“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by
the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family
expert, said of the group’s general approach, speaking in a recent
seminar for women training to become marriage counselors. Even if a wife
were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in
what happened to her.”
“If he is to blame,” Mr. Abu Salama added, “she shares 30 percent or 40 percent of the fault.”[...]
In a statement Wednesday on a proposed United Nations declaration to
condemn violence against women, the Brotherhood issued a list of
objections, which formally laid out its views on women for the first
time since it came to power.
In its statement, the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the
right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and
husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape
of a stranger.
A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal
“partnership” with her, the group declared. Daughters should not have
the same inheritance rights as sons. Nor should the law cancel “the need
for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception” — a reform in traditional Islamic family law that was enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak and credited to his wife, Suzanne.[...]
Asked about the statement’s apparent attempt to shield marital rape from
legal prosecution, Ms. Sharkawy brushed off the issue as an irrelevant
foreign concern.
“Marital rape? Is this a big problem that we have?” she said, suggesting
that it might be a Western phenomenon, while sexual harassment in the
streets was a far greater concern in Egypt.
Moshiach! Moshiach! Moshiach! Ay Ay Ay Ay Ay! (you know, the Avraham Fried song).
ReplyDelete