FEATURE-Wife battering, sexual abuse get attention in Gaza

20 Jul 2011 13:50

Source: reuters // Reuters

* First safe-house for Gaza women has Hamas protection

* 'Keep it in the family' code keeps many victims silent

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, July 20 (Reuters) - Most safe-houses in the Gaza Strip are meant to provide protection for armed militants on Israel's target list. Now Gaza is offering protected shelter to battered Palestinian women.

Its lone women's safe-house, opened two months ago, has had eight clients, all guarded by police from the Islamist Hamas movement that runs the enclave and enforces a conservative though not radical Muslim religious code.

So-called 'honour killings' are rare but not unknown among religious Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, and like every society it is not immune to wife-beating.

"In 2010 there was no record of killing under the motive of family honor and this is a positive development," said Huda Naeem, a Hamas lawmaker who backed the safe house as a way station for women at risk within their own families.

But feminism in Gaza is a very fragile plant.

Women in many Arab communities can be killed by zealous relatives on the slightest suspicion of having relations with a strange man. And jurists in Gaza say there is no clear clause in the Palestinian law setting out the penalty for such murders.

Islam also prohibits adultery and some Islamic teachings call for the stoning to death of offenders.

Sobheya Joma, a woman lawyer at the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), said there was no way to know for sure if honor killings were really eradicated.

"The ICHR is worried because it has recently noticed that some deaths were listed as unexplained or accidental," Joma told Reuters in her Gaza city office.

"As long as there is no investigation into these cases and the real causes were not uncovered, you are still going to have doubts," she said.

TABOOS

For Palestinian women, talking openly about sexual abuse in the family is still taboo. But if it's accompanied by violence, some women can finally opt for the shelter of the safe house.

Of the eight cases of abused women now under the roof of the compound, some were minors. Other women have visited briefly and discreetly, seeking professional advice and support.

"The first case who came to us was a woman who had been subject to physical violence and was raped and then escaped from her home," said resident psychiatrist Suhad Qanita.

"We supported her psychologically ... and, thank God, eventually we were able to find her a husband."

Local human rights groups say it is the first such refuge in this Mediterranean coastal enclave. At one stage, women under risk were transferred to the other Palestinian Territory -- the Wesk Bank -- where they could be kept safe from angry relatives.

But it is now virtually impossible for Gazans to get to the West Bank because of an Israeli blockade, which is vigorously imposed following repeated Hamas attacks on the Jewish state.

The new safe-house sits in a large compound of Gaza's Welfare Ministry, alongside a rehabilitation unit for young offenders, and presence of guards provides security reassurance.

It can shelter up to 50 women, in large, clean rooms, watched over by attendants who provide advice.

There are four women currently staying in the shelter.

One woman, ready to give birth, said she came in because of a husband who beat her.

"We hope the new baby will lead to a reconciliation with her husband," said Qanita.

Of the three others, two minors abused by members of their families had been forced into prostitution.

BREAKING SILENCE

Qanita said she had been shocked at her new job when she came face to face with problems that were always hidden before.

"I hope this is not a widespread phenomenon, but to some extent it is worrying," she said. "There are girls who are being assaulted with impunity."

"We also try to educate families, and if a problem cannot be solved within the nuclear family we try to find an uncle or a relative ready to shelter the victim, but not in cases where a woman might be killed if returned to the family," Qanita said.

Providing aid to families and finding jobs in Gaza, where unemployment is over 40 percent according to the United Nations, are the main tools used by Welfare Ministry trying to help the enclave's 1.5 million people cope with a crippled economy.

Empowering women to speak up against abuse is tougher.

Women will tolerate physical and mental abuses in the family without bringing formal complaints, simply in order to safeguard the integrity of the home, said Naeem, who is one of just a handful of Hamas female lawmakers.

But women subjected to repeated sexual abuse are starting to seek outside help. Some go to police stations, others to tribal chiefs in what she said was a sign of growing public awareness.

Gaza might remain largely cut off from the outside world because of the Israeli blockade, but rooftop groves of satellite dishes indicate that modernity -- or the ideas of radical Islam elsewhere in the Arab world -- cannot be kept out.

"Opening the safe house has been a good step in the right direction, Everyday we are seeing a growing awareness amongst local people," said psychiatrist Qanita.

"The taboos are starting to crumble," she added. (Editing by Douglas Hamilton) ============ Court in UAE says beating wife, child OK if no marks are left UAE October 19, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff Muslim women arrive for prayers last month at a Dubai mosque to mark the end of Ramadan. A court in the United Arab Emirates says a man is permitted under Islamic law to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he leaves no marks and has tried other methods of punishment, the country's top court ruled. The ruling came in the case of a man who slapped his wife and slapped and kicked his 23-year-old daughter, the document said. The daughter had bruises on her right hand and right knee and the wife had injuries to her lower lip and teeth, the ruling said. Advertisement Ads by Google The court ruled that a man has the right to punish his wife and children. That includes beating them, after he has tried other options, such as admonition (Cautionary advice or warning.) and then abstaining from sleeping with his wife. However, the court ruled that in this case the man exceeded his authority under sharia, or Islamic law. His wife was beaten too severely and his daughter was too old to be disciplined, the ruling said. "Although the [law] permits the husband to use his right [to discipline], he has to abide by the limits of this right," wrote Chief Justice Falah al Hajeri in a ruling issued this month and released in a court document recently. It was reported in the English-language publication The National. "If the husband abuses this right to discipline, he cannot be exempted from punishment," according to the ruling. Several experts said it is against Islamic law to permit wife-beating. Jihad Hashim Brown -- the head of research at Tabah Foundation, which specializes in the interpretation of Islamic law -- couldn't comment specifically on what the courts did and didn't say because he hadn't read the ruling. However, he said he feels confident that the UAE court didn't sanction injury or abuse. He said sharia law is complex and has been open to interpretation. But he argued that in Islamic law it is "absolutely unlawful" to abuse a wife, injure her, or insult her dignity. "When a situation in a marriage reaches the point where people feel like they need to hit someone, that is time for divorce. Anyone who would abuse, injure or even insult the dignity of their wife, this has now become a criminal offense which can be prosecuted in a court of law." Canadian-Egyptian scholar Dr. Jamal Badawi, who has written about this topic, said "wife beating is not allowed in Islam" and said the Quranic verses and sayings back "the prohibition of any type of wife beating," especially on the face. Summer Hathout, a lawyer and an activist for women's rights in California, argued that the UAE rulings are based on maintaning a patriarchal elite power structure. "To those of us who know Islam and the Quran, violence against women is so antithetical to the teachings of Islam," she said.