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 true authorized adjustments the structure must correctly assist girls.
“It’s operating away from the elephant within the room,” mentioned Salma Nims, the Jordanian Nationwide Fee for Ladies (JNCW) secretary-general, referring to repeatedly uncared for calls for so as to add “intercourse” to Article 6 of the structure, which now solely bans discrimination primarily based on “race, language, and faith”.
Nims added the current modification shouldn’t be 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 mentioned https://t.co/4WVq2L1Div pic.twitter.com/RqA04SZHeY
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 28, 2021
Minister of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Musa Maaytah mentioned 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, it is a structure, you employ it for authorized functions.”
Others worry the modification could have long-term authorized repercussions, particularly impacting Jordan’s household affairs legal guidelines – primarily based 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,” mentioned former lawmaker and member of the Islamic Motion Entrance (IAF) Hayat al-Musami.
Whereas it’s now unclear if the modification’s results can be far-reaching or trivial, the discussions it has aroused reveal the extraordinary 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 tougher the ladies’s mission within the nation can be.”
Fairness or equality?
Jordan’s structure delegates all points involving the Private Standing Regulation of Muslims to particular courts, which deal with family-related circumstances primarily based 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 current ebook, Years of Wrestle — The Ladies’s Motion In Jordan.
Nonetheless, some see the therapy of ladies in Sharia courts not as “inequality” however as “fairness”.
“We need to hold the social standing legislation as is, primarily based 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 occasion’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 carry out his function in society in the easiest way,” Tahboub mentioned. 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 observe in Jordan’s courts, famous the methods wherein Islamic legal guidelines “distinguish” girls.
As an example, in response to Salem, the legal guidelines give girls the appropriate of alimony “no matter how wealthy or poor the person is, it says it’s the man’s duty to supply for ladies”. If the person fails to supply the alimony after separation, the duty goes to the lady’s father, famous Salem.
Al-Musami mentioned: “We consider these variations are good for the household, for the neighborhood. They’re good for ladies and good for the neighborhood of Arab individuals.”
‘NGO-isation’
The ladies’s motion in Jordan is commonly “demonised” as a part of a Western agenda, which has instigated divisions and stalled progress, mentioned Nims.
“Now we have an issue with NGO-isation, which is one thing that occurs all around the world,” she advised Al Jazeera.
For the reason that kingdom’s ratification of the United Nations Conference on the Elimination of All Types of Discrimination in opposition to 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 primarily based on CEDAW, which suggests full equality between women and men … Sooner or later, they need there to be no variations between genders in any legislation,” al-Musami mentioned. “What they’re asking for will make our households unstable.”
Nonetheless, 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 are going to let you know that you’re a Western agent.”
Husseini additionally commented on the division inside Jordan’s girls’s motion: “The ladies’s motion shouldn’t be united. I really feel that there’s competitors, everybody desires to be the individual, 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 stability in the direction of Palestinians. This can require Jordan to grow to be the “various homeland”, barring 1000’s 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 cross their citizenship to their kids.
Regardless of the dearth of entry to public companies and labour market restrictions 1000’s face with out nationality, the discourse to amend the legislation is morphed with the Palestinian wrestle. Debates over adjustments to the nationality legislation are regularly 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 appropriate of return,” lawyer and authorized skilled Sauda Salem advised Al Jazeera. “Regardless that a variety of Western nations 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 could be deleted,” Salem said, referring to the road that states nationality is handed solely to the sons of Jordanian males.
Throughout the contentious debate over the current 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 mentioned, attributing it to the refusals to amend the nationality legislation.
“I discover this humiliating to Palestinians themselves,” Nims mentioned. “To accuse a Palestinian that she or he is prepared to surrender their proper of return by merely gaining one other nationality.”
“If you’re so apprehensive concerning the Palestinian trigger, why don’t you’ve gotten an issue with males marrying Palestinian girls and giving them the nationality? It’s OK if it’s a girl they carry to Jordan?”
‘Simply to divert consideration’
The ladies’s rights motion in Jordan is regularly 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.
“If you go searching as a person and you don’t really feel that your masculinity is being expressed by way of your potential to have a job, to make choices concerning the politics of the nation, or to voice your opinion, the one place left to observe your energy is contained in the family,” mentioned Nims.
“’Allow them to get busy worrying about management over girls,’ they are saying,” she added.
Rana Husseini mentioned the controversy over the current 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 adjustments that haven’t any influence in any respect, whereas the adjustments 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, mentioned 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 robust girls. In Jordan … it’s a indisputable fact that males need to be one step increased than girls. The change should begin from the society itself, individuals themselves,” Aloun advised Al Jazeera.
The current modification, she mentioned, “is sort of a fireplace destroyed an vital a part of your own home and also you simply put an enormous, good sofa within the centre of the room … You aren’t seeing the destroyed particles round you, you don’t odor it”.
“Odor it.”