Over the last two weeks, I watched while both India and Lebanon made significant steps in advancing the treatment of women in the family. India’s Supreme Court outlawed the practice of allowing a man to divorce his wife by simply stating, three times, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,” while Lebanon eliminated the right of a rapist to avoid punishment by marrying his victim. In the midst of the news focus on the horrific civil war in Syria, it was a little stunning that India and Lebanon, very different countries, were both focused at the moment on the treatment of women, rape and divorce. I knew India wasn’t a leader at all on these matters. While I think Lebanon would have been somewhat ahead of the curve – Beirut boasting of being the Paris of the Middle East.
But, I thought, at least this is progress. But then I learned that India and Lebanon were among the very last countries in the world to take these steps. Nations with Islamist politics, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, Turkey and Egypt, had long since banned these practices. This week’s Economist is focused on the question of whether Islamist politics can be democratic – but Islamist's weren’t the problem in Hindu Majority India, or heavily Christian influenced Lebanon. Even Islamist Tunisia had acted earlier than Lebanon. Then I learned that the largest country left which still tolerates both practices is the largely Christian Philippines. What was going on? Was it politics?
Let’s be clear. These are barbaric practices.
“Triple Talaq” (the Arabic word for divorce) gives women no choice and no power. They are coerced by their husbands into yielding, sometimes with no notice. I never realized growing up in India that this was still going on. I knew these practices have become inculcated in some Muslim countries – they weren’t there at the beginning of the faith. Growing up in India I certainly never knew anyone who was getting divorced in this way – my India was very faith based, but our faith as I learned it never tolerated these kinds of practices. Divorce is rare in India, even among Muslims, but one study found that 80% of divorced Indian Muslim women had been subjected to the “instant divorce” allowed by “Triple Talaq.”
In practice, outside my tolerant Mumbai, there was a definite double standard, favoring men and putting women at a disadvantage. Muslim women who brought this case before the Supreme Court argued that the provision violated their fundamental right to equality under the Indian constitution. (But one of the three judges who overturned the practice did so because he found it was against Islamic law, and thus had no justification.) India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, hailed the court decision as a “powerful measure.” Ishrat Jahan, the plaintiff, said she “had been crushed” when her husband divorced her by making a phone call from Dubai. “then he remarried in the village and snatched the children from me” she told interviewers. She was excited by the decision, although Indian women’s advocates pointed out that the Supreme Court decision still framed the issue in terms of protecting women, calling them “suffering victims”, as opposed to empowering them.
But Triple Talaq divorces are already largely rejected in the Islamic world. Both Saudi Arabia (the most conservative Sunni nation) and Iran (the standard bearer for Islam’s Shia minority) forbid the practice as inconsistent with the Quran. Triple Talaq lingers in Muslim minority nations like India and the Philippines because politicians cater after political support from the most regressive religious leaders.
Lebanon’s belated recognition that encouraging a rape victim to be coerced into marrying her attacker so that he can escape punishment is an atrocity, not faith, tells a similar story. Again, both Saudi Arabia and Iran reject this concept, as did all non-Arab Muslim countries (except Tajikistan.) But a handful of Arab countries held on until recently. (As did France until 1995!) But starting in 2014 Morocco reformed its laws, and this summer Tunisia and Jordan, both with powerful Islamist parties, joined – leaving Lebanon the Arab outlier, until Lebanese women organizing a social media campaign left the male politicians without much choice.
Lebanese feminists see this as a much more important step, because women demanded this reform, and forced male politicians to give in. “It’s the first step to changing the mind set and the traditions,” as Ghida Anani, a Lebanese women’s rights organizer put it. “It’s the start.” (Her organization highlighted the issue by putting up a billboard around Beirut featuring a women in a blood stained wedding dress and the campaign slogan, “a white dress doesn’t cover up rape.")
Both of these legal breakthroughs are occurring in a time when the Muslim world is changing, because women have been educated and connected through social media – and ironically it is not Islamist politicians who are the last to respond, but often the non-Muslim male leaders of traditional political parties – it was Ferdinand Marcos who brought Triple Talaq divorces to the Philippines.
It’s time for the media to start covering the real political dynamics of the Muslim world – which doesn’t look all that different from the gender struggles we face here in the West – instead of rolling everything up in a religious frame.