YEMEN: Outrage over death of 12-year-old child bride aimed at government [Updated]

Mounting outrage following the death of 12-year-old Fawziya Abdullah Youssef, who died giving birth to her stillborn child, is renewing pressure on Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to ratify a law passed in parliament that would make 17 the minimum marriage age.

Youssef died on arrival at a rural hospital in Yemen's Al Hodeida province after several days of difficult labor, according to the Yemeni child rights association Seyaj.

Youssef, the oldest of four children, was just 11 when her ailing father pulled her out of school and married her to a man twice her age, 25-year-old Youssef Ghrad, Seyaj director Ahmed Qorashi told The Times.

Qorashi said early marriages are not uncommon in poor families such as the Youssefs, who probably did not think they were doing anything wrong. The family's poverty may also explain why the girl was not taken sooner to the hospital, which was 10 miles from where she lived.

[Updated, 12:30 p.m., The Yemeni embassy in Washington sent an email lamenting Fawiziya's death.

"We were profoundly saddened to hear the news of the death of the young Yemeni girl, Fawziya Abdullah Yousef (age 12)," said the email by Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Embassy. 

He said President Ali Abdullah Saleh tried to amend the marriage law to raise the minimum age to 17 but was thwarted by conservative lawmakers.  But he vowed that the government would soon pass legislation to raise the marriage age. 

"It is deemed an important priority of the government," he wrote.] 

JORDAN: Indonesia to sue doctor for dumping sick maid outside a hospital

The Indonesian Embassy in Amman intends to sue a Jordanian doctor for allegedly abusing an Indonesian domestic worker at his home and then abandoning her outside a medical facility after she became ill with tuberculosis, the Jordan Times reported today.

Indonesian deputy envoy to Jordan Ari Wardhana told the paper that the victim, identified only as "Aminah," had not only been abused by her employer and his family, but also had been forced to work without pay since she arrived in Jordan in 2008.

“We are currently collecting information from the girl to file a lawsuit against the doctor," Wardhana said.

“We will take this matter to the Jordanian government," he added. "She is a human being and should have been treated in a better way."

Ahmad Armouti, president of the Jordan Medical Assn., said his organization will investigate the doctor, who has so far gone unnamed.

LEBANON: Arab lesbian magazine relaunches on the Web

Lebanon's online lesbian magazine Bekhsoos is back after a nearly one-year hiatus for almost one year.

The publication, whose Arabic name loosely translates as "Concerning," was launched as a quarterly magazine in early 2008 by members of the Lebanese lesbian group Meem and was billed as the Arab world's first publication for lesbian and bisexual women.

Back then, Bekhsoos published a mixture of news about sexual identity in the Arab world.

Now it plans to feature more investigative reports with the objective of filling "the gap of lesbian- and transgender-produced writing in the Arab world." 

GAZA: Has Hamas unofficially imposed Islamic dress code on students?

Educators in the Gaza Strip have begun enforcing an unofficial decree by the Hamas leadership requiring high school girls to wear Islamic dress, despite Hamas Education Minister Muhammad Asqoul denying such a policy as recently as two days ago, Arab news outlets reported.

"Palestinian society is committed by nature and does not need decrees to force it to be so," Asqoul said, according to a front-page report by Qays Safadi in the left-leaning Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar (Arabic link). Asqoul went on to describe the media furor surrounding the decision as a "tempest in a teapot."

But, as Safadi points out, Asqoul's comments directly contradict the signs posted outside schools informing girls that this year they are required to wear dark blue robes, a white headscarf and black or white shoes.

AFGHANISTAN: Campaign consultant sees signs of hope for women in politics

 

While Afghanistan's top two presidential candidates, Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, spar over who came out ahead in preliminary exit polls, Afghan women's rights activists are hoping the results show higher voter turnout among women.

Despite extremist threats, deteriorating security and a shortage of female poll workers, women appear to be gaining ground in politics, thanks to general disillusionment with the current leadership and the efforts of several grass-roots organizations.

Abeda Osman, for her part, sees small signs of hope. Osman is a former government commissioner, consultant and activist who has spent much of the last six years working with various nonprofit groups in her native Afghanistan. Most recently, she served as a campaign consultant in coordination with the Afghan Women’s Network.

Can you tell us what exactly you were doing during the campaign?

There were lots of local women networks that have sprung up.... I worked with a candidate for the election, and lots of women were coming to his campaign headquarters and I was the one responsible  for telling them about his manifesto and his biography, what he does, his issues and priorities.

QATAR: Public outrage rises with demand for Saudi maids

Residents of Qatar are outraged over media reports that 30 Saudi women have had to work in the same “humiliating” conditions that were formerly deemed acceptable only for foreign migrant workers.

The women, ages 20 to 45, arrived in Qatar to be placed with families as maids, earning about $400 per month, slightly more than their mostly Asian and African counterparts, according to the Middle East and North Africa Financial Network (MENAFN).

One maids agency told newspapers that the demand for Saudi women had gone up sharply due to widespread fears that foreign maids practiced magic.

IRAN: Human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr reportedly arrested

Prominent lawyer, women's rights activist and journalist Shadi Sadr was arrested by plainclothes policemen on her way to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's much-anticipated Friday sermon, according to several reformist websites.

The activist group blog Mothers of Laleh reported that Sadr was walking with several other female activists when she was approached by individuals in civilian dress who refused to show a warrant before forcing her into a waiting car.

Conflicting reports say she called her husband to ask for a computer password or a cellphone personal identification number, but her whereabouts are still unknown.

Sadr, who also edits the Farsi news website womeniniran.com, was arrested and held for two weeks in 2007. She has clashed with authorities numerous times over her outspoken stance on women's rights and capital punishment.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Lawyer Shadi Sadr was reportedly arrested on her way to Friday prayers.

SUDAN: Female journalist faces 40 lashes for choice of clothes

A prominent Sudanese female journalist faces 40 lashes for the crime of dressing in a way that contradicts the country's social and religious values.

Lobna Ahmed al Hussein, whose daily column Men Talk often criticizes the Sudanese regime and Islamic fundamentalists for their oppression of women, was charged with violating a 1991 law that forbids women to dress in a manner that causes "public discomfort." She was wearing a loose hijab, top and pants and allegedly wasn't covered in the traditional way of Sudanese women.

The journalist reacted to the charge by sending the media, as well as her supporters, thousands of printed invitations to attend her upcoming trial. Al Hussein said that if convicted she will send similar invitations to her public whipping.

GAZA: Short film takes on rape, a taboo subject in Palestinian enclave

Basma Abualila, a journalist and filmmaker living in Gaza, recently caused a stir in the strip with her short film on rape in Gaza. In her 10-minute film, “ A Call at Night," based on a real-life incident, a young woman shares her story of how she was raped by her boyfriend and then forced to marry her rapist out of fear when she got pregnant. 

 
 

 

“He said he needed to talk to me but said we couldn’t talk while standing in the street because everyone was watching us. So he asked me to get into his car to talk. I get into the car and he puts something over my face,” the woman tells Abualila in a telephone conversation in the film. 

What then happens is unclear. The woman remembers nothing after getting into the car with the man. She wakes up hours later in an apartment with her clothes torn off and a terrible headache. Her boyfriend is in the room, looking at her from a distance. She believes she has been drugged. 

EGYPT: Women to form 11% of the next parliament

It looks like there may be more women in the stuffy chambers of the Egyptian parliament. A new election law is set to include an additional 56 seats, all of which will be allocated to female candidates, according to Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and a key figure in the ruling National Democratic Party.

In its convention this week, the NDP's policies committee agreed on a proposal to increase the number of seats in the People's Assembly to 510 from 454 during the next elections. Mubarak confirmed that the new elections law amendments should guarantee that at least 11% of the new parliament members will be women.

The president's son added that the new proposal, which he described as a "positive discrimination" for  women's rights in Egypt, would be adopted for a limited period, which might be up to two terms. The proposal will be forwarded to the parliament for a full vote.