World Report 2022 by Human Rights Watch

Author:Human Rights Watch [Jiménez Rafael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2022-02-10T15:41:00+00:00

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Jordan’s personal status code remains discriminatory, despite amendments in 2019. Women need the permission of a male guardian to marry for the first time, and marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men are not recognized. Women cannot travel abroad with their children, as men can, without the permission of their child’s father or male guardian or a judge. While women can travel outside the country without needing permission, authorities sometimes comply with requests from male guardians to bar their unmarried adult daughters, wives, and children from leaving the country. Authorities also arrest women reported as “absent” for fleeing their home by their male guardians under the Crime Prevention Law.

Article 98 of Jordan’s penal code, amended in 2017, states that the “fit of fury” defense does not allow mitigated sentences for perpetrators of crimes “against women,” but judges continued to impose mitigated sentences under article 99 if family members of victims did not support prosecutions of their male family members. Article 340 of the Penal Code also allows a man to receive a reduced sentence if he kills or attacks his wife or any of his female relatives in the alleged act of committing adultery or in an “unlawful bed.”

Such discriminatory laws leave women exposed to violence. Jordan’s Higher Population Council reported in October that it recorded a “dramatic increase” in domestic violence in 2020 with a total of 54,743 cases, with 82 percent perpetrated by husbands against their wives. In 2021, Tadamon (Sisterhood is Global Institute Jordan - SIGI), reported that men in Jordan had murdered more than 14 women between January and October 2021. Similarly, the penal code and Juveniles Act do not prohibit corporal punishment and allow parents to punish children in accordance with “general norms.”

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