important role
in promoting, defending and upholding women's rights.
It is thanks to such efforts at grassroots level that certain issues related to
women's rights are being put on the agenda today.
Do Arab countries respect international agreements on gender equality?
Several countries in the Middle East and North Africa have ratified
international treaties that guarantee women's rights, including the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - CEDAW.
"Governments in the Middle East and North Africa have a duty to break the
cycle of violence and discrimination against women by taking effective measures
to address violence in the home, state inaction and discriminatory application
of family laws"
Nicole Choueiry, Amnesty International press officer for Middle East and
North Africa
This convention and its Optional Protocol remain the only international
treaties devoted to the rights of women.
But many of these countries have made declarations or reservations that exclude
or diminish CEDAW's domestic applicability.
The majority of these reservations have been based on Sharia law, or
incompatibility with existing national legislation.
Most of these reservations relate to the very purpose of the convention to
eliminate discrimination and protect women from it.
Such reservations impede progress in ensuring that women enjoy their rights,
including protection against violence and discrimination, and their ability to
obtain redress from appropriate national mechanisms.
They would mean that discrimination against women is in effect sustained in law
and practice, and deny women the protection against discrimination and
violence.
This is particularly so, as national legislation in the region, including the
religiously inspired ones, is often discriminatory against women.
If unchanged, these reservations have a direct impact on ensuring that women
enjoy the rights that CEDAW was meant to guarantee, including protection from
violence and discrimination, and undermine their ability to access justice or
obtain redress through national mechanisms.
How do you describe the situation of Palestinian and Iraqi women?
Unarmed women and men both suffer human rights violations such as
indiscriminate killings and torture.
However, women are subjected to certain abuses more often than men, and they
suffer in particular ways.
Women and girls are more likely to be the target of sexual violence, especially
rape.
Women face extra, sometimes insurmountable, obstacles to seeking justice,
because of the stigma attached to the survivors of sexual violence, and women's
disadvantaged position in society.
Their role as carers, combined with higher levels of poverty, mean that the
impact of war's destruction weighs particularly heavily on women.
Amnesty International believes that to ensure lasting peace, women must be
allowed to play a full part in all stages of the peace process.
In Iraq, women and girls live in fear of violence as the conflict intensifies
and insecurity spirals.
Tens of thousands of civilians are reported to have been killed or injured in
military operations or attacks by armed groups since the US-led invasion of
Iraq in March 2003.
The lawlessness and increased killings, abductions and rapes that followed the
overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussain have restricted women's freedom
of movement and their ability to go to school or to work.
Eight-year-old Iraqi girl Hanan
Madrud was shot dead in Basra
Women face discriminatory laws and practices that deny them equal justice or
protection from violence in the family and community.
A backlash from conservative social and political forces threatens to stifle
their attempts to gain new freedoms.
The general lack of security has forced many women out of public life, and
constitutes a major obstacle to the advancement of women's rights.
Under the government of Saddam Hussein, women were subjected to gender-specific
abuses, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, as political
activists, relatives of activists or members of certain ethnic or religious
groups.
In the 1990s the mortality rate for pregnant women and mothers increased, and
became one of the worst in the world for children under the age of five.
Since the 2003 war, women's rights activists and political leaders have been
threatened by armed groups and a number have been killed.
Women have been subjected to sexual threats by members of the US-led forces,
and some women detained by US forces have been sexually abused, possibly raped.
Within their own communities, many women and girls remain at risk of death or
injury from male relatives if they are accused of behaviour held to have
brought dishonour on the family.
So called "honour crimes" are in effect condoned in Iraqi legislation, which
allows the courts to hand down lenient sentences on the perpetrators.
Gender discrimination in Iraqi laws contributes to the persistence of violence
against women.
In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, the spiralling violence and
killings in the past four and a half years has brought untold suffering to
Palestinian women.
Since the beginning of the intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli
occupation), there has been an increased militarisation of the conflict.
This has resulted in a dramatic deterioration of the human rights situation in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with unprecedented levels of poverty,
unemployment, and health problems.
Palestinian women have borne the brunt of the suffering but their plight has
been largely ignored.
Women have also faced increased demands as care-givers and providers while at
the same time their freedom of movement and action has been curtailed, and they
have borne the brunt of the anger and frustration of male relatives who feel
humiliated because they cannot fulfil their traditional role as providers.
What measures should be adopted to protect women from violence and
discrimination in the Arab world?
Governments in the Middle East and North Africa should address the underlying
social and cultural attitudes that discriminate against women and that
facilitate and perpetuate violence against them.
Choueiry: Governments should
condemn violence against women
They must take effective steps to bring their laws, practices, policies and
procedures into full conformity with international human rights law and
standards, and ensure that they apply the principle of non-discrimination to
all people, including women migrant domestic workers, on their territory and
under their jurisdiction.
Among other steps, these governments should publicly condemn violence against
women and pursue by all appropriate means policies to eliminate it.
They must not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid
their obligations to eliminate violence against women.
They must also take all appropriate measures to protect the right of women to
equality with men and to be free from all forms of discrimination.
Do you think that the Arab media is playing its role in promoting Arab women's
rights?
The media is playing a mixed role by creating a debate.
However, the media is responsible for reinforcing some gender stereotypes of
women that contribute to the actual gender discrimination they are subjected to
and encourage abuse.
By that they are adding to the problem rather than being part of the solution.
Amnesty International believes that responsible journalism, based on the
knowledge and respect for human rights, could further and protect the human
rights of women.
The media has a responsibility of challenging stereotypes and exposing violence
against women by questioning certain practices and addressing women's related
issues in a responsible and gender-sensitive manner.
Which Arab countries have the best practices for promotion of gender equality
and development?
Amnesty International does not rate governments or compare between their
practices.
There have been some very positive signs, however, emerging from the Middle
East and North Africa thanks to the efforts of the civil society and women's
groups.
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