AMMAN, 26 August 2003 — Women’s activists in Jordan are spearheading a massive campaign to lobby Parliament to pass women’s rights laws, which conservative deputies quashed earlier this month saying they would destroy families.
In one of its first sessions since its election in June, Jordan’s lower house threw out temporary laws giving women the right to divorce their husbands and imposing harsher penalties for men who kill women in so-called “honor crimes.” Islamist and conservative deputies formed a coalition to reject the laws passed by the Cabinet in the two years since the previous Parliament was dissolved, arguing that they violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.
The House of Representatives sent the bills on divorce and “honor crimes” — usually the killing of a woman by a male relative deemed to have insulted the family honor by her sexual behavior — to the royal-appointed senate. It must decide before the end of the month whether to uphold them or bury them forever.
“The next few are the most critical. The senate’s legal committee is due to begin reviewing the laws and take its decision,” Amal Sabbagh, secretary-general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW), told AFP. Chaired by Princess Basma, the aunt of King Abdallah, the JNCW is an umbrella for three of Jordan’s leading women’s organizations. Armed with the slogan “Action Not Words,” for the past two weeks members have met religious and political leaders, deputies, female constituents, top newspaper editors and columnists to promote their case. Their message is simple. Divorce is not contested in the Quran which also does not condone the killing of any individual by another and certainly not murders in the name of family “honor.”
The lower house decision to quash the laws was a blow for Jordanian women and efforts to raise their status in this tribal and conservative society, says lawyer and human rights activist Asma Khader. “It is a tragedy because every time a step is taken to give women greater rights and to try to make them equal with men, as provided by the constitution, these efforts fall through,” she said. Khader hopes, however, that “an organized and responsible political effort, that is not merely political maneuvering,” will take root in the kingdom to help women win their struggle.
