United Arab Emirates

Islamic sharia law allows a man to "discipline" his wife and children provided that he does not leave physical marks, according to a ruling by the supreme court in the United Arab Emirates. The judgment was made in the case of a man who slapped and kicked his daughter and slapped his wife, injuring both slightly. But the federal court in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, also said that their bruises were evidence that the father had abused his legal right. The case reported today by the Abu Dhabi paper The National, is likely to attract attention because of the large number of foreign expatriates living in the Gulf state, where there are occasional prosecutions of westerners as well as nationals for breaching public morality. Non-Muslims, however, will not appear before a sharia court.

ويعد التقرير، الذي صدر في ثلاثمائة صفحة، هو المجلد الخامس من سلسلة تقارير التنمية الإنسانية العربية، التي يرعاها برنامج الأمم المتحدة الإنمائي، ويضعها عدد من المثقفين والباحثين في البلدان العربية. وانتقد التقرير أوضاع حقوق الإنسان في البلاد العربية، وعلاقة الدولة فيها بالمواطن وأمنه وحقوقه، وغياب الدولة المدنية.

Questions for Hibaaq Osman, founder and director of Karama: 1. How have efforts to implement the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) in the Arab region evolved since Beijing? Has this been satisfactory? Since the adoption of the BPFA, there has been considerable progress throughout the region in meeting international standards that reinforce gender equality. In particular, the civil society sector has expanded, proliferating local organizations whose mission it is to address key issues that have prevented governments and other authorities from enacting, implementing and enforcing laws that protect women from discrimination and violence. This NGO component had been largely missing and now acts to directly respond to the needs of the local community and communicate these to national and international authorities. In particular, a renewed focus on empowering women and increasing their role in decision-making has been demonstrated.

I was sitting in a majlis with a group of women when our chat on world affairs was interrupted by an urgent knock on the door; a knock that opened more than just a passage into the rest of the house. “We ran out of coffee!” I heard a male voice in distress telling the hostess as she opened the door just a tiny crack to see who it was. It was her husband, who was hosting a similar majlis in another corner of the house, with the husbands of the women here. The hostess went out to help him, leaving the door wide open to a room full of annoyed women. Several of them ran to the door to close it, because “there are men in the house”.