Assaulted women begin to speak out in Jordan

Unity makes strength… it also makes a difference for women under assault in Jordan. With the help of the Jordanian Women Union, funded by the European Union, women find alternatives to run away from violence.

Sulafa Al-Khatib - Amman, Eurojar

In her twenties, Suha married a man who is seven years older than her, to run away from the injustice of her stepmother. Although he promised her a better life, she endured the first few years with him a great deal of pain and torture. Her honeymoon did not last long and her life soon turned into a nightmare. Drunk and under the influence of drugs, the husband succeeded in turning Suha’s life into a real agony. Physical violence and verbal attacks constituted Suha’s routine. But things came to an end when, dying for money, he came asking his wife to sell her body to his friends. Without any hesitance, she ran away with her son from the husband’s house and took shelter in her father’s arms.

Women have rights
Suha was able to call the hotline that the Jordanian Women Union had created to help women assaulted in their families. Attorney Manar Nithami, who is handling the case of the couple, seems more relaxed today about the situation of the wife, who regained confidence in herself after she got separated from her husband. Nithami explains:”The wife came to us in a catastrophic condition. It was obvious that she had been beaten with no mercy, as her body was entirely bruised”. “She was terrified the first time she started to talk about her miserable life. However, the psychologist tried hard to help her take out the pain that was devastating her”, she added.

And Nithami to reveal: “We informed Suha of her legal rights and helped her find a way to discuss her problems with her husband, whom she was able to face after we had lured him and brought him around.” Nithami finds that the separation of Suha from her husband put her back on track to pursue her life as an active individual. The Union then helped her find a job, when in the meantime, she was granted a monthly financial assistance from the Ministry of Social Development.

“The hotline created by the Jordanian Women Union and funded by the European Union is a helpline that assaulted women benefit from to get legal, social and moral help from experts” says Haifa Haidar, president of the Union. “We felt the need to create this hotline in 1996. The Union came to the conclusion that women should be more aware of their legal and social rights, since ignorance was the main cause of women’s weakness and misery”.

The way to independence
Haidar to add: "the number of cases that the Union received went from 600 for the first year the hotline was created to 2988 at the end of last year". Haidar goes on to explain that even though moral, physical and sexual violence seem more frequent in poor neighborhoods, however, the rate of such aberrations does not seem to be less in much higher social standards, or among educated and well-off individuals. She reiterates that “the Union is offering in addition to legal, social and medical help to battered women, the means to file lawsuits against the person attacking them in case the woman cannot afford to do so on her own”.

Haidar added that “the unity of families is our aim. This is why we stress on awareness programs. We also work along with the couple trying to reach a solution between the two parties in conflict. We aim at altering the behavior of the party having recourse to violence, by educating him on peaceful means to deal with his partner. We also work on educating women to overcome and solve their problems, and become independent in case divorce reveals itself to be a must.”

N.B: Text translated from Arabic by Eurojar team