Political Violence Against Women

[nin@xxxxxx]

Dear Burma-netizens,

I take the liberty to introduce you with the following article.
Thanks for your time.
NiNi
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Political Violence Against Women

My name is Mohamed Khaled, a Sudanese citizen, freelance writer/researcher
on gender issues and chairperson of the Cairo based Omdurman Centre for
Women's Studies. Omdurman is the historical national capital of the Sudan.
Our centre is mainly concerned with the Sudanese women's issues. It was
established in 1994 and is temporarily based in Cairo, but would move,
hopefully, to resume activity in Sudan whenever the current fundamentalist
military regime is over. Violence against Sudanese women is one of the
major concerns of our centre. In this regard, our centre is one of the
founders and excom member of the Women's Court: The Permanent Arab Court
to Resist Violence Against Women. The court was established in 1995 and is
convened annually in Beirut, Lebanon. In due course, I hope to provide the
list with further information on the court. Our representative to the
court is Azza El-tigani, the executive director of the centre. 

On handling the issue of violence against Sudanese women, we are directing
more emphasises to the political violence exercised against women by the
state through different laws and regulations that reflect the
fundamentalist ideology of the state. In this sense our perspective may
differ from other anti-violence groups in other countries whose concerns
and priorities are dictated by the nature of their problems.  However, in
this posting, which will followed by others, I will try to elaborate more
on the broad definition of violence we are currently embarking on with a
focus on political violence. 

Taking the case of Sudanese women, it is evident that their status in the
family and society directly relates to democracy in the country.  During
democratic regimes they use to gain more achievements and lose in absence
of democracy under military dictatorship. Since the emergence of the
Sudanese women?s movement during the 1940s, they have achieved
considerable goals in their struggle for equality. Since 1989, however,
Sudanese women started to lose what they had achieved in the past. Under
the current regime, all independent women?s organizations were banned and
replaced by artificial pro government organizations. In general, women are
having their share with men in the struggle for restoring democracy in the
country, and their share of the suffering as well. A quite large number of
women were sacked from their jobs in different professions because of
their disharmony with the hard fundamentalist line of the government. Too
many were subjected to detention, ill-treatment and torture for the same
reasons. Whipping was introduced as a punishment, and women are
specifically targeted. 

In this course, the current regime enacted many laws to undermine
women?s rights in the name of Islam among them the following:

The law of Public Order (1991):

1 -  Article 8 and 9 of the public transport rules specifies the front
doors and front seats for women in the public transport means.
2 -  Another article is stating that women must be organized in
separate lines in all places where people are organized in lines in
order to receive services or anything else.
3 -  Article 17 prohibits women working as buyers in public places
between 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. next day.
4 -  In this law, the legal dress for women is identified as "The
dress that covers all the body except the face and hands" and the
flagrant dress: "The dress that violates the rules of conduct and do not
pay difference to others"
5 -  Chapter 3 on women?s prudence states in clause 1 "every woman who
appears in the place of work or the street without the legal dress will
receive punishment not exceeding 25, penalty of LS500 or both".
6 -  Chapter 11, under the title private parties states that if
anybody organized a private party where there is a couple dancing, will
be punished by lashing, penalty or both. This punishment is received
also by a woman who is found in a single man?s house whatever the
reason.
7 -  In chapter 14 under the title "Privacy with Women", a punishment
not exceeding 30 lashes or a penalty of LS500 or both for every one who
takes privacy with a woman in a closed room that can not be entered by
others in the place of work or elsewhere.

The Law of Personal Affairs (the family law):

This law was enacted in 1991. It is marked by its inconsistency to the
women?s rights. The following are some of the examples of the law's
articles:
1 -  It legalizes early marriage at the age of minority starting from
10 years old according to guardians will and interest. The interest of
the guardian is defined in the law as the "fear of infatuation and
depravity" (Article 40)
2 -  The law gives the guardian the right to dissolve the marriage
during the first year if he is not satisfied with the husband?s
liability. (Article 42)
3 -  It permits polygamy as an Islamic principle, but it ignores the
wife?s right within the framework of polygamy in Islam. In turn, it
gives the husband?s all the rights regarding the relation. (Articles 51,
75, 91 and 167)
4 -  Divorce is the husband?s absolute right according to the law.
(Articles 43, 48, 50, 162-67).
The Law gives the mad man the right to marry according to will and
interest of the women?s guardian on one hand, but it does not give him the
right to divorce. 

More information will follow.

Mohamed Khaled
Omdurman Centre for Women's Studies
Cairo, Egypt
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