By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

CAIRO, May 13 (IslamOnline.net) - The “Arab Consultative Conference on Violence against Women” was held in the Egyptian capital, Monday-Tuesday, May 12-13 with an extensive participation of regional NGOs and civil society associations as well as relevant United Nations organizations and a famous anti-war activist.

Most of the 15 participating countries agreed that much is still needed to
end the phenomenon within the borders of each.

“Violence against women is commonplace, socially approved and it goes
largely unpunished,” Liouza Ait Hamou of Algeria’s Reseau Wassila NGO told
the mostly female gathering.

Hamou complained the main reasons for gender-based violence in Algeria
are essentially “the status of women, traditional practices, religious fundamentalism and the Personal Status law.” She said that Islamic fundamentalists used committed rape as “a weapon against population in a war-like time.

As for Bahrain, there are “no special laws to protect women against violence and there is no legislations organizing family life,” said Hefsa al-Khameiri of Bahrain Association for Human Rights.

“Article 353 of Bahrain Criminal Court states that if the rapist agrees to marry the victim, the punishment can be impeded. But, al-Khameiri said, this type of marriage does not last for long.

The speakers also found a common ground that there should be firm legislations to end violence against women in the Arab region, with an emphasis that putting them into motion is rather significant.

“There should be legislations on this issue, but what does matter is putting them into implementation,” Haifaa Abo Ghazala, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) regional office director, told IslamOnline.net.

Asked about the situation of women under occupation in Iraq and Palestine, the UN official went elusive that every thing would work out for the best of the two countries.

“We will preparing a program on the Iraq situation and will also send a group for a field assessment there,” Ghazala said, more than one month after the U.S. forces rolled into.

Many in attendance appeared concerned that UN representatives made no condemnation for US occupation of Iraq that left women further inflicted with violence. “The international bodies could not speak up against Israel or the Americans,” said Hala Salah, an Egyptian journalist.

Liberation

Although the conference was indulged into rhetorical speeches apparently with no clear feasible agenda, the participants called for an end to the US and Israeli occupation of Iraq and Palestine, respectively.

“We must seriously lend support for the two peoples. We must work for keeping the dignity of Arabs up regardless of race, religion or sex,” said Asma Khedr, a Jordanian activist. She conditioned this on adopting democratic principles in the region.

“The invasion and occupation of Iraq ended all feelings of security and stability among Iraqis. The sanctions were also all but genocide with rising number of civilian deaths that reached one baby every six minutes according to UN statistics,” Iraq’ s Buthaina al-Nasiri said to standing ovation.

“The Iraqi women find themselves in a jungle, with no basic services, no schools and no jobs,” she added, complaining that what happened in Palestine by Israeli army 50 years ago is rerun by the US forces in Iraq.

British leader of Stop the War Coalition John Rees showed up at the meeting, with the same inflammatory statements “We intend to insure that Tony Blair’s government will pay for every thing he did in Iraq,” including humanitarian crimes committed against civilians and wide spread of looting and anarchy now going on, Rees said in his traditional vociferous tone. Rees said that demonstrations for ending occupation of Iraq would continue as stronger as they were before the invasion.

Misusing Islam

Jordan’s Khedr slammed the use of religion by some powerful and influential
groups in Arab countries to justify their violations against human rights in general and women rights in particular.

“The Arab region still see violence against women and stereotypical portrayal of them be carried out in the name of Islam,” she lamented, adding such a misuse would rather have a negative impact on Islamic culture, citing how Europe had rebelled against the church and separate religion from the state after religion was used for justifying corruption.

Khedr is nominated for the UN special rapporteur on violence against women post, the first ever to be held by an Arab.

“Let us, Arab peoples, raise our voices more louder and unified and play as principal rules on the international scene,” Khedr said.

Shortly afterwards, Algeria’s national representative to the conference asked to give her speech in English, leaving the hall full of sighs of disgruntle.