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Amman, Jordan – A political feud in parliament erupted right into a fistfight throughout a dialogue so as to add “Jordanian girls” to a constitutional clause on equal rights.
The brand new modification, which handed with 94 votes of 120 parliamentarians current final month, modified the title of the structure’s second chapter to “Rights and duties of Jordanian males and Jordanian girls”, including the female pronoun for Jordanians, “al-urduniat”.
Some activists argue the modification is ineffective; solely an escape path to keep away from the actual authorized modifications the structure must correctly assist girls.
“It’s operating away from the elephant within the room,” stated Salma Nims, the Jordanian Nationwide Fee for Ladies (JNCW) secretary-general, referring to constantly uncared for calls for so as to add “intercourse” to Article 6 of the structure, which now solely bans discrimination based mostly on “race, language, and faith”.
Nims added the latest modification is just not legally binding, given the title of a constitutional chapter “has no authorized impact”.
A number of deputies traded punches in a brawl in Jordan’s parliament after a verbal row escalated when the meeting speaker referred to as on a deputy to go away, witnesses stated https://t.co/4WVq2L1Div pic.twitter.com/RqA04SZHeY
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 28, 2021
Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Musa Maaytah stated in Jordan’s state media that including “Jordanian girls” got here in “honour and respect to girls”.
Nims questioned Maaytah’s reasoning, responding, “What? I’m not asking you to honour me by utilizing a time period. It isn’t about honouring girls, this can be a structure, you utilize it for authorized functions.”
Others concern the modification can have long-term authorized repercussions, particularly impacting Jordan’s household affairs legal guidelines – based mostly on Islamic authorized teachings and the nationality legislation – fearing the growth of eligibility for Jordanian citizenship.
“The addition of ‘Jordanian girls’ is harmful in the long term for society, and for the household,” stated former lawmaker and member of the Islamic Motion Entrance (IAF) Hayat al-Musami.
Whereas it’s now unclear if the modification’s results will likely be far-reaching or trivial, the discussions it has aroused reveal the extreme politicisation of ladies, the deep divisions within the girls’s motion, and the conflicts that come up when girls’s rights are delivered to the desk in Jordan.
Ladies’s rights are “now linked with anti-Islam and anti-national identification”, Oraib Rantawi, director of Al Quds Centre for Political Research, advised Al Jazeera.
“The extra politicisation of this idea – the extra it’s linked to Islam and national-identity – the harder the ladies’s mission within the nation will likely be.”
Fairness or equality?
Jordan’s structure delegates all points involving the Private Standing Legislation of Muslims to particular courts, which deal with family-related circumstances based mostly on interpretations of Islamic, or Sharia, legislation.
The Sharia courts don’t deal with girls as equals earlier than the legislation, writes Jordanian activist Rana Husseini in her latest ebook, Years of Battle — The Ladies’s Motion In Jordan.
Nevertheless, some see the therapy of ladies in Sharia courts not as “inequality” however as “fairness”.
“We need to maintain the social standing legislation as is, based mostly on Sharia. What we name for much more than equality is the concept of fairness,” Dima Tahboub, former MP and spokeswoman for the IAF, advised Al Jazeera.
Tahboub famous her social gathering’s concern that the addition of “Jordanian girls” will result in worldwide requires “complete and absolute equality”, which contradicts with the “constructive discrimination” in the direction of girls in Islamic legal guidelines and the structure.
“The concept about fairness is that you simply give an individual in a sure social or financial standing the best choice so he/she will be able to carry out his function in society in the easiest way,” Tahboub stated. She referenced the quota system for ladies in Jordan’s election legislation and the inheritance legislation “the place in sure circumstances girls can take extra shares than males”.
Sauda Salem, a lawyer with 37 years of apply in Jordan’s courts, famous the methods wherein Islamic legal guidelines “distinguish” girls.
For example, in line with Salem, the legal guidelines give girls the correct of alimony “no matter how wealthy or poor the person is, it says it’s the man’s accountability to offer for ladies”. If the person fails to offer the alimony after separation, the accountability goes to the lady’s father, famous Salem.
Al-Musami stated: “We consider these variations are good for the household, for the neighborhood. They’re good for ladies and good for the neighborhood of Arab folks.”
‘NGO-isation’
The ladies’s motion in Jordan is usually “demonised” as a part of a Western agenda, which has instigated divisions and stalled progress, stated Nims.
“We’ve an issue with NGO-isation, which is one thing that occurs everywhere in the world,” she advised Al Jazeera.
Because the kingdom’s ratification of the United Nations Conference on the Elimination of All Types of Discrimination towards Ladies (CEDAW) in 1992, it has confronted pushback predominately from conservatives who declare the conference violates Sharia legislation and enforces a Western agenda.
“There’s a world agenda based mostly on CEDAW, which implies full equality between women and men … Sooner or later, they need there to be no variations between genders in any legislation,” al-Musami stated. “What they’re asking for will make our households unstable.”
Nevertheless, Nims criticised the IAF’s function in perpetuating gender discrimination present in Jordan’s legal guidelines. “What’s the easiest way to delegitimise these calls for? It’s by saying that they’re Westernised frameworks.”
Rana Husseini, a senior journalist with greater than 25 years advocating for ladies’s rights in Jordan and the area, advised Al Jazeera, “No matter you do, no matter you’re employed on, they may inform you that you’re a Western agent.”
Husseini additionally commented on the division inside Jordan’s girls’s motion: “The ladies’s motion is just not united. I really feel that there’s competitors, everybody needs to be the particular person, the person to make the change.”
‘A particular case’
There are fears among the many modification’s conservative critics that it’s going to increase citizenship eligibility and shift the dominion’s demographic steadiness in the direction of Palestinians. This can require Jordan to change into the “various homeland”, barring hundreds of refugees from returning to their ancestral houses in occupied Palestine.
The dominion’s nationality legislation stipulates that Jordanian girls married to non-Jordanian males usually are not allowed to go their citizenship to their kids.
Regardless of the shortage of entry to public companies and labour market restrictions hundreds face with out nationality, the discourse to amend the legislation is morphed with the Palestinian wrestle. Debates over modifications to the nationality legislation are ceaselessly fuelled by fears the choice will “feed into the right-wing Israeli plans of discovering a substitute homeland for Palestinians in Jordan”, Husseini famous in her ebook.
“I’m with girls giving the nationality to the youngsters, however Jordan is a particular case given the subject of Palestinians and the correct of return,” lawyer and authorized knowledgeable Sauda Salem advised Al Jazeera. “Regardless that numerous Western international locations do that, it doesn’t imply we must always anticipate Jordan to do the identical.”
She added with the addition of “Jordanian girls”, the lady is now “equal to the person, together with within the nationality”. “Crucial factor about including this phrase is the truth that the previous legislation is likely to be deleted,” Salem acknowledged, referring to the road that states nationality is handed solely to the youngsters of Jordanian males.
Throughout the contentious debate over the latest modification, legislators added a clause that now requires two-thirds of parliament to vary the nationality legislation, famous lawyer and member of the Jordan Bar Affiliation Nour Imam.
Nims highlighted the “more and more nationalistic bigotry” in Jordan. “The hate speech, in the direction of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, is horrifying,” she stated, attributing it to the refusals to amend the nationality legislation.
“I discover this humiliating to Palestinians themselves,” Nims stated. “To accuse a Palestinian that she or he is prepared to surrender their proper of return by merely gaining one other nationality.”
“In case you are so fearful in regards to the Palestinian trigger, why don’t you have got an issue with males marrying Palestinian girls and giving them the nationality? It’s OK if it’s a girl they create to Jordan?”
‘Simply to divert consideration’
The ladies’s rights motion in Jordan is ceaselessly discovered on the pinnacle of contentious debate. Jordanians now discover themselves dwelling amid unprecedented unemployment, with out a wholesome political outlet for his or her frustration – leaving girls too typically because the scapegoat.
“Once you go searching as a person and you don’t really feel that your masculinity is being expressed by way of your capability to have a job, to make selections in regards to the politics of the nation, or to voice your opinion, the one place left to apply your energy is contained in the family,” stated Nims.
“’Allow them to get busy worrying about management over girls,’ they are saying,” she added.
Rana Husseini stated the controversy over the latest constitutional modification was “a play simply to divert consideration from different issues”.
Nims additionally famous how some activists consider the modification was staged. “Everybody was busy with the modifications that don’t have any influence in any respect, whereas the modifications that do have influence didn’t have sufficient dialogue or evaluation.”
Dema Matruk Aloun, a girls’s rights activist and professor of personal legislation at Hashemite College, stated the modification was merely to “beautify the image” – missing actual authorized advantages for ladies.
She famous the deeply ingrained social attitudes in the direction of girls that should be addressed.
“Males are afraid of sturdy girls. In Jordan … it’s a indisputable fact that males need to be one step larger than girls. The change should begin from the society itself, folks themselves,” Aloun advised Al Jazeera.
The latest modification, she stated, “is sort of a hearth destroyed an necessary a part of your own home and also you simply put a giant, good sofa within the centre of the room … You aren’t seeing the destroyed particles round you, you don’t scent it”.
“Odor it.”
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