Jordan: New campaign to raise awareness on women’s rights

AMMAN - Hoping to make proposed changes to the Personal Status Law permanent, women’s rights activists this week announced a new campaign to raise public awareness and get their concerns back on policymakers’ agenda.

“The Right to Equal Rights” campaign will include a petition drive and a march to Parliament, according to Nuha Mahrez, head of the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development’s (JOHUD) women’s empowerment programme.

The new campaign is in response to 2001 amendments to the law, which included an increase in the legal age from 15 for women and 16 for men to 18 for both.

The legislation also gave women “khuloe”, or the right to divorce without the husband’s consent, as long as the woman agreed to renounce any right to the couple’s finances or her dowry.

Seven years later, activists have yet to see Parliament make the amendments permanent, with the measures voted down by the Lower House in 2003 and 2004.

In addition, a loophole in the amendments allows women to get married as young as 15 if the suitor is proven financially able to pay for a dowry and support his family.

The campaign calls on lawmakers to close this loophole, and women activists plan to meet with deputies to discuss making the amendment permanent.

In addition to JOHUD, the coalition includes the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute, the Jordanian National Forum for Women, the Performing Arts Centre and Freedom House.

Another proposed change calls for allocating compensation to women under khuloe based on the length of the marriage and her income.

The initiative also calls for an amendment allowing equal visitation rights for mothers in cases of separation or divorce, Mahrez said.

A judge would be designated to mediate the dispute if both parties are unable to reconcile visitation times.

Mahrez said the campaign also seeks to win the support of clerics and imams, encouraging them to raise the issue of equal rights in their Friday sermons and to address misconceptions surrounding women’s empowerment, the Personal Status Law and Islam.

“The changes in the law aren’t against religion, but protect basic human rights, which are enshrined in Sharia,” Mahrez said.

The campaign, which will continue throughout the year, will also include play performances in each governorate, teaching children the importance of equal rights.

By Taylor Luck from the Jordan Times