Teach women’s rights in GCC schools
The Peninsula
The appointment of the first Qatari woman in judiciary is an important step in the process of women demanding their legitimate rights in the GCC and Arab world. Ten years ago, and for some, still to this day, men were ashamed of merely mentioning the names of their mothers, and prevent their sisters and daughters from emerging in the press and other media. Therefore, women in the media would rarely use their names, adopting aliases when presenting their creative contributions.
We were, and some remain, living in a double-standard reality between history and geography, past and present, tradition and modernity. While advocating women’s rights as prescribed by Islam, and regaling stories reflecting the equality and interdependence of men and women, in reality, we see all kinds of backwardness, degradation, and disregard for women’s issues, rights, and status.
It is therefore necessary for women’s rights to be taught in the curricula of all Arab countries’ schools, especially the GCC, so that we can overcome such contradiction, preventing us from progressing forward.
For over a decade, it was difficult to fathom – let alone implement - appointing a GCC woman in a ministerial, judiciary, or parliamentary position. This was the average opinion, and that of officials, decision makers, supposed intellectuals, radical religious advisors, lawyers, and legislators. This mentality dominated the scene, condemning any daring to question it, charging them with treason, liberalism, secularism, promiscuity, and even misguided ignorance. Despite desperate attempts seeking to derail society from entering the era of change, today, the situation has changed forever and the clock never looks back.
Last year, the first Saudi woman was appointed Undersecretary of Education for Women. A year earlier, four Kuwaiti women were elected to the Kuwaiti National Assembly. Despite long decades of marginalization and denial of political rights, Kuwaiti women were able to access rights of legitimate political representation, nomination, election of the municipal council, and the Council of Kuwait’s highest legislative authority. In the UAE, also in 2008, the number of women ministers in the federal government reached four out of 22 ministers. Prior to that, eight Emirati women were accepted as members of the parliamentary body of 20 deputies. The current Federal National Council consists of nine women among the 40 members.
In Oman in 2007, there were 14 women in the Council of the State of Oman, as well as the appointment of four women at ministerial level in the past five years. Also, a woman was appointed to the post of Deputy Minister of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, as well as two female ambassadors representing Oman in the Netherlands and the US. In a remarkable development in the past two years, Omani women won equal rights to men; territorial donations of the State, and equal testimonies to those of men.
As for Bahraini women, the significant role they play in social and political life was reinforced when a female minister and member of the Consultative Council was instituted in 2007. The Bahraini Women’s Movement began in 2003 to date, represented by the Supreme Council for Women’s ongoing campaign toward granting Bahraini women equal citizenship rights to men.
According to international reports, while the GCC shows improvement, systematic discrimination of women still exists.
Studies identify a group of key constraints and bottlenecks preventing women in the GCC, Middle East, and North Africa from enjoying their full legal, civil, political, economic, and social development rights. These include:
(1) Legal Discrimination: placing women in a lower status than men. Although 16 of the 27 countries included in the study endorse the concept of equal rights in their constitutions (with the exception of Saudi Arabia), women still face different forms of systematic legal discrimination that permeates every aspect of their lives.
(2) Discrimination in Nationality and Citizenship Laws: women do not enjoy the same citizenship and nationality rights as men. Women marrying foreigners cannot grant citizenship to their husbands or, in most countries, to their children.
(3) Domestic Violence: none of the countries in the region have any laws clearly prohibiting domestic violence. The entire burden of proof lies on the female victim, limiting women’s ability to report crimes. Some laws even support particular types of violence against women, such as laws abolishing punishment for men if they marry women after raping them.
(4) Lack of Information and Lack of Voice: women in the region are unaware of their rights to a large extent, due in part to educational weaknesses on rights of citizenship, the failure of governments to engage in public awareness campaigns, and poor media coverage of injustices suffered by women. In view of cultural trends, women’s protests are incompatible with their traditional, subservient role.
(5) Discrimination in Family Law: with the exception of some countries, women have inferior status to men regarding marriage and family life.
(6) Lack of Complaint Mechanisms: unlike Egypt, governments of the Middle East and North Africa do not provide women the mechanisms to file complaints of gender discrimination.
The conflict of time governs change in the GCC today; between the power driving the path of change that demands women’s access to legitimate rights guaranteed by the Constitution, domestic and international law, and the radical opposition rejecting the process of change and resorting to al measures to ensure its delay.
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