Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 83-85

Human Rights

WOMEN IN LEBANON: PARTNERS IN FORGING THE FUTURE

From the lineup of notable participants at the Women in Lebanon conference held Nov. 7, in Washington, DC, it is evident that women are becoming major players in post-war Lebanon. Co-sponsors of the conference were the Rene Moawad Foundation, an organization established to help the Lebanese people help themselves, the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, DC, and the Social and Economic Development Group (MNSED) at the World Bank.

Nayla Moawad, first lady of Lebanon for 17 days until the assassination of her husband, Rene Moawad, and now a member of parliament and the president of the Rene Moawad Foundation, welcomed participants. "Lebanon was the first Arab country to give women the right to vote in 1953," Moawad said, "and women are vital in the arts, literature, education, and the media."

Answering her own question as to why there are only three women in parliament, and none in high-ranking government or judicial positions, she explained: "In our patriarchal society it is the women who perpetuate the loyalty to religion, family and community, and this takes priority over country and state."

Margaret Lycette, director of Women in Development at USAID, described some of the inequalities facing women: poverty, violence, and limited access to health services. "Worldwide there are 800 million women economically active," Lycette said, "yet they suffer from the 'last-hired-first-fired syndrome,' high unemployment, and they are paid 70 percent of men's salaries for the same work."

Lycette went on to say that women's rights are improving with declining fertility and mortality rates, and solid educational programs, but progress is mixed. Women's advancement is hampered by traditional concepts and beliefs.

"Mothers care for the home and refrain from working outside," Lycette concluded. "There is always the fear that women will displace men in the workplace and may demand a balance of power."

Alia Berti Zein, from the Beirut Bar Association, focused her presentation on Lebanon's internal religious legal systems and how rules change according to an individual's religion or sex. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men, yet Muslim men can marry Chrisian and Jewish women. Changing religion is grounds for divorce if it is the woman who does the changing. "Draft laws are ready to replace these religious laws to give equal treatment for women," Zein concluded.

Dr. Fadi Moghaizel, partner in Moghaizel Law Offices in Lebanon, said that cultural changes in society can be made through passing specific laws. She listed laws that had changed customs, including a law passed in 1960 that gave a woman who married a foreigner the right to retain her nationality. Or the law passed in 1974 that states a woman does not need the signature of her husband to travel. After a 1994 law, a married woman can carry on commercial transactions without her husband's permission.

Dr. Moghaizel said there are many changes still to be made. Only men can give their Lebanese nationality to their children. There also are not equal entitlements, sickness benefits, or family tax allowances. There is gender discrimination in crimes of passion and adultery.

After living through the war years in Lebanon, Dr. Moghaizel said, "I don't believe in sudden changes or revolution any more. Changes should be slow, step by step. Changes can't be imposed. Success will come by selecting specific changes, finding a person or group in power to sponsor the change, then lobbying, lecturing and holding conferences to educate and gain public support for the change."

Dr. Najla Hamadeh, professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut (AUB), looked at man-made laws from a philosophical viewpoint. "Family laws give one member higher status by making him the guardian of the weak and unprotected. Men have organized society into a caste system with some people favored. Privileges have been hoarded and incorporated into the law." She said, "When a society outgrows laws it should change them."

Salwa Saniora Baassiri, an economist with the Mediterranean Investors Group, described the great pressures on the Lebanese economy after years of civil war and the Israeli occupation. "Many women are engaged in non-wage employment, though there is an increase in women entering such traditional male professions as engineer, doctor, and lawyer," Baassiri said. "But women are vulnerable to poverty with low-paying jobs. Gender equality is not just social justice but good economics."

Dr. Fatma Sbaity-Kassem, Chief of WAD Unit, ESCWA (Jordan), said that gender mainstreaming is the buzzword in Lebanon as women become a vital part of Lebanon's economic recovery. She warned that "Women need to be factored in, not an add-on in the quotient. Women are contributors to the workforce but often not counted or recorded."

Judith Brandsma, World Bank private sector development specialist, said, "Women may be the poorest population but they are also the best repayers when they borrow money." They have little access to formal finance, but microfinancial aid programs are giving the poorest of poor women in camps a safe place to borrow money.

Keynote speakers at the luncheon were Mohamad B. Chatah, ambassador of Lebanon to the U.S., and Dr. Mona Makram-Ebeid, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and a former member of the Egyptian parliament.

Other panelists included May Rihani, vice president of Creative Associates International Inc, in Washington, DC; Najla Bashour, professor of education at AUB; Bushra Jabre from John Hopkins School of Public Health; and Chloe O'Gara from the Academy for Educational Development. Closing remarks were delivered by Dr. Clovis Maksoud, director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, DC and the former Arab League representative to the United Nations.

—Delinda Hanley

PANEL AIRS DIFFERENCES OVER HUMAN RIGHTS AND STABILITY IN BAHRAIN

Sharply divergent views of the human rights record in Bahrain were in evidence Oct. 23 when the Middle East Institute of Washington, DC hosted a panel dealing with contemporary political and economic developments in that Arab island nation in the Persian Gulf. Panelists included Joe Stork, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch Middle East; former United States Ambassador to Bahrain David Ransom; and Bahraini Ambassador to the United States Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar Abdulla.

Stork, a former editor of Middle East Report in Washington, DC, presented a pointed critique of the Bahraini government's human rights policies. He said there has been an upsurge of violence within the country, especially since June 1997. Stork attributed this to high unemployment within and discrimination against Bahrain's large Shi'i community. He added that tensions between the island state's Sunni and Shi'i population have contributed to the unrest, with the large foreign immigrant community further heightening those tensions. With the purse strings of the economy exclusively controlled by the ruling Khalifa family, who are Sunni, Stork said opposition leaders either have been jailed or have gone into exile after the recent anti-government violence. Stork charged that the Bahraini government has established a pattern of uncorroborated confessions and abuse of detainees.

Stork said the last of the foreign news agency correspondents were ordered out of Bahrain recently, forcing them to rely upon Bahraini stringers for news from the country. Stork remarked that in order to close even this loophole in uncensored news coverage, the Bahraini government has recently enacted a new law which forbids Bahraini news employees from being stringers.

Stork said Human Rights Watch employees are not allowed into Bahrain and that Bahraini lawyers are threatened with disbarment if they cooperate with Human Rights Watch officials. He said he had traveled to Bahrain recently on an unofficial basis and talked with many Bahrainis who did not want their names revealed for fear of government reprisals.

He said Bahrain has important accomplishments to its credit as well, especially its achievements in education. It has an 85 percent adult literacy rate, far higher than the 60 percent average for the Arab world as a whole. In light of this, he expressed his disappointment with the current undermining of Bahrain's status as a tolerant nation.

Stork said a good first step toward restoring Bahrain's international credibility would be restoration of the National Assembly, which functioned briefly from 1973 to 1975. He went on to recommend that the Bahraini penal code and press laws be amended; that those in detention be released or brought to trial; and that the state security court should stop convicting on uncorroborated confessions.

Next to speak was David Ransom, who was U.S. ambassador to Bahrain prior to his retirement from the foreign service in late 1997. He commended U.S. policy toward Bahrain as wise and sound, based upon mutual interests in the prosperity and security of U.S. friends in the Gulf. He said it would be a mistake to single out part of Bahraini policy for criticism without taking the overall picture into account, and that U.S. foreign policy in the Persian Gulf would suffer if a rift developed in the 50-year relationship between the United States and Bahrain.

Concerning the current crackdown by Bahraini authorities, Ransom agreed with the Bahraini government that dissent within the country has been instigated by Iranian agents infiltrated into Bahrain, which he said had been corroborated by the CIA. He said that after Bahrain confronted Iran with these charges, other Gulf countries became less critical of how Bahrain was handling its internal security situation. Ransom ended by posing the question of whether the opposition within Bahrain is truly for democracy, as opposition leaders have stated.

The final speaker was Ambassador Abdulla, who described Bahrain's many developmental accomplishments since 1932, when oil was discovered there. He said Bahrain's three main goals are political development, socio-economic development, and national security, all of which are influenced by the small size of the country and the geopolitics of Gulf security.

He explained that over time the equilibrium of these three goals had been disturbed. The socio-economic level of development is the holder of the balance, according to Ambassador Abdulla, with political development a reflection of this. He explained that the constitutional assembly in Bahrain was established to pass the constitution, with elections held in December of 1973 and the assembly officially dissolved in December of 1975, because the three elements lost their equilibrium.

His explanation for the genesis of opposition within Bahraini society was that at the time of the constitutional assembly, nationalist and leftist elements made contacts with Marxist-Leninists, who worked to topple the government. At the same time, according to the ambassador, the public was becoming alienated from the assembly and its activities. Subsequently, Ambassador Abdulla said, Lebanon collapsed into civil war, Marxists took power in South Yemen, the Iranian revolution occurred and the Iran-Iraq war began, creating great uncertainty in the region and causing Bahrain to take up a defensive posture.

With the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf war, however, a new era for the region and the world began, allowing Bahrain to restart its political experiment, the ambassador said.

In 1992, Bahrain created a consultative council. In addition, he said that Bahrain was given top ratings in the United Nations Development Program as it began to diversify its economy so that it would no longer be dependent upon its rapidly declining oil revenues.

He said it is the recent outbreak of unrest that has caused Bahrain to be extra-vigilant against further outside interference in its internal affairs. He went on to state that in 1994 the Hezbollah Bahrain military group killed a police officer in Bahrain and two years later, in 1996, government security forces foiled another plot to overthrow the government by individuals funded and trained by Iran. He stressed that the vast majority of the Bahraini public is satisfied with the economy and does not want it disturbed by extremists, instead valuing a cohesive society. He emphasized that in the opinion of the Bahraini government, human rights is defined in this case as the prevention of terrorism by whatever means are effective, thus creating peace for the greater population.

He made no attempt to conceal his anger at the Human Rights Watch presentation as, in his closing remarks, Ambassador Abdulla said that Hezbollah and Human Rights Watch share similar ideas. He asked Stork directly whether he believed that extremists who killed Asian immigrant families in Bahrain were terrorists or not, implying that Human Rights Watch was showing too much concern for political murderers and not enough for their innocent victims.

—Michael S. Lee