Blog #10: Democracy a Double-Edged Sword for Women

This article starts out with talking about the bombings in the US at the recent Boston Marathon. People are trying to connect these bombings to terrorism but they are not connected to the Islamic world. Democracy is a two edge sword for women in countries not like us that have aristocratic governments. American tend to think that other countries will benefit if their countries adopt a democratic government.  This is not necessarily the truth for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In some of these countries such as Tunisia and Egypt that are declining in their political power and there are social tensions that are increasing. Places like this have post-revolt leader, are more religious, and women are affected and bound by traditional laws and are linked to Al Qaeda more visible.  Going from aristocratic rule to Democratic rule is not the same. For some especially women trying to get more freedom is delicate and dangerous. What is going to happen more than likely is strife and terrorism will go up and women are in danger of this more because rape is used to as a weapon of war and intimidation to women in Syria who are mostly affected by this. Due to rape being used as a threat to women there are families fleeing from Syria and that totals up to one million or so people. Ms. Fotini Christia is an associate professor or political science at Massachusetts Institute of technology and have visited Syria to interview women who have been displaced by war. These women have done peaceful demonstrations against their President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. In places like these these women know they have to fight for their own rights. These women keep getting pushed to the side. Women have lost 50 seats in parliament and 9 are only left in Egypt and in Libya women are being reinstituted to polygamy. Soya Boyoumi who lectures at the Faculty of Arts and Science at Harvard’s say these women are experience bad forms of sexual harassment, assault and erosion of their rights and status in the constitution. These women are being removed from their school curricula who are historical figures. Is democracy or universal suffrage necessary for all and if so what will Middle East and North African societies benefit from? Does the unites states want this for these societies. Also when bombings happen in Bahrain aren’t those acts of terrorism like in the US with the Boston explosions, a Bahraini woman argues who is in the US getting her doctorate.

 
This is something that places like the United States should keep into consideration. Is it really necessary for all other countries around the world to have democratic governments? Even though there will be trials and tribulations and this is all delicate and dangerous for lots of women to gain freedom? When has it ever been easy for any to gain democracy? In places like the United States has a democratic government but for centuries several groups of people have been dying from others bigotry and need to oppress others. These people who have been oppressed have fought and died for their future generations. There has been good that has come out for these people in the end. At the same time the same issues keep arising in the US as well in different forms such as end of slavery, women’s rights, integration of blacks and whites in the south, integration of those with disabilities, rights for those in the LGBT community etc. which are few major issues in America that have arisen one after the other that are similar in nature. Democracy in general want have major changes in the beginning but in some of these places over time with new generations change will come about with a major impact and women will enjoy their freedoms that they deserve is what I believe may happen in time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/world/middleeast/17iht-letter17.html?_r=0

Chanel Martin
4/19/13
5:20pm

Blog #9: Morocco Slow to Enforce Laws on Women's Rights

Morocco is slow to enforce laws on women’s rights in regards to rape and premarital sex. Girls go in to report rape crimes and their families are not willing to shelter them do too them needing to protect the honor of their families. Some girls are afraid to admit that they have had premarital sex so Marrakesh was afraid when she went to the police to tell her account of rape. She gave two different stories and names. She is afraid mostly because it is illegal to have sex outside of marriage regardless if rape is involved or not.  Last year there was a young girl by the name of Amina Filali she was 16 when she committed suicide after a judge and parents forced her to marry her alleged rapist. There has been a shift of Islamic principle that are now giving women more rights regarding divorce and polygamy and the age of marriage was raised from 15 to 18. Even though there is a shift from Islamic traditions conservative judges are granting permission for minors to marry in 90 percent of the cases they have appeared in court before them. Al Amane shelter took in Amal but she is a minor so they had to send her to another shelter. To avoid the same tragedy that happened in the Filali suicide case it is important for morocco to change article 475 in its penal code. This code allows for charges being dropped in cases of statutory rape if two parties get married. With this code rapists are allowed to become married to these child brides. In these cases it is way more important to protect honor than to protect the girl’s safety. Now it is somewhat impossible to marry a girl under the age of 16. There has to also be a change to the family code for any changes to take place. In “475: Treve de Silence” Moroccans of all ages and from different parts of Moroccan society all agreed that a girl who has lost her virginity has lost her value. There are men that women should stay at home and perform traditional roles. IF a girl was outside and was not supposed to be then she deserved to be raped it seemed as if this was peoples attitudes. Men are not guilty for anything.

In this case this is a way in which Tradition outway laws that are set in place to protect minors. If religion was not a matter these girls would get the help that they deserve to protect their lives. Regardless of culture when should a line be drawn when a girl is being taking advnagte of by a man and has to marry him when a crime is not her fault? Like with most traditional Islamic countires that are patriarchial in nature this is something that is going to be slow to change. Tradition will have to be changed along with law for girls to be protected from rape and marriage before they are of legal age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/world/middleeast/morocco-slow-to-enforce-laws-on-womens-rights.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Chanel Martin

4/12/13

4:30pm

Blog #8 How my brother tried to kill me in 'honor attack'

Gul Meena who is 17 is a victim of a near honor killing in her home country Afghanistan. At the age of 12 she was married off to a man who was 60 years old. This man would repeatedly abuse her and she would go to her family for support and tell them what happened. She was surprised with how they treated her when she came for help. They wold hit her and tell her to go back to her husband because that is her life now. Gul Meena knew that this was not something she wanted to put up with any longer and decided to run away after 5 years of being married. She met young a man and left with him. Her family found out that she had ran away and some days later older her brother came and found them and he killed her friend and almost hacked her to death 15 times with an axe. The only reason that she is alive is because her brother thought she was dead after she passed out from her injuries and because a stranger found her in a pool of her own blood. Meena was rushed to the Emergency Department of Nangarhar Reginala Medical Centre. Neurosurgeon Zamirruddin Khalid did not think she would survive due to the extent of her injuries which included her brain partially hanging out of her skull. It was thought that she was not going to make it at that point. Her family has disowned her at this point and knew she was at a hospital and was fighting for her life. Fortunately for Meena the hospital let her stay for 2 months and paid for her medicine. She was then sent to the American-Afghan organization Women for Afghan women. She currently is in this shelter being taking care. While it is important that her life was sustained she has another issue to face. If Meena leaves the shelter and returns home they are going to kill her because of the shame that she brought to her family. There has been action taken to persecute those who take on this act of violence but it still a practice that is pervasive in Afghanistan. Three are 14 shelters that currently serve women like Meena and these shelters may be pulled if international forces pull out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014. Women like Meena who do not have an education and are homeless will not have anywhere to go and will be subject to the treatments that they were receiving more and likely death. Meena says that she wish that she was dead and has attempted suicide before she ran away from her husband and when she arrived at the shelter but she was stopped from doing it there.

Afghanistan is not the only country that still practices honor killings regardless of legislation. It seems that because some cultures are historically patriarchal that they see these honor killings as just and that those who try to come in and change what is happening in these cultures based on this issue are out of line. When is it ok for others to come in and try to change issues like this? Regardless of gender should men and women both be allowed to have secure lives? Whenever women are abused based on gender and are killed it becomes another issue entirely and not something based on culture anymore. Now this issue is based on sustaining human life and that all people have the right to live and this is being violated by these acts of crime. Honor killings may not be seen as crimes everywhere though due to culture or that there may not be laws put in place to stop these killings. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/world/asia/afghanistan-honor-killing-survivor/index.html?iref=allsearch

Chanel Martin

 4/8/13

3:06pm

Blog #7: Lawyer fights 'widow sex' tradition in Malawi

 

Seodi White who is a lawyer and human rights activist who has long fought for gender justice in Malawi is now fighting for widow sex cleaning tradition in Malawi. Widow cleaning is a tradition in which widows perform a traditional practice which involves having sexual relations in order to cleanse herself. The reason she would need to cleanse herself would be to keep her dead husbands spirit from coming and to visit her and her family and cursing them. It is not something that is forced upon women in Malawi but it is something that is practiced in fear. These women actually believe if they don’t they will die. With this tradition comes other issues such as disease due to unprotected sex and the chances of getting HIV is increasing. This tradition is engrained into the culture so much that there are women who have become professional cleaners in their villages and men charge these women $50 for their services. The problem with that is that this is a country in which minimum wage is less than $1 a day. There are infinitives that have taken place to correct the situation such as using professional cleansers to tell their stories to stop others from following the tradition. Education is key to solving this issue and to get ahead in life and beat poverty which is something that White is a part of her mindset. Another issue other than Widow cleansing that White is trying to fight against is poverty in her nation that is mostly something that widows in Malawi are facing. These widows due to culture are having everything that was once their husbands taken from them from the husbands families leaving them and their children homeless. Women in Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) which is headed by Seodi White has fought for 10 years to allow women to keep their marital estates to reform these inheritance laws. Now there is a law that will aid in this for these women set in place by parliament.

                                                                                   

This cultural tradition of widow cleaning is a cause for gender inequality in Malawi even though it is not forced women believe in these misconceptions of not doing it and dying and go through whatever they can to sustain life. Men know that these women will do what they can to not become curse so they take it to their advantage and charge these women. Malawi already has a high poverty rate and people only get less than $1 a day and these men do not care about that and charge women outrageous amount of money essential for women’s peace of mine. $51 is a lot of money when you barely have anything to eat. Regardless of these women doing these cleanings or not they of course have to face their own patriarchal societies ideas of about what women can own after their husbands die. Now they have to fight just to keep a roof on their head. The good thing is that there has been a law passed to aid in this issue but of course everything is slow and it will take time for everything to fall into place. Like the author said education is key to help these women better their lives. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/21/world/africa/seodi-white-women-malawi/index.html?iref=allsearch

Chanel Martin

3/22/13

4:17pm