A woman’s life is in danger if she has done anything to cause social and sexual dishonour to herself and her family’s honour. Despite having equality with men under the Jordanian constitution, in reality, some laws deny full legal competence for women, which can threaten women’s lives. Many rape cases go unreported. Society condemns this offence but acts in such a way that victims of rape by a stranger or even a relative are subjected to reactions that seem to suspect that it was the woman’s fault. Rape cases also remain problematic because of a shortage of data. In addition, in a society like Jordan, the notion of spousal rape is not accepted culturally, and therefore it is not reported. Because marriage allows sexual activity, it is not seen as a social problem.
A case study demonstrates how a woman lives in danger if she is involved in anything that might bring shame to her family. This story began when the woman in her twenties had a relationship with a bus driver that ended with pregnancy. She ran away from her family home during the month of Ramadan in 2006. She did not return to her family’s home, so her family started to search for her in hospitals and various places. A phone call came from the police centre to her family and it was reported that the woman had been found and was at the station. Her father refused to accept her coming home, so he made a complaint on charges of adultery against both his daughter and the man. She stayed in
prison for 5 years and had her baby there. Actions were taken by a civil organization to get her out of prison by marrying a 59-year-old man. However, tragically when she left prison to start a new life with a new husband, her brother shot her to restore the honour of the family. She is still under medication and receiving treatment even now.462
Honour killing is not permissible under Jordanian law, and the killer only spends an average of six months to one year in prison. It is tradition that compels the family to kill the woman to erase the shame caused. Therefore, the only way to protect the lives of women or girls who committed a ‘shameful act’ is by keeping them in prison under protective custody for a period or by changing the harmful tradition as required by CEDAW. The findings of this study suggest that we need better protection for women and actual law enforcement. Female victims of rape must deal with the stereotypes about rape victims and live under family threats of killing them. Because of societal and
cultural attitudes towards morality and rape, women are scared to report incidents for fear that they will be treated as liars about the sexual assaults and treated with suspicion for any number of reasons463 and bring dishonour to their families. More examples of honour killings include: ‘in 2003, a man fatally stabbed his daughter twenty-five times because she refused to tell him where she had been following a three-week absence. In 2002, a man killed his sister after seeing her talking to a strange man during a wedding party. In 2001, a man killed his sister after seeing a man leave her house. In none of these cases of ‘honour’ killings in Jordan in recent years, did the perpetrators serve more than six months in prison. Unfortunately, neither the violent killings nor the weak response to these crimes are exceptional’.464 I came up with a conclusion to why women’s safety and
462 A story gathered from SIGI. Appendix 3.
463 C Clarkson, H Keating and S Cunningham, 'Sexual Offences', Criminal Law: Text and
Materials (1st edn, Sweet and Maxwell 2010).
464 Peratis, 'Honouring The Killers: Justice Denied For Honour Crimes In Jordan' (n 404). See,
women’s interests go unnoticed and the existing social behaviour is controlling the society.
One participant (F58) mentioned the weakness of legal procedures, saying, ‘This is my third time visit Family Protection but as usual the conclusions are not strict enough to solve this problem and my family refuse the idea of filing a complaint against my
husband. Accordingly, Family Protection cannot proceed with any legal procedures’.465 I asked the female participants what they thought could be done to help improve their situations. One of them, F27, answered, ‘raising awareness in society to respect the rights of the woman and to respect her dignity’,466 while F9 said, ‘looking for aids and
procedures that support the woman in her decisions and actions as we need solid support for the woman’.467 Furthermore, it is interesting that as in feminist intellectual and political traditions, participants recognize and came up to the same conclusion, namely that law is the main reason for female oppression.468 During my empirical research, I interviewed NGO representatives to discover their point of view on whether the
Jordanian government is taking effective measures to tackle VAW. Their answers clearly suggested that the current procedures are ineffective. For example, EOF1 said that, ‘the procedures are ineffective due to social and religious heritage. The laws don’t act as a deterrent and women are unaware of the laws that concern them’.469 Likewise, EOF6 added, ‘Both the religious heritage and social customs reduce the effectiveness of the
(2003). Also, Rana Husseini, 'Killer Receives A Reduced Sentence Following Cassation Order' Jordan Times (2002) <https://books.google.com/books?id=da4cLZYOOOAC> accessed 2014.
465 Interview with a female participant (F58), FPD (FPD Nov, 2013) 322. Appendix 2. 466 Interview with a female participant (F27) 305. Appendix 2.
467 Interview with a female participant (F9), SIGI (SIGI, Aug 2013) 304. Appendix 2.
468 Smart, The Ties That Bind Law (n 210).
469 Interview with the organization’s employee (EOF1), Women’s Union (WU, July 2013)
laws as nepotism plays a major role in legal action and it changes its course’.470 There is also a need to consider whether the judiciary and legal system are adequately helping women. In this regards the EOF9 stated that ‘the psychological aspect is marginalized in the law. Moreover, when it comes to the alimony (financial support) of the woman or children, the applicable law is unfair as it ensures the allocation of a very small amount of money that would never be enough for them to survive. In this regard, the courts must form and assign guiding committees and international laws must be applied alongside Jordanian laws’.471 Even if all conditions for fairness and justice are met, divorce nonetheless undermines a woman’s dignity because the Jordanian culture and societal norms leave women dependent on men.
Changing the law is a problem and would anyway constitute, on its own, an inadequate response to VAW. The fact that some officers who represent the justice system have such negative attitudes strongly influences whether a woman will take the decision to report an offence and seek justice. The police, coming from the same society, culture and family principles, take different approaches to violence against women.