Palestinian Women's Union holds coference on violence
Palestine, Culture, 11/26/1997

Violence within the Palestinian family is less than the average violence reported in the West, said Sheikh Hayyan Idrisi, a member of the Islamic Appeals Court, in a seminar held recently in Nablus on the West Bank.

He said the average of divorce cases within the Palestinian families varies between 10 to 17 percent while in the West is much higher. In Sweden, he said, the percentage of divorce cases goes up to 60 percent, in the US up to 40 percent, while it is 30 percent in Germany, 28 percent in Russia and 24 percent in Finland.

The seminar was held as a part of activities sponsored by the Palestinian Women's Union to mark the international day for the prevention of violence against women. Sheikh Idrisi said that battered women in the Palestinian society are very few compared to women who get beaten up in the West. Again, he gave the US as an example saying that every year there are some 6 million battered women in the US, of whom 3 to 4 thousand who are beaten up very badly and are sometimes brought to the verge of death. He noted that 20 percent of suicide cases among women are preceded by beatings of those women by their spouses.

Speaking at the same seminar was Rawiya Shawwa, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who said that the major problems faced in the Palestinian society do not stem from the fact that men seek divorce but because they seek to be married to more than one woman at a time. She noted that since in Islam, men are allowed up to four wives at a time, some men find it intriguing to get married to more than one woman. Shawwa criticized what she called a serious phenomenon in which old men decide to get married to young girls and said laws should be introduced to limit this phenomenon.

Previous Stories:
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  Palestinian women's center: Marriage can wait   (10/9/1997)
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