Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

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cinamin
Posts: 673
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:41 am

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by cinamin »

Egypt: Abused Women Reluctant to Come Forward

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

February 16, 2006

Cairo

Despite the opening of the first safe-house for women in Cairo, few are choosing to leave their abusive marriages due to the social stigma and financial insecurity they would face.

Oum Mohammed was married when she was 16. "From the day I married him, he hit me over matters big and small," she says of her husband.

"He told me that all women should be beaten. I didn't protest because I was afraid he'd throw me and my children into the street," she adds. "I'd seen my father hit my mother, and in every house in the alley a man hits a woman."

Oum Mohammed's story is just one of 700 case studies that the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW), a local NGO, has collected over the past several years.

Hearing stories like these convinced ADEW that there was an urgent need for a shelter for women who are victims of violence.

According to the NGO, domestic abuse is common in Egypt. A 2001 survey conducted in low-income neighbourhoods found that 96 percent of women had been beaten at least once by their husbands.

Such violence is often condoned by society, or even by the victims, experts say.

A majority of the women surveyed in a government study, for example, said a husband had the right to beat his wife if she talked to him disrespectfully, talked to another man, spent too much money or refused her husband sex.

If a woman goes to the police station to report domestic abuse, the police adopt "the cultural perspective that the man has the right to do it", says ADEW officer Bahira El-Gohary.

Men convicted of domestic violence in Egypt face sentences ranging from monetary fines to three years in prison. According to Nihad al-Qumsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, however, "most of the time, judges give low penalties".

Obtaining a divorce, meanwhile, even in marriages where there is physical abuse, can be a long and costly procedure.

The fundamental problem is that most women have nowhere to go in the event that they leave their husbands. They face the economic difficulty of supporting themselves and their children, as well as the social stigma of living without a man.

The families and neighbours of such women often encourage them to return to their husbands.

The ADEW shelter was set up to offer them an alternative.

"This has never been done before," says ADEW Director Iman Bibars.

According to women's rights groups, there are no other public or private shelters for women escaping abusive relationships in Egypt, and only a few across the entire Middle East.

But bringing about the ground-breaking project hasn't been easy.

"We've had very many problems with the opening of the shelter," admits Azza Salah, head of the project.

While it has taken time to raise funds and find trained medical staff, ADEW officials say the greatest obstacle has been the women's own fear of leaving their homes.

"We're facing taboo issues: women sleeping outside the home and staying away from their families," says El-Gohary. "Most of the women express their fears about how society would view them and whether it would accept them back."

Salah says that many women think "if they leave the house, their husbands will take another woman".

According to al-Qumsan, women also have reservations about the shelter's capacity to provide for them once they have left their husbands. For a shelter to work, she says, it has to provide "a complete solution," which means "helping a woman to become more independent, find a job, feed herself and her kids and find her own house".

This is what ADEW's "House of Eve" hopes to do. Located at an undisclosed location in the capital, the shelter offers counselling, medical check-ups, job training, literacy classes and legal advice.

If they choose to, about 20 women can live at the shelter with their children for up to three months. Upon leaving, they are given small loans as part of a micro-credit programme.

For now, women from some of Cairo's poorest neighbourhoods are coming to the shelter to attend classes and talk to counsellors. But none of them have taken the step of moving into the House of Eve fulltime.

Any woman "is most welcome to come," says El-Gohary.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200602160478.html
watermark
Posts: 680
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:02 pm

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by watermark »

This shelter sounds like a good idea. The problems women who have been abused deciding to go this route is a problem experienced in many countries, not just Egypt. The numbers of women in Egypt reluctant to go to a shelter may be greater than elsewhere no doubt. I just think how my 'great' US was in the fifties or before that :-1. Progress is really really really really really really slow (no, really) when it comes to womens' rights in our patriarchal societies (before anyone throws the tomato at me I should admit that I'm not one to want the other half to take control of situations either--I'm not sure what a good solution would be). So this is a big step forward for the women of Egypt. As mentioned in the article, his type of thing must offer a complete solution, just as with anywhere else. What is NGO I wonder?

Erin
Indian Princess
Posts: 1953
Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:55 pm

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by Indian Princess »

I watched a documentary on that whole thing,I couldnt live there.
cinamin
Posts: 673
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:41 am

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by cinamin »

Indian Princess;694675 wrote: I watched a documentary on that whole thing,I couldnt live there.
Live where, in Egypt or in a shelter there?

I know that I could not and would not live in the middle east anywhere. And I feel sorry for any women who does today. Because the brainwashing that goes on there is horrific. I mean they (most of them) do not even know that what is being done to them is wrong. And they so resent us Americans saying that they are "oppressed". They think that we have "ridiculous ideologies".
watermark
Posts: 680
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:02 pm

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by watermark »

As a woman I do not want to live in any country where I had to be wealthy to be happily independent. I do think many women in Middle Eastern countries who are born into families of wealth don't suffer like poor women. I think this dichotomy between women of means and not is felt in almost any country in the world. I guess the saying 'money is power' knows no gender. Men can be abusive in marriages supported by wealth but I don't think that they can get away with this like when women have no ability to support themselves (just my humble opinion). I don't know if all women in Mid East countries share the sentiment expressed by you, cinamin, but in some respects I do feel this coming out in the media, but perhaps that has something to do with how our media and theirs is filtered through the lens of our societies. Egypt looks to me like a beautiful place to visit or live :). I feel disappointed I can't go to any of these countries in the middle East or even some locales in latin America. What a shame everyone has to be so screwed up!

Erin
RedGlitter
Posts: 15777
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:51 am

Abused Women and Shelters in Egypt

Post by RedGlitter »

Not so much social stigma in the West anymore. Thank gosh. There are some holdouts, but the majority no longer views divorce/separation as a personal fault of the woman. Financial insecurity yes, as women in the West at least, are still paid less than men for the same work, as a general rule.
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