By Hyshyama Hamin
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec 22 2022 – In September 2021, in the midst of a pandemic-related lockdown, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Colombo, Sri Lanka was married off by her relatives to a much older man.

A local women’s rights group reported this case to the national child protection authorities, however, because child marriage is still legal under the country’s Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA), little could be done.

Nine months later, the girl was divorced by her husband at the Quazi (Muslim-judge) led court under a provision in the MMDA that allows him to unilaterally divorce at will and without any reason.

Many countries, especially in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Africa, continue to have civil, religious, or customary laws and practices on marriage and family matters that curtail the rights of women and girls.

An alarming finding in a new report, ‘Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2022’, released by UN Women and the UN Statistics Division, indicated that at the current rate of progress it may take up to 286 years to close gaps in legal protection between men and women and remove laws that discriminate against women and girls on the basis of their sex.

The report concluded that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030.

Sex discrimination in family law

Discrimination in family laws, specifically when it relates to marriage and family, spans from the time of entry into marriage, during the marriage, and at the time of dissolution of the marriage.

Organizations like Musawah have been mapping Muslim family laws in over 38 countries in three regions. Their research shows that the male guardianship system, where men are considered heads of the household and have legal authority over wives, daughters, and mothers, is very prevalent in MENA, South and Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Divorce rights continue to be unequal for women. In Algeria, Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, women have more conditions and procedures than men in seeking a divorce.

Equal right to child custody and custody arrangements that center on the needs of the child, remains a challenge for mothers in the MENA region, and in Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

Inheritance rights are still unequal in many parts of the world. World Bank (2018) data showed that at least 39 countries prevent daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons.

Family law is a critical issue of our time

Inequalities faced by women and girls under discriminatory family laws and practices affect all other areas of their lives.

According to the report by international women’s rights organization Equality Now, Words and Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing +25 Review Process, “sex discriminatory personal status laws violate women’s civil and political rights.” It gives examples of legal discrimination in numerous countries and notes that such laws, especially relating to property and inheritance, inhibit women’s full social and economic participation and opportunities.

There is also a direct correlation between legal authority and power afforded to males in the family, and restrictions on women’s autonomy and agency, along with an increased likelihood of experiencing sexual and domestic violence.

These inequalities have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing economic, political, and climate crises. In April 2020, UNFPA predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic may result in 13 million extra child marriages in the years immediately following this global health emergency.

Women activists calling for reform face serious opposition

For decades, women’s rights groups and activists in countries such as Malaysia, Morocco, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Uganda, to name a few, have been advocating for the reform of unequal family laws. In Iran, women are currently leading the national struggle for free will to decide on matters of personal choice like dress code and other fundamental freedoms.

Activists calling for change face heavy opposition, including intimidation and threats from conservative religious and right-wing groups, who often claim that family laws and practices are a matter of freedom of religion and belief.

But rights groups are pushing back by repeatedly making the case that freedom of religion or belief can never be used to justify inequalities towards women and girls and that human rights cannot stop at the front door of a family home.

Despite growing evidence of the impacts of discriminatory family laws, state action and political will towards reforming discriminatory laws, especially family laws, is almost non-existent. In fact, in countries like Iran and Afghanistan, women activists also face direct risk and harm to life and limb from state authorities themselves.

The need for global action

The Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law was launched in March 2020 by eight leading women’s rights and faith-inspired organizations, as well as UN Women. The Campaign is calling for governments to prioritize equality in family law, policy, and practice, especially in light of multiple other crises that affect women and girls disproportionately.

In tandem, efforts of courageous community and national activists pushing for reform of discriminatory family laws need to be amplified and resourced. Regionally and globally, feminist movements must further promote family law reform as a crucial issue.

Achieving gender equality without equality in the family is impossible. We cannot wait 286 years before countries are free of laws, procedures, and practices that discriminate against women and girls.

The time to put family law reform on the agenda is now!

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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Excerpt:

The writer is Campaign Manager – Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 22 2022 – Day after day, international humanitarian organisations launch desperate appeals for funding to continue saving some of the many lives at high risk. When they get a handful of dollars –even just one million– from a rich country, they welcome it as manna from heaven.

Not only the available funding for humanitarian aid is already short, but next year will also set another record for humanitarian relief requirements, with 339 million people in need of assistance in 69 countries, an increase of 65 million people compared to the same time last year, the United Nations and partner organisations on 1 December 2022 said.

“The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25% increase compared to the beginning of 2022.”

The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25% increase compared to the beginning of 2022. Such highly needed 51.5 billion US dollars amount to less than one-tenth of the total sales of weapons which reached 592 billion US dollars just in one year: 2021

Such highly needed 51.5 billion US dollars amount to less than one-tenth of the total sales of weapons which reached 592 billion US dollars just in one year: 2021.

As if humanitarian aid funding were not already short enough in times when it is more needed than ever, UN Members Try Defunding Budgets for Human Rights Work, warns Louis Charbonneau, United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch.

“United Nations member countries need to overhaul the budgetary approval process for UN human rights work. The current system, overseen by the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, is inefficient and overly politicised.”

Human rights mechanisms, exposed

It unnecessarily exposes UN human rights mechanisms – teams of independent experts established to investigate serious international crimes – to attempts by hostile governments to curtail their resources or defund them, adds Charbonneau.

Russia has repeatedly tried to defund investigations of its ally Syria, just as China has done for Myanmar. China and Russia have also worked hard to chip away at funding and staffing levels for other human rights activities and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, he said.

“It’s not only China and Russia. The United States and some European Union countries joined Israel last year to try to defund the Commission of Inquiry on Israel and Palestine. They may try again.”

Social services, dismantled

Even in their own rich countries, politicians go on cutting further the funding of social services such as public health, public education, and other programmes which citizens and taxpayers have voted for them to provide.

Simply, the wave of privatising all social public services now blows strongly from the United States to an overwhelming majority of countries.

Meanwhile, amidst growing social unrest, protests and strikes, politicians seem to have leaned under the heavy pressure of the arms industry, therefore devoting more and more public funds to purchasing weapons.

Arms sales increase for the seventh year

No wonder: sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached 592 billion US dollars in 2021, a 1.9% increase compared with 2020 in real terms, according to new data released on 5 December 2022 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Such an increase marked the seventh consecutive year of rising global arms sales. It took place despite the fact that many parts of the arms industry were still affected by pandemic-related disruptions in global supply chains in 2021, which included delays in global shipping and shortages of vital components, says SIPRI.

‘We might have expected even greater growth in arms sales in 2021 without persistent supply chain issues,’ said Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

“Both larger and smaller arms companies said that their sales had been affected during the year. Some companies, such as Airbus and General Dynamics, also reported labour shortages.”

Need to replenish weapons sent to Ukraine

According to the Stockholm-based peace research institute, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has added to supply chain challenges for arms companies, not least because Russia is a major supplier of raw materials used in arms production.

“This could hamper ongoing efforts in the United States and Europe to strengthen their armed forces and to replenish their stockpiles after sending billions of dollars’ worth of ammunition and other equipment to Ukraine.”

So far, the United States has reportedly spent 100 billion dollars on weapons provided to Ukraine.

US companies dominate the Top 100

The arms sales of the 40 US companies in the listing totalled 299 dollars billion in 2021, the research further explains. North America was the only region to see a drop in arms sales compared with 2020. The 0.8 per cent real-term decline was partly due to high inflation in the US economy during 2021.

Since 2018, the top five companies in the Top 100 have all been based in the USA.

A recent wave of mergers and acquisitions in the US arms industry continued in 2021. One of the most significant acquisitions was Peraton’s purchase of Perspecta, a government IT specialist, for 7.1 billion US dollars.

Private equity companies are becoming more active in the arms industry, particularly in the USA. This could affect the transparency of arms sales data, due to less stringent financial reporting requirements compared with public companies, according to the report.

Chinese companies drive rapid growth in Asian arms sales

The combined arms sales of the 21 companies in Asia and Oceania included in the Top 100 reached 136 billion US dollars in 2021—5.8 % more than in 2020, SIPRI reports. The eight Chinese arms companies in the listing had total arms sales of 109 billion dollars, a 6.3% increase.

There has been a wave of consolidation in the Chinese arms industry since the mid-2010s, said Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. In 2021 this saw China’s CSSC becoming the biggest military shipbuilder in the world, with arms sales of 11.1 billion US dollars, after a merger between two existing companies.

Europe, Russian and the Middle East among the top 100

In 2021 there were 27 Top 100 companies headquartered in Europe. Their combined arms sales increased by 4.2% compared with 2020, reaching 123 billion US dollars.

Meanwhile, six Russian companies are included in the Top 100 for 2021. Their arms sales totalled 17.8 billion US dollars—an increase of only 0.4% over 2020. There were signs that stagnation was widespread across the Russian arms industry, reports SIPRI.

And the five Top 100 companies based in the Middle East generated 15.0 billion US dollars in arms sales in 2021. This was a 6.5% increase compared with 2020, the fastest pace of growth of all regions represented in the Top 100.

By Sara Perria
KABUL & ATHENS, Dec 22 2022 – Maliha looks confident in a café in Athens as she tells the story of her journey from Afghanistan to Europe. But as she starts recounting how a smuggler assaulted her in Turkey two years ago, she pauses, looking the other way and fiddling with her loose hair.

It makes her anxious when she remembers it. She was traveling alone and soon realized she was the only woman on board a bus to the border with Greece.

“[The smuggler] told me to get off. He wanted me to himself.” With unusual strength, the young woman managed to escape as the man was trying to rape her. Still shaken, she tried to report the crime to the local police, but she felt they were more concerned about her status as an illegal migrant than the attempted rape. “Luckily, I had a contact on Facebook [who is] a cousin who I knew lived in Turkey but whom I never met.” He happened to live near that police station, and he convinced the officials to let her go.

Afghan refugees picnic in a park in Athens. Their journeys to Europe are often dangerous. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

Now Maliha lives in Athens as a “free woman” – a fact that she remarks upon while wearing leggings and no head covering.

The violence experienced by Mahila is not an isolated case. An investigation into the journey of Afghan women from their home country to Europe carried out in Afghanistan, Turkey and Greece has revealed a pattern of systematic violence throughout, their vulnerability heightened by lack of documents and money. Women, some traveling alone or only with their children, pay to get to Europe only to become victims of trafficking and sex slaves.

According to 31-year-old Aila, an Afghan refugee and former Médecins sans Frontières worker in refugee camps in Athens, “some 90% of women suffer a form of violence during the journey.”

“When your life is in the hands of smugglers,” continues Aila, “it’s not up to you to decide whom to stay with, what to do, where to go: it’s the smuggler who decides. Even if you are with your family or the members of your family, he can still threaten you with a weapon, and if he wants to separate you from them, he’ll do it”.

Afghans are now the second largest group of asylum seekers in the EU after Ukrainians, but the flow of asylum seekers started well before the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 77,000 women and girls were registered at arrival by sea and by land in Europe between 2018 and 2020, making up 20 percent of total arrivals. Women make up an increasing percentage of asylum requests globally, all facing gender-based risks.

The reasons behind Afghans’ search for a safe place run deep in a country torn by decades of war. Social and financial restrictions within a deeply patriarchal society and the hope for a better life abroad had already pushed many to leave the country even before the arrival of the Taliban.

However, the challenges of the journey can be harrowing. “I remember traveling with a 10-year-old and her grandmother,” Aila recalls. “During the journey, her grandmother died, and she was handed over to the trafficker,” says Aila, describing one of the most traumatic episodes she witnessed.

“Was she raped? Of course. For them, she was a woman”.

Women escaping from the increasingly restrictive Taliban regime in Afghanistan find their journeys to freedom are fraught with dangers. This week the Taliban banned women from universities. They are increasingly forced to remain at home. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

The risks are so stacked against women that word of mouth has led to the development of ‘survival’ techniques, such as dressing up as a man. Aila says she put on a similar short jacket, jeans, and sneakers to that of other boys. “I kept my hair hidden under my cap. And when the trafficker gave me his hand to get on the boat, he said, “Hey, boy.” I didn’t answer. “Never talk to traffickers,” is the second ‘tip’ dispensed by Aila.

Acceptance rates of Afghan asylum seekers are now high, especially in countries such as Spain and Italy, with 100% and 95% in 2021, respectively, and 80% in Greece, the first EU frontier for the many who come after spending months or years in Turkey or Iran.

Yet getting adequate assistance after suffering abuse, rape and forced prostitution is a different story. The violence suffered often doesn’t get denounced by the police due to cultural or linguistic barriers and the stigma surrounding rape or forced prostitution. Lack of adequate protection in Europe is also a reason, so NGOs set up by fellow Afghans try to step in.

Months of interviews with Afghan asylum seekers in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Europe expose the extent of the danger for women who embark on a journey organized by smugglers. Direct witnesses’ accounts and NGO transcripts, seen exclusively by this reporter, reveal a pattern of how women – and in particular Afghans belonging to ethnic minorities – fall into a ‘trap’ of violence.

Freshta spent years between Iran and Turkey with a sick brother before eventually succeeding in reaching a refugee camp in Greece and then a place in Athens hosted by a friend. However, her attempts to find a job and become independent soon turned into a prolonged series of tortured experiences. The possibility of asking for help was radically reduced by her illegal status and lack of documents.

“One day, I was in a café with my friend, and she introduced me to this man. We only knew that he was a trafficker of Iraqi nationality.” He, himself a refugee, knew very well how vulnerable women like Freshta are. “He started following me and kept saying that I should go with him.” Her constant rejections didn’t work. On the contrary, he threatened to kill her brother, who was still in the refugee camp – a sign of the long reach of influence traffickers can call upon.

One day, despite attempts to protect herself, hiding for days at a friend’s house, the man managed to kidnap her and take her to her apartment. He then hit her on the head, threatening her with a knife pointed at her stomach and forcing her to get into his car. At that moment, Freshta became a slave, first suffering violent rape, with beatings that made her pass out because she also suffered from asthma.

“When I woke up, he wasn’t there. I was full of pain and didn’t know what to do; I was in shock. I went to the bathroom, got washed, dressed, and cried.”

Upon his return, the trafficker told her that she now belonged to him. If she went out and told anyone what had happened, then he would kill her.

Freshta managed to hide at her friend’s again, but again the man managed to take her by force, beating her and locking her up at home for weeks, repeatedly raping her. Freshta got pregnant. “He told me I couldn’t do anything because he had become a Greek citizen, and I was nothing; I didn’t have any document.”

It took many weeks and the help of an association to allow her to report the incident. She had an abortion. The woman has since been moved by the Greek government to a secure facility in an undisclosed location.

To add to Freshta’s tragic testimony is the fact that, as the operator of an NGO in Athens explains, “There are many cases of sexual slavery like this, which are not reported by the victims because they are afraid of being stigmatized and of their lack of documents.” The perpetrators of the violence can be fellow nationals, generally belonging to a different ethnic group and, to a lesser extent, other nationalities.

The lack of support is accentuated by a form of class distinction within the refugee community and by the way resources are thus distributed, according to some of the Afghan women interviewed in Athens. “The refugees who arrived in Europe through the evacuation program [in Kabul] consider themselves ‘different’ from those who arrived here on foot, with the traffickers. And they are also treated differently by the authorities,” says Aila.

While for men, the lack of documents, money, and a family network leads more easily to labor exploitation, women can often fall victim to sexual exploitation. Some women are “passed from trafficker to trafficker,” says Aila, while the local association also reports cases of forced prostitution just outside the camps. But even in the aftermath of a violent attack, NGOs are worried about the short time women are allowed to spend in safe structures, as well as the limited space available there. Resources do not meet the seriousness and extent of the problem.

“When they asked me if I wanted to report the man [who kept me as a slave], I said yes, but only if I had a safe place to stay first,” says Freshta. “I was so desperate that I left behind everything I had.”

This project on trafficking has been developed with the financial support of Journalismfund.eu

https://www.journalismfund.eu/

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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