Dima Aweidah-Nashashibi
Posted on | March 10, 2009 | No Comments
Deputy Director of Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling
Women suffer. There’s an increase in domestic violence because of the political violence and poverty. And women cannot come to our Centers because of checkpoints. The Jerusalem area is completely closed off by the Wall, and the villages around are isolated so women cannot move easily from one place to another.
Describe your work with the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling.
We help women suffering from domestic violence through counseling services and legal aid. Most of our cases deal with the Shari’a courts, which follow interpretations of Muslim law related to marriage, divorce, custody and so on. In cases involving rape or incest, we rendezvous with the civil court. We also lobby the Palestinian Authority to pass laws for gender equality and women and children’s rights.
How many women’s shelters are in Palestine?
Three. Because of what’s happening between Hamas and Fatah, we plan to have a fourth in Gaza. Our shelter at the Center is for emergencies. A woman can stay there for one month, and then we refer her to other shelters. We prefer for her to go back home because it’s safer for her. If she’s in a shelter, a stigma is placed on her. This is a threat. She may be killed in the future.
Unfortunately, many religious scholars believe that in Islam there is no marital rape. Anytime a man wants to have sex with his wife, they support it as his right. She cannot go to the court and say she was raped by her husband. The problem is not only the law, but the attitude of the judges—and sometimes the male lawyers.
How does a woman get a divorce?
There is no civil law for divorce. As Palestinian women, as Muslims under interpretations of Shari’a law, we are guests in our homes. Anytime, any husband can say “Go back to your family, you are divorced.” For him it’s easy, for her it’s not easy. She has no power to divorce unless there’s a very critical issue and she gives him her children, custody, everything. Sometimes it takes years and years to get her freedom.
Fear and dependence is definitely a big factor in women’s lives. Only 12% of women are working. Besides, in our culture, when a woman is divorced she has to go back to live with her family. The other anxiety they have is the issue of what will happen to the children after the divorce? Because of these pressures, many times she’s forced to obey her husband and keep on living under violence.
How do you stay optimistic?
Perhaps because I still have the vision of a Palestinian state built on equality and justice. Maybe it will never be more than a dream for me, but at least my grandchildren will have it one day.
Don’t you need female lawyers and judges?
We train female lawyers. We also train female judges. There are eight of them. We did a workshop in Jordan for both female and male judges and they recommended that they will help us with the law because we showed them how difficult it is to judge these cases.
We have a draft of a law built on civil law and civil rights shared between husband and wife—not one belonging to the other, a kind of equality between them. But it’s not easy in these circumstances to talk about it. What we’ve done are amendments in the Shari’a law court.
Some women aren’t physically hit but there is psychological violence.
This can be worse than physical violence. Sometimes it’s economical violence where he takes her salary. Sometimes in the street there’s sexual harassment. Every day we have a new story about a different kind of violence. At the Center we define “femicide” as not only death—it can be still health but certain to be death.
You have two daughters. Are they feminist?
They are feminists, as well as my husband and son.
When you go through a checkpoint, you tend to get frustrated as a normal human being. Is there part of you that has some compassion or understanding that violence comes out of this frustration?
I always feel a migraine at the checkpoints. I cannot deal with them. Our treatment is the opposite of humanitarianism. But the most difficult place for me to go through is the airport. There, I feel they do not treat us at all like human beings. In my view, the way they search your body is sexual harassment. All over the airport, the people look at you because you’re being searched this way and accompanied by security. It’s humiliating.
Do you have contact with Israeli women who do the work you do?
There are three shelters in Nazareth that we refer cases to, but only Palestinians holding Jerusalem ID can make use of the shelters in Israel. With the Jewish people, no, we don’t have any contact.
I want to say to all women, we face the same problems so let’s go hand in hand to change the world. We have to work together to give women everywhere the chance to make a change in their lives. It’s remarkable when I tell one of the women I am counseling that she is strong enough to confront her circumstances, to see the uplift in her. We have to work to empower women.
What is courage?
Courage for a woman is for her is to know that her body is her own. No one should be able to humiliate her body. It also means that she feels that she can do anything, even the small things.
Nashashibi brings years of experience in women’s issues and a degree in administration to the Center, with offices in Hebron, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. Established in 1991, the Center counsels women facing domestic violence, supports women in civil and Shari’a courts, and advocates for laws creating social equality for Palestinian women. It has regional and international relationships, including with Israeli organizations.
