Saudi women are being allowed to discuss divorce publicly, which, while it does constitute progress on a glacial time scale, also points to the low expectations that oppression and inaction breed. This development's significance depends on its being a step to something more concrete than simply talking. Otherwise, it simply looks like a cynical attempt by the Saudi rulers to allow citizens to let off just enough steam to take the pressure off of the government for the time being.
"Saudi women speak publicly about divorce," by Caryle Murphy for the Christian Science Monitor, December 12:
Dammam, Saudi Arabia – Unlike many Saudi women her age, Maha did not have an arranged marriage. Instead, she wed a young man she'd known and liked since they played together as children.
"Really, it's a love story," added the attractive, 40-something woman with short curly hair, who asked to be identified only by her first name.
That's why the divorce, and the way she found out, was a shock.
Maya was at her parents' home for a short vacation when her husband's brother came to the door and delivered the court decree: She and her husband of 10 years were no longer married.
"They don't ask the woman if she wants to be divorced," Maha said of the courts. "It was a very bad day for me. I didn't expect that. I knew there were problems but, I thought, we can solve it, especially as we were living together and we understood each other."
Maya's experience, not unusual, is just one of the inequities surrounding divorce that Saudi women have endured for decades. But if a recent gathering in the country's Eastern Province is any indicator, their patience with such inequalities is growing thin.
About 150 Saudi women filed into the auditorium of the local Chamber of Commerce in the city of Dammam to attend the Saudi Divorce Initiative Forum – the first privately organized, public discussion of problems faced by women during and after divorce.
The aim, organizers said, was to spark debate that would lead to reforms to ensure enforcement of existing, but often ignored, legal protections for women and children.
"We're doing something historic here," said Thuraya Arrayed, a women's rights activist who spoke at the forum. "For the first time, we are meeting together to look for a solution for a problem. It's a worldwide problem, and we're trying to find a solution."
Expanded public space for women
Like the first public conference on domestic violence last spring, the divorce forum was another example of the expanded public space that Saudi women have been given to speak about societal problems under the rule of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, whose picture was prominently displayed at the gathering.
"He's supporting women.... He gives us the right to talk," said Hind al-Zahid, manager of the Business Women Center, an affiliate of the local chamber of commerce that helped organize the forum.
The conference was also another sign of the concern about Saudi Arabia's rising divorce rate. The Ministry of Social Affairs reported earlier this year that it stood at 30 percent, although some experts say it might be as high as 60 percent, according to press reports.
The Nov. 25 forum, held to coincide with International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, had an array of impressive backers: the Chambers of Commerce in Dammam and Jeddah, the Ministry of Social Affairs, a Saudi human rights group, and the Shura Council, the country's top advisory body. The women were encouraged that these organizations had openly supported their efforts.
Many of the attendees – married, divorced, and single – had taken off their coatlike abayas since only women were present. For several hours, they listened and applauded as a dozen-plus speakers, on a stage festooned with flowers, addressed the legal, psychological, financial, and family problems faced by divorced women.
Judges often won't consider a woman's divorce pleadings unless she is accompanied by a male relative. In addition, Miss Zahid said, ex-husbands often face no legal penalty if they stop child support, snatch children from their mother, or fail to obtain the necessary papers for a child to attend school, a problem particularly acute in low-income communities.
She called it "wrong" that judges do not require wives to be present when husbands seek divorce, adding, "Sometimes a woman gets divorced and no one tells her! Imagine!"
But it's not part of the Islamic religion...
"This is not in our religion. Ours is a very peaceful religion … we are not against religion," Zahid added. But "we need a law to stop this violence against women. It's as simple as that."
... Except when it is: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them." -- Qur'an 4:34
Legal problems are compounded by society's attitudes towards divorced women, who are often viewed with disdain, and blamed, even by their own families, for their marriages' failure.
Luluah al-Shammari, an educator from Dammam, said the mere fact of holding an event whose title included the word "divorce" would advance public awareness. "It's the first step to bring ... the divorce issue up," she said.
Like other women at the forum, Mrs. Shammari said part of the reason for the rising divorce rate is that young men are raised to believe they should totally control their wives.
They are taught that "you are the man, you have the power, you have the authority," Shammari said. "In the end, the man wants to take over this girl and not give her space. He deals with me as if I'm an employee, as if he has the remote control: 'Stand up!' 'Sit down!' Women can't take it." [...]
Worry not, Saudi muslimahs...
Allah Karim, you and your sister can be the same muslim brother's 1st/2nd/3rd/4th (pick a number) wives (and live as sisters/co-wives)!
What these uppity wimmen learn while locked away at home, with all that free time for teh intarwebs and Oprah on MSB. Just don't burn the chickpeas, chickies.
Well, at least the brood cows are starting to mutter. It's a promising development, like watching a child deciding to stop slamming its hand in a car door for a quarter.
Perhaps they'll skip the chirpy, blank-eyed "It's My Hijab, It's My Choice" stage we're stuck in, in the West, and progress directly to the conviction that they're actually humans too. One can only hope.
"The conference was also another sign of the concern about Saudi Arabia's rising divorce rate. The Ministry of Social Affairs reported earlier this year that it stood at 30 percent, although some experts say it might be as high as 60 percent, according to press reports."
-- from the article above
Dinesh D'Souza, and all the family-values boys who are so enthusiastic about Islam should be made aware of this, and be asked to comment on this divorce rate, as well as on how they regard polygamy.
It's just astonishing.
Instead of progressing, modernizing, improving equality, and secularizing...these people are trying their utmost to regress, perpetuate their backwardness, reinforce their misogyny, and strangle every aspect of life and society with this pitiful religion.
Makes me ashamed that I once defended the 'supremacy' of Islam and the terrible behaviour of Muslims on the basis of their 'oppression'.
- Proud EX-Muslim
It's a worldwide problem, and we're trying to find a solution.
No, it's not worldwide, but you just keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. It's a uniquely Muslim problem. No other culture has ever so degraded women and robbed them of their basic rights.
He deals with me as if I'm an employee...
Read your Sharia permission to penetrate, sweetie. You're a commodity while you're "married," then you get fired, or literally "repudiated." You are a prostitute. Your father sold you into sex slavery and your owner is both john and pimp, since you don't get any money.
There is no hope for these sickos. There is no debating women's rights in Islam. There is only reining in Islam.
I thought Islam elevated women and only non-musilm, especially Christian, women were the repressed ones.
Why is it orthodox muslims, with no reason to hide any aspect of their religion/political system are the most repressive and hateful to women out of all humans on the planet?
JPost has just run an article on polygamy among the Bedouin Muslims in Israel, and the terrible toll it takes upon both women and men.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728151540&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The author is one of those Israelis who would prefer *not* to see how horrible Islam is - Islam, Islam, Islam - but even he can't deny that polygamy (or, strictly speaking, polygyny) destroys women and damages men, too. In that regard the article is very useful as it provides specific, factual evidence of that destructiveness.
(The same guy has also written some very useful articles about the Sudanese who have fled from Sudan through Egypt to Israel - the hideous treatment they received from the Egyptian Muslims, whether they [the Sudanese] were Christian or Muslim, is also damning testimony, although he doesn't fully grasp that, against the viciously racist Arab supremacism and will-to-enslave that is coded into Islam).
The Israelis, like all other Infidel communities afflicted by Mohammedan infiltrators, would be well advised to bite the bullet and ruthlessly enforce upon the Arab Muslims within their borders exactly the same rules as are enforced upon the rest of the Israeli population - that is: bigamy, a man's taking of more than one wife, is a prosecutable offence and whenever detected will be implacably punished.
Thank you for linking to that article, DDA. Yes, the Israelis would be well-advised to prosecute polygamists, particularly since you know they're all on welfare.
Thank God for the Free World!
Surprise! You are divorced!
Surprise! You are your husband's sex toy.
Surprise! You have no rights compared to kuffar women.
When are you going to start reading the Qur'an and discover these things?
hold your horses for a little bit here....
You are talking about Saudi Arabia.
They are free to do what they want,but take a good look of what is happening here in America America is supposed to be a free country where women are liberated and protected by law.
Judge Donna Fields ,Division;7 circuit court in Memphis ordered a divorce trial to go on without anyone representing the wife.
Judge Fields allowed the wife counsel to withdraw on the phone without a proper hearing a week before trial during Christmas Holidays.and after allowing him to withdraw , she asked him to come to the trial.
She also refused to hear or see any proof of link to terrorism from the husband and put a motion scire facias against Joe Kaufman , terrorist expert,to prevent him from coming to Tennessee and testify about the international network link to the husband.
She totally ignored letters and pleas from the 2 boys and the mother just because the husband was a famous doctor and was a golden goose.
Judge Fields so far is supposed to face a panel of judges but nothing has been done.
IF this judge get away with what she did, it is an open door to the Sharia law.
What is more important? Laws in Saudi Arabia, or what is going on in your own land.
Before we go and clean someone else house, we must clean our own home.
You stay on top of that seditious judge, Tartine. I sleep more soundly knowing that people like you are watching the small jihad in their own backyards and doing something. That's why I'm fighting IU. It's the principle of the matter. He have to uphold our laws. Without them we're Saudi Arabia. An injustice anywhere may be an injustice everywhere, but somehow I really only care about what happens in the free world. The rest isn't worth salvaging.
As for Islamic women's freedom - the hint is in the burqa!
And the rest is self-delusion..
Tartine's story is so true. I live in East Tennessee and I have heard there have been victims of judicial abuse against women in Judge Fields court. They have testified before the Tennessee Legilature. I have also heard they have all been retaliated against. It is disgusting that these brave women have been forced to go before the Legislative branch of Tennessee government simply because the Judicial branch of Tennessee government refuses to hold corrupt judges ACCOUNTABLE. Women and children are suffering here in Tennessee far worse than the women and children in Saudi Arabia! All it will take is ONE ETHICAL leader in the state of Tennessee to take a firm stand against the horrific judicial corruption; others will follow. For the childrens sake, someone needs to take charge and hold these corrupt judges accountable.