The violation of women’s rights
The latest meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women did some good work in approving resolutions on ending female genital mutilation, against forced marriage of girls, and promoting the protection of women and girls from HIV infection. However, it also made itself a laughing stock by naming only one country for the violation of women’s rights. I wonder if you can guess which country that is, but here are some clues…
It wasn’t Sudan, for the hundreds of thousands of women and girls killed, mutilated and raped by government forces and the janjaweed.
It wasn’t China or India, where millions of female foetuses are preferentially aborted every year, and where female infanticide is widespread.
It wasn’t Iran, for the stoning and hanging of women for adultery.
It wasn’t Pakistan or any or the countries of the Middle East, or India, where thousands of women per year are killed for the crime of “dishonouring” their families.
It wasn’t Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of thousands of female migrant workers have their passports confiscated.
I’m sure there are many other countries you could cite, but see for yourself which one the UN Commission singled out here.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:57 am
FGM is something which really interests me, as I see it on a fairly regular basis. However, I don’t think a UN resolution will do *anything* to reduce the numbers of babies/young women who are subjected to this practice. It is ingrained in the culture of many countries (especially prevalent in sub-saharan women) and I am sure it happens in the UK too, performed by unscrupulous doctors – despite it’s being illegal.
Women who are circumcised and have their babies in the UK often ask to be reinfibrilated and can become distressed when it is explained to them that it is illegal for a midwife or doctor here to do that.
However, there are two sides to every practice I guess. Some of the women I have spoken to who ask about FGM for their newborns have explained to me that if a girl in their culture is not circumcised, then she is often condemned to a life where she is ostracised by her family/cast out from her village/is “unmarriageable” and for them this is a worse thing to subject their child to than the circumcision. Just a different perspective for you.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:40 am
Sharon:
Similarly it used to be part of “the” culture in Britain that women were too feeble-minded to be given the vote. And that rape within marriage was a contradiction in terms.
No culture is monolithic (hence the quotes around “the”, above). Many people believed that women should have the vote, even before the Suffragette movement started. Similarly, it may well be that many women in sub-saharan Africa would prefer that their daughters not be infibulated (and that uncut women could be marriageable), but feel they have no choice but to acquiesce in a practice that ultimately serves the interests of the men in their society. Indeed, it would be astonishing if there were unanimity on this issue.
Change is easier if it comes from within a society. The question for us as outsiders regarding FGM is: do we lend support to those women (and men) in sub-saharan Africa who would end the practice, or to those who support it? Withholding judgement, in this case, effectively supports the status quo.
See Cultural relativism of human rights, by Ishtiaq Ahmed, for an excellent discussion of this type of issue.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
More on the pitfalls of regarding other cultures as monolithic: A German Judge Cites Koran in Divorce Case.
If this article is accurate, it seems the judge chose one interpretation (that a husband can beat his wife) among many of a Koranic verse. She may have thought she was being intellectually sophisticated by taking into account the cultural background of the couple, but in fact what she has done is to select one specific conservative interpretation of a verse above more liberal interpretations. Whether that choice was through ignorance or preference I wouldn’t like to speculate.
The Koranic verse in question is 4.34: The Koran: The Women. Search the Internet for other translations. Wife beating is also discussed in the Hadiths.