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April 10, 2006

Islam: Muslim Laws Encourage Family Abuse

We described yesterday how a Congressional forum concluded that in many Islamic countries, Sharia law is used to deny basic freedoms. Two stories today show that Islamic laws also can encourage abuse within families. The first comes from Singapore, via Monsters and Critics, and the other comes from Saudi Arabia, and is described in Arab News, with a hat-tip to Marc at USS Neverdock.

The case in Singapore, which originally appeared in Malaysia's New Straits Times, relates to parental abuse of children, but also describes the possible consequences of the practise of Mut'ah, a form of contractual marriage. This is where a man agrees to have a wife for a short period, and is practised mainly by Shi'ites. We described in December how Bahraini feminist Ghada Jamshir dismissed Mut'ah marriage as a form of abuse, during an interview on al-Arabiya TV. She said of this practice, where a man's needs for "pleasure" are catered for, that it encouraged child abuse:

"This is a violation of children's rights! This constitutes sexual assault of the girl. What does 'pleasure from sexual contact with her thighs' mean? It means deriving sexual pleasure from an infant. How old is an infant? One year, a year and a half, a few months?

"Is it conceivable for a grown man to have sex with an infant girl? And you people tell me that the Islamic Shari'a authorizes this? Forget about the mut'ah. Let's talk about misyar. What do misyar marriages mean? You said that I'm a Sunni and that's why I'm attacking the Shiites. No!"

In Singapore, a 45-year old Muslim man has been accused of raping six of his teenage daughters, and is on trial at Singapore's High Court. He had fathered several children by various "wives", and had been abusing six of his offspring over a period of six months, before his arrest in June 2005.

More than 12 years ago, he had fathered more than two dozen children and since then, that number has more than doubled. He had managed to father so many children because he had engaged in Mut'ah with several "contractual wives" in Singapore. Though recognised in Iran as legal, it is illegal in Singapore.

Even Ameerali Abdeali, secretary general of the Islamic Fellowship Association of Singapore, admitted that Mut'ah marriages can be "the subject of abuse". If one has no relationship with the mother other than for one's own sexual gratification, then it seems that this man has not even begun to appreciate the true values of parenthood. But his abuse of his own daughters is inexcusable by any standards.

The case in Mecca, Saudi Arabia is equally disturbing, and highlights just how little the values of parenthood are valued by Islamic Law. A man and his wife are being held in custody in Mecca for the fatal stabbing of the man's nine-year old daughter.

The man's wife, who was the girl's stepmother, is believed to have helped in physically abusing the girl over a long period. The man had physically abused the child's biological mother and that marriage had ended in divorce. In accordance with Islamic law, the biological mother retained custody of her daughter until the child reached the age of seven.

But after the age of seven, the father demanded his Islamic rights as a father, and petitioned the courts to gain possession of his daughter. He was awarded custody last year. The mother appealed and lost, and though granted rights of visitation, the man regularly refused her access to her own daughter. When she did get to see her child, she could see she had been assaulted. The woman's complaints to the Saudi authorities went unheeded.

When the father had finally stabbed his daughter to death, hospital staff discovered multiple fractures and prior stab wounds. They called police, who arrested the man and his wife.

As Arab News states:

Reports of child abuse cases have been increasing in the media during the past few years, revealing the shortage or even outright lack of laws and procedures that protect children from their abusers.

Some steps have been taken to establish shelters for abused women and children and discussions have been organized on the issue at high official levels. Basic necessary measures, such as police intervention and punitive laws, have yet to be implemented.

A major problem is that the rights of the parents are granted priority over the rights of the child. The father, who is more often the perpetrator of domestic abuse, is also favored under the current system in accordance with social norms.

The irony here is that Saudi Arabia is a country in which criminals are publicly beheaded. Frequently maids from the Philippines, who try to prevent themselves from being raped by their employers by killing them, are executed.

And yet in this wealthy yet backwards nation, Islamic Law is accepted as a basis of legal jurisdiction. And according to Islamic Law, a father who kills his child is not eligible for the death penalty. Occasionally, the state will make exceptions to this rule concerning certain particularly brutal cases, but here the man will be expected to serve a jail sentence.

Islamic Law is unjust and sexist. In cases of marriage, a man can have four wives, and a woman cannot have more than one husband. In cases of divorce, a man has the ability to divorce a woman, merely by saying the words "Talaq! Talaq! Talaq!" (I divorce you). But a woman is prevented from divorcing a man.

We described the case of Pakistan, where so-called "hudud" ordinances or Sharia Laws, introduced in 1979, mean that a woman who is guilty of adultery can be jailed. A victim of rape must produce four witnesses to the event to prove she has been raped. When a woman is raped and tells the authorities, she is often charged with adultery and sentenced to jail.

In some cases of Islamic jurisprudence, a victim of rape can be punished with flogging, as happened recently in Bangladesh.

Islamic Law has no place in a modern society. It is sexist, barbaric and backward. Like the founder of the faith, who married and had sex with his 12th wife Aisha when she was only 9.

Following this example, in Iranian law, a girl is classed as an adult when she reaches the age of nine, and can therefore be legally hanged for a capital offence or married, but a male is not considered an adult, and thus eligible to hang (or marry), until he reaches the age of fifteen.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 10, 2006 9:18 AM

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