UAE imprisoning rape victims under extramarital sex laws – investigation

It is often domestic female migrant workers that are left most vulnerable by the laws banning consensual sex outside marriage. Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA

Hundreds of women, some of them pregnant or domestic servants who are victims of rape, are being imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates every year under laws that outlaw consensual sex outside marriage, according to a BBC Arabic investigation.

Secret footage obtained by BBC Arabic show pregnant women shackled in chains walking into a courtrooms where laws prohibiting “Zina” – or sex outside marriage – could mean sentences of months to years in prison and flogging.

“Because the UAE authorities have not clarified what they mean by indecency, the judges can use their culture and customs and Sharia ultimately to broaden out that definition and convict people for illicit sexual relations or even acts of public affection,” said Rothna Begum, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch in London.

While both men and women could in theory be imprisoned for having sex outside marriage, the investigation – which will air at the opening of BBC Arabic festival on 31 October – found that in reality pregnancy is often used as proof of the “crime”, with domestic female migrant workers – numbering about 150,000 in the UAE – left most vulnerable.

There are no available official figures on the number of women incarcerated each year, but estimates from prisoners, family lawyers, charities and the work of investigative reporters put the figure in the hundreds.

There have been high-profile cases involving foreigners falling foul of the law. In 2010 a British woman who made a rape complaint against a waiter in Dubai was arrested for having illegal sex with her fiancé.

A few years later Norwegian woman Marte Dalelv reported being raped by her colleague, was imprisoned for extra marital sex and was only released after international outcry.

But cases involving women living inside the country rarely garner the same coverage. BBC Arabic spoke to Emirati woman Hessa*, who found out that she was pregnant by a man she had been with for six years and who had promised to make her his second wife.

“When I told him I was carrying his child he got very upset. Then he hit me,” she said. “He said ‘I will tell your family you’re dishonourable’.” Faced with ruin, she decided to have an illegal abortion. “I can’t have a baby without being married,” she said. “A woman can’t have a child with someone she loves. If my family found out they’d slaughter me.”

Hessa had consensual sex, but other women find themselves facing incarceration after being raped. Laily*, who left her home in Bangladesh for a job as a domestic helper, was allegedly raped by her boss, whom other workers had warned “was a really bad man”.

“I said I would electrocute myself and die if he didn’t leave,” she told BBC Arabic. “I screamed and begged at his feet. I called him ‘Father’. I said: ‘A father cannot do this to his daughter!’ I pushed him, he fell. I bit him. Then he held my feet and both my hands and abused my honour.”

According to Amnesty International Gulf researcher Drewery Dyke, the situation is far from uncommon. “Rape victims have been accused of having engaged in illicit sexual relations, while the rape allegations themselves have been left uninvestigated,” he said. “While press reports suggest that this situation has slightly improved, anecdotal accounts indicate that vulnerable women from migrant communities continue to be detained for illicit sexual relations, often being left to languish in jail with their newborn babies.”

Under the UAE’s kafala system, foreign workers – who make up 90% of the population – must be sponsored by an employer. They can only work for that employer and cannot leave the country without permission. Although it is against the law, passports are routinely confiscated. Laily had no choice but to live under the same roof as her rapist. When he discovered she was pregnant and they both risked being prosecuted, the family dropped her at the airport in only the clothes she was wearing. “I could not take anything with me. I left everything.”

The UAE’s laws on sex and pregnancy outside marriage, based on Sharia law, were codified when the nation was founded in 1971. “The constitution states that Islam is the official religion of the nation and that Sharia is the source of laws in the country. There is no way anyone can oppose it,” said Sabah Mahmoud, who worked as a lawyer in the UAE for 15 years.

Women imprisoned for extramarital sex told the investigation that conditions in prison were poor. Marie*, a domestic worker from the Philippines who had two children with a local man, was put on trial without a lawyer and sentenced to nine months in prison with her daughters.

“They are giving weekly one can of milk and 25 pieces of pampers. But it’s not enough. Even water you need to buy,” she said. “We are three to four persons inside that room and we have babies. We sleep on one small mattress.”

Human rights organisations argue the extramarital sex ban in the UAE – which also exists in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Morocco – contravene international human rights laws which the UAE has signed up to.

“They need to decriminalise consensual sexual relations. This would then lift off the possibility that victims could be prosecuted,” said Begum. “Then you need to be able to ensure that those who end up as victims are in a situation where they are not vulnerable.”

Response:

Alexandra Topping wrote this article to raise awareness of the mistreatment of women as a result of Sharia law. This article highlights a human rights violation that stems from Sharia law in select Muslim countries.  She is very against this principle of Sharia law in order to protect victims of sexual crimes. A law is useless if it is not there to protect and in the best interest of the people. Topping specifically focuses on the numbers of women in the UAE that have been raped and sent to prison for sex outside of marriage without the representation of a lawyer or trial. She writes that the authorities in the UAE have not "clarified what they mean but indecency", which means many women are becoming victims of unjust laws. 

Citation:

Topping, Alexandra. "UAE Imprisoning Rape Victims under Extramarital Sex Laws – Investigation." The Guardian. The Guardian, 26 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

Are we winning against maternal and infant mortality? - Article Response.

Are we winning against maternal and infant mortality?

Researchers, activists, officials and journalists gather in Mexico City to discuss healthcare for mothers and infants.

20 Oct 2015 14:36 GMT | Health, Latin America, Mexico, Infant mortality

The mood at the conference on maternity and child survival in Mexico City is buoyant [Rebecca Blackwell/AP]

About the Author

Azad Essa

Azad Essa is a journalist at Al Jazeera, covering Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mexico City - In South Africa, about 4,300 mothers die due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth every year. A further 20,000 babies are stillborn and another 23,000 die in their first month of life. In total, 75,000 children do not make it to their fifth birthday.

But the problem is not unique to South Africa. The death of new mothers and infants below the age of five is the single, biggest source of gender inequality in the world.

This week, about 1,000 researchers, activists, government officials, and journalists have gathered in Mexico City to discuss healthcare for mothers and infants. The conference on maternity and child survival in Mexico City may be an unusual space for positivity, but the mood here is buoyant.

Researchers and activists say that despite the challenges, the tide has turned in the struggle to improve the health of mothers and infants across the globe. The last 30 years, and the last decade in particular, have yielded tremendous gains.

And Mexico is said to be among the biggest success stories.

With one of the larger health budgets in the developing world, Mexico has managed to outdo the likes of Nigeria and South Africa with its gains against maternal and infant mortality.

Likewise, Rwanda and Ethiopia have been lauded for their successful interventions in reducing the rates of maternal and infant deaths.

"I think Rwanda has been really good at using information to drive quality improvement," Chris Elias, president of Global Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said.

"Like Ethiopia, they have been very successful in having a clear national plan and then convincing the development partners to align around a national plan with a strong monitoring and evaluation effort," he told journalists at a roundtable event at the conference.

Life expectancy

Significant gains have been made in global health. Worldwide, life expectancy has increased to 71, and global health for mothers and infants has also improved despite the overwhelmingly obvious shortfalls.

There is, however, still much to do.

Whereas 17 million children under five years of age died annually in 1970, this number has reduced to around 5.9 million today.

Both China and India have made progress, whereas countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo continue the struggle to make in-roads in the face of ongoing conflict, poor infrastructure and weak governance.

"The countdown to 2015 Report", the final instalment in a series of reports focused on global maternal health and child survival that began in 2005, was released late on Monday night at the conference and found that under-five mortality has dropped by 53 percent since 1990.

It also found the rate of reduction in deaths had accelerated over recent years. But children are still malnourished and dying from pneumonia and diarrhoea - both preventable and treatable conditions. Undernutrition and sub-optimum breastfeeding remains the cause of death of about 45 percent of children under five globally.

Family planning

The report also showed that in some countries, there remained significant opposition to contraceptives and family planning, both crucial indicators in assessing the extent to which women are in control of their destinies.

Zulfiqar Bhutta, codirector of Robert Harding Chair in Global Child Health and Policy, and cochairman of The Countdown Report, told Al Jazeera that successes and failures of countries to meet the fourth and fifth goals of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targeting infant and maternal mortality, were linked to a number of social determinants.

The landmark report showed that only four out of the 75 countries - identified for hosting 90 percent of all maternal and infant deaths across the planet - managed to successfully reach their respective MDGs for
reducing maternity and infant deaths.

But the overwhelming failure of so many countries to meet these targets makes the success of Eritrea, Rwanda, Cambodia and Nepal in meeting their goals quite extraordinary.

"It all boils down to a combination of political will, which is, in turn, dictated by civil society pressure. If people in the country are just not focused on issues of rights, reducing inequities, [and] reaching marginalised populations we could cry hoarse from the outside, but it would make no difference," Bhutta said.

Response:

The author of this article, Azad Essa, agrees that the infant mortality rate has dropped and that significant progress has been made. She begins the article given actual numbers of infant deaths in South Africa. This helps the reader to understand that this is a serious problem all over the world.  Essa writes all but four countries reached their respective goals which shows that great progress has been made through these programs. One of the only set backs is some countries that have limited access due to civil war of unrest. Essa's article is a good representation of the progress that has been made so far but there is still a lot to be done. The last paragraph talks about the will power of civilians and their involvement in civil rights issue. This article reminds people that they play a part in the future development of their nations.

Essa, Azad. "Are We Winning against Maternal and Infant Mortality?" Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network, 20 Oct. 15. Web. 21 Oct. 15.

http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2015/10/winning-maternal-infant-mortality-151020140134017.html

America is Addicted to Guns - Peter Daou - Article Response.

America is addicted to guns – which only give an illusion of strength and security

Daou, Peter. "America Is Addicted to Gins." The Guardian. The Guardian, 4 Oct. 15. Web. 4 Oct. 15.

Peter Daou

I grew up with guns all around me in Lebanon. So I understand America’s relationship with firearms, and just how dangerous it can be

Guns on display in Roseburg, Oregon. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

You are not the same person carrying a firearm as you are without one. A device that can extinguish a life with the flick of a finger places inordinate power in the hands of an individual. That power – whether exercised or simply imagined – can be addictive.

Growing up in the midst of a war in Lebanon and undergoing military training in high school put guns at the center of my childhood. As the grandson of an experienced marksman, the son of a hunter and a hunter myself, I loved my guns. I loved shooting. I loved the feeling of slinging a double barrel shotgun over my shoulder before dawn and wandering off into the cold mountains.

I am also someone who, as a 10-year-old, collected shrapnel and spent bullets from the streets and alleys around my home near Hamra Street in West Beirut – daily reminders of death and violence, but also of survival. As my collection grew, so did my appreciation for the value of each new morning with an intact family, which was a privilege that many of my friends and neighbors lost.

My military service quickly taught me that there was an inextricable link between the weapon I carried on my shoulder and the suffering to which I bore daily witness. I was trained to use guns against others before I was old enough to be considered a man.

In Lebanese culture, “manhood” was an issue teenage boys were taught to think about. What did it mean to be a man, to be respected as a man? A gun was an instant pathway to respect – or as I more accurately understand now, fear masquerading as respect.

America’s obsessive relationship with firearms is familiar to me; I know the intoxicating sense of power that a gun bestows, particularly to a young man. But in the aftermath of the terrible violence I witnessed and with the passage of time, I know that guns are dangerous and illusory shortcuts to strength and maturity and no guarantee of personal safety.

After another horrific mass shooting – this time at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College – our intractable gun control debate has begun once again, with those who are categorically opposed to rational controls on gun ownership already insisting that a mass shooting is no reason to contemplate new laws. What is it about America and firearms? What makes us different from every other developed country that we tolerate such disproportionate levels of gun violence?

I see the debate about guns through the lens of that teenager surrounded by weapons and by bloodshed and terror created with guns. I can also see it as a hunter and amateur marksman – as someone who spent years perfecting the Zen-like art of hitting the head of a pin with a tiny projectile.

Guns are a high. For someone just entering adulthood and grappling with the attendant challenges, emotions and sense of powerlessness, easy access to firearms is easy access to the ultimate drug: the feeling of omnipotence.

In America, that access means that the consequences of contentious interactions between people can more readily turn deadly. According to a report by theCenter for American Progress, “The easy access youths have to guns across the country creates the opportunity for otherwise nonfatal confrontations between young people to become fatal.”

Allowing unfettered access to deadly weapons leads to the carnage we’re seeing in our schools, our churches, our movie theaters, our shopping malls, and our streets. The frustration expressed by President Obama in his statement about the Oregon shooting is shared by millions of people, like me, who cannot fathom how we permit these travesties to continue.

Those of us who advocate for stronger gun control measures must understand that we are dealing not just with an obsession, but an addiction. And addictions are notoriously hard to break. Meanwhile, the death toll keeps rising.

Response: 

Peter Daou expresses continuously throughout the article that he is an experienced marksman. He writes about his childhood in Lebanon. He was exposed to not only firearms but the violence that inevitable follows. The author is explaining to the reader that he is experienced and understands the consequences.  Daou is obviously for gun control. He is able to express his opinions afresh because of the recent shooting in Oregon. The influence of IS is also manipulating people all over the world to use guns and take part in violence. This topic is continuously revisited with increasing gun violence in the United States. 

Peter Daou come from a country that guns were also readily available and I come from a country that doesn't even allow police to carry anything more than a taser. I think that the United States needs to look at gun control again. Because guns are so readily available, it will be difficult to find an effective way of controlling weaponry. This is the only way to stop more shootings from occurring.