The worrisome news from Egypt prompts me, like it prompted al-Mutannabi before me, to seek shelter for my hopes for Egypt in lies. Then I found news in the last possible place where I would normally expect to find good news. Will the reader believe that the worst five countries in terms of the treatment of women do not include a single Arab country, with the exception of Somalia (which is barely a country anyway)? The Thomson-Reuters Foundation gathered 213 international experts from both genders, to study which countries are most dangerous to women. They discovered that this ‘honor' goes to Afghanistan, where the ongoing conflict, NATO airstrikes, and the local culture and traditions conspire to make Afghanistan the most dangerous country in the world for women. According to the experts who partook in the study, women who attempt to speak out or work there are often intimidated or killed. It is enough suffering for Afghani women that 87 percent of them are illiterate, while 70 to 80 percent of all marriages are forced, i.e. the women are not consulted in their own marriages. The second most dangerous country in the world for women was found to be Congo, where 1152 women are raped each day, and 57 percent of women suffer from anemia (while men there seem to have no blood to begin with). Pakistan then comes third on the list, with 90 percent of women there experiencing domestic violence in their lifetimes, and where more than a thousand women are murdered each year in so-called honor killings (men never get murdered in honor killings, as though they have no honor). India is fourth on the list, with half of girls there forced into marriage in their adolescence. In India as well, 50 million girls were ‘lost' in the course of the past century, most probably killed either at birth, or in honor killings. In addition, the Central Bureau of Investigation in India gathered data on the extent of trafficking in women, and estimated that there are three million prostitutes in the country. Somalia is the fifth country on the list. However, according to Maryan Qasim, the exiled former women's minister in Somalia, her country is the most dangerous to women, and should come first in that regard. I admit that after reading the list, I did not attempt to find out which countries ranked next, for fear that the subsequent twenty-two ranks went to Arab countries, or the subsequent thirty-five entries on the list went to Arab and Islamic countries. Okay, we are not the worst countries in terms of the treatment of women. But is that good news? After some thought, I changed my mind completely. It's extremely bad news for women in the five countries, and it is worse if we try to incorrectly compare between our countries and the five countries in question. Arab women are not in a better position just because they live in better conditions than Afghani or Somali women. My opinion on all Arab countries is on the record, and it begins by saying that all Arab countries are undemocratic, and ends by stating that women have no rights in them. I don't want to go back to history, but I am instead only referring to the ‘black dust' we're in, as Arab women have been at the heart of the revolutions of rage in every country, in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. Ms. Tawakal Karman led the first demonstration on the campus of a Yemeni university against the regime. Then we saw on television other Yemeni women protesting in support of the same regime. This was then echoed in other countries. In Bahrain, for instance, women were among some of the most active elements of the opposition, while other women were active in supporting the regime. The tragedy here is that both the loyalist camp and the opposition were aligned along sectarian Sunni-Shiite lines. In Libya, meanwhile, women have been at the helm of the uprising against Gaddafi in Benghazi. But then we also saw women surrounding the same damned Colonel to act as a human shield for him. For the thousandth and one time, Arab women are generally more ethical than Arab men, because simply, they cannot possibly be worse. Arab women thus deserve freedom and equality, in rights and duties and job opportunities. But I fear that women's rights, which are incomplete to begin with, may suffer a setback in the most socially progressive Arab countries. For instance, the return of the previously banned Islamist groups to Tunisia may undermine the law issued by President Habib Bourguiba against polygamy, in the beginning of his tenure, following the independence. This is while in Egypt, the committee drafting the new constitution had no women in its ranks, prompting me to become apprehensive over the fate of a law that dates back to the year 2000, and which equated between men and women in divorce rights. Will Arab women be the victim of the Arab revolutions and counter-revolutions? Only time will tell. [email protected]
