“Stop the Killing of Women and Girls”
AWT joined the international campaign to raise awareness on gender-based violence and help legislation move towards greater gender equality in Jordan.
22 Nov 2016
Amman, Jordan - The 16 Days of Activism is a global effort which has taken place annually since 1991. Together with the aims of raising awareness of GBV (Gender-based violence) on a local, national and international level, it also hopes to discourage militarism and seeks to provide a forum for dialogue and strategy-sharing. This therefore helps encourage decision makers to abide by the commitments they made in national and international legal treaties regarding Human Rights and Women’s Rights.
"Women's and girls' lives matter and only by working together can we bring lasting change, only by joining forces can we end violence against women," UN Jordan representative Ziad Sheikh told "The Jordan Times."
In Jordan, an advocacy petition has resurfaced entitled “Campaign Against So-called Honor Killings”, first introduced in 1999. Articles 340 and 98 Jordanian Penal Code, excempt or reduce the punishment of individuals convicted of murdering women in the name of honour. According to Article 340, any man who kills or attacks his wife or any of his female relatives in the act of committing adultery or in an “unlawful bed” benefits from a reduction in penalty. Although the article was ammended in 2001, it is beyond dispute that the pure notion of this law still proves highly disfavourable to the victim.
Moreover, Article 98 reduces the sentence for the perpetrator of a fit of fury crime committed in response to a wrongful and serious act on the part of the victim. Due to the vague nature of this article, there has been a leniency on behalf of judges in recent years. This has been influenced by inadequate collection of evidence by the policy and increasing social acceptance of honour killings.
Since the start of the year, thirty eight women have been killed in Jordan and statistics show that cases of honour killings are increasing. Therefore, it is imperative that we unite forces to support this campaign against honour killings and together bring greater gender rights under legislation.
Arab Woman Today has joined the movement in Jordan by signing the petition for this advocacy case. We believe that by gathering our forces, we will be able to encourage the amendment of legislation that reinforce such discriminative stereotypes. It is high time that we do not simply accept the systems which make such killings so easy to carry out, and start providing security to protect the life and dignity of vulnerable women and girls.
#16DaysOfActivism #16days #16daysjo #WhyShouldI
