WUNRN
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=14431
Widespread
Violence
Against
Palestinian Women in Gaza,
Reports
Women’s Rights Center
“The man
believes he has bought the woman and paid for her,
and
therefore she has become his property and must obey his orders...
[Palestinian]
laws give him the right of ownership, based on the man
being the
guardian, and he is the one who commands and prohibits.”
- Zainab
Al-Ghneimi, Head of Women’s Legal Counseling Center
By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques
Zilberdik
Violence against Palestinian
women is widespread because of Palestinian laws and Palestinian culture that
give men “the right of ownership” over their wives, according to the head of
the Women’s Legal Counseling Center, Zainab Al-Ghneimi. Palestinian principles
determine that the man “is the one who commands and prohibits,” she says,
commenting on statistics of cases of violence reported to the Center of Women’s
Affairs in Gaza.
The belief that the man
“has bought the woman and paid for her, and therefore she has become his
property and must obey his orders,” is, “unfortunately, the culture of the
entire society,” said Al-Ghneimi.
Significantly, the statistics
from Gaza show that a high percentage of women themselves felt that domestic
violence is justified on certain occasions:
“41% of
the women agreed that violence was justified if the woman leaves home without
notifying her husband, while 74% agreed that violence was justified if she
neglected her children.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 29, 2015]
However, Al-Ghneimi rejected this
justification of violence, saying that a mistaken understanding of Islam “on
the part of men and society” is used to justify this male violence. “There is
not a single religious [Islamic] text that encourages violence against women,”
she argued.
Palestinian Media Watch has
reported that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been criticized
by Palestinian women’s rights groups in the past for not having changed, as
promised, Palestinian laws that have been interpreted by many as allowing
violence against women. In February 2014, a senior official in the Palestinian
Authority Ministry of Women's Affairs reported a 100%
rise in "family honor" killings and
in November 2014, the official PA daily reported on a study that confirmed that
“53% of Palestinian women have been exposed to violence - 63.3% of them once -
and that 18% of non-married young women have been exposed to physical,
psychological and sexual violence.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 28,
2014]
The following is a longer excerpt
of the article printed in the official Palestinian Authority Daily:
“Violence
against women in Gaza: The undermining of family life”
“According
to statistics recorded by the Center of Women’s Affairs in Gaza about the cases
of violence reaching the center, 63% of women suffer from marital violence, 63
% believe that the violence has increased following the recent aggression
against the Gaza Strip - 73 % suffer from verbal abuse, 24 % from physical
abuse, 29.5 % from mental abuse, 9.4 % from financial abuse and 4.5 % from
sexual abuse.
Regarding
the justifications for violence: 41 % of the women agreed that violence was
justified if the woman leaves home without notifying her husband, while 74 %
agreed that violence was justified if she neglected her children...
In this
context, Zainab Al-Ghneimi, head of the Women’s Legal Counseling Center, said:
‘Married women are not forthcoming with these details about violence at the
beginning, probably out of shame, and because the prevailing culture forbids
discussing such secrets. This stems from the lack of a proper sexual ethics in
our society...’
When asked
for the reasons that may bring a man to act violently towards his wife,
Al-Ghneimi responded that, in her opinion, there were many reasons, but that
the main reason is probably that the man believes he has bought the woman and
paid for her, and therefore she has become his property and must obey his
orders. She clarified that unfortunately, this is the culture of the entire
society, and that [Palestinian] laws give him the right of ownership, based on
the man being the guardian, and he is the one who commands and prohibits. She
continued: ‘One of the reasons for this is the misunderstanding of religion on
the part of men and society - yet there is not a single religious text that
encourages violence against women.’”
[Al-Hayat
Al-Jadida, March 29, 2015]