Jordan: Women activists call on gov’t to lift remaining reservations on CEDAW

The Jordan Times
By Hani Hazaimeh

AMMAN - Women activists this week reiterated their call on the government to remove its reservations on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), while other parties described the agreement as a form of cultural globalisation.

Earlier this year, the government decided to lift its reservations on paragraph four of Article 15 of the convention, which gives women freedom of mobility.

Speaking at a workshop to discuss the convention, Jordanian National Commission for Women Secretary General Asma Khader welcomed the government’s decision, noting that women activists have strongly advocated for lifting the reservations.

In July 1992, the Kingdom signed the convention which was ratified and published in the Official Gazette in August 2007 with three reservations related to the citizenship, housing and women's mobility clauses in the Personal Status Law.

"We call on the government to lift the two remaining reservations," Khader said, pointing out that Islam stresses gender equality and protects women rights, but "individual malpractices restrain some of these rights".

"Differences in opinion over the agreement should not stop us from exchanging views and remarks on CEDAW till we reach a common ground," Khader added.

Criticising the convention and describing it as "a cultural globalisation", Marwan Faouri, president of the Moderation Assembly for Thought and Culture, said it was a type of control practised by the UN on member countries.

"The agreement is not consistent with our religion and traditions and it will change our national identity," he told The Jordan Times, adding that it adopts the views of the liberals who do not represent Arab Muslim communities.

Other participants at Tuesday’s workshop, organised by Al Urdun Al Jadid Research Centre, focused on the citizenship clause and urged the government to grant nationality to children of Jordanian women married to foreigners.

According to a study by the Arab Women’s Organisation released last year, based on the 2004 national census, around 12,000 out of 1.7 million married women in the Kingdom are wed to non-Jordanians, with 5.5 children per woman.

Earlier this week, the Islamist movement called on the government to withdraw from the CEDAW, saying the treaty will lead to a myriad of social problems in the country.

"Families in Jordan face the threat of total collapse under CEDAW," warned the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.