OPT: What is the Situation Like for Women in Gaza Today?
What is the situation like for women in Gaza today?
The general situation is bad. It is hard for me to dissect people and think of children, women, the elderly, or the youth in separate categories. The conditions affect all of us, although there are people with particular needs on whom the conditions are harsher due to their position in society.
Women are facing harsher situations now. Domestic violence cases are on the rise; at my work we've noticed that domestic violence cases against women and children are skyrocketing. As you know, research in Palestine and elsewhere has shown that domestic violence often increas- es in contexts of war, occupation, and protracted conflict as the daily violence experienced on the streets and daily frustrations of poverty and unemployment creep into the home. All forms of violence are increasing, including sexual and physical abuse. At the center, we used to work on approximately seven cases every two months, but now we are seeing fifteen every month. Given this situation, women's groups discussed with the government about creating a shelter in Gaza, but a shelter in our society is difficult to accept. People don't believe in airing dirty laundry. Besides Gaza is so small and densely populated which poses logistical challenges; it would be impossible to keep the location of the shelter secret. Hamas originally thought that this was not acceptable as it could divide families, but now they are encouraging the shelter idea because there are so many cases and they do not know what to do. They finally issued the permit to create the shelter, but with many restrictions.
While we all know there is an ongoing war and tremen- dous poverty, little is known about additional “closures”. What scares me the most is that cultural productions are not allowed and peoples' ability to participate in public life have decreased tremendously. For example, women are not allowed to appear on stage at the theater; they can only attend or participate in very particular situations when the production is about a nationalist and patriotic issue. In those instances, we have gender segregated rehearsals and performances because women will be harassed and production shut down.
The Hamas government, in their strict Islamic interpreta- tions, is attempting to segregate the genders into separate spaces and categories. Even girls walking on the street with boys or sitting together at cafes is frowned upon and often policed. Hamas appoints police officers to the Mabahith al-Adab Al-‘Aama (Department of Public Decency) to monitor public spaces. Women participating in an event or walking with male friends can easily be harassed or arrested. If a young woman is seen on the streets with a man, and unless she can show evidence that the man she is with is her brother or husband, the police have the authority to arrest her. Arrested young women are released when their parents collect them from police stations, and when they sign a statement (ta'ahud) agreeing to not partake in such activities.
There is so much policing of behavior in the public and private spheres of acceptable gender roles, what is accept- able to learn or to teach, to read or to watch, to listen to or to say. It is starting to infiltrate all aspects of one's life. The siege makes it harder to escape such heavy monitoring and carve out one's own space.
How has the siege impacted women's lives?
The siege is the one element that is making things worse. It is a siege on thinking to even consider any alternatives. The dominant culture has become so hegemonic. People are exhausted; they do not want to be immersed in so many issues and cannot keep fighting on every front, so they accept and give in more and more. I am starting to see the closure less as an economic challenge and more of a cultural and political one. With the tunnels1, it is easier to find what one may need at an increasingly more reasonable price. We have gotten used to having less by addressing the shortages creatively. It is the cultural closure, however, that erases people's minds and their ability to think for them- selves and engage with the world. This affects everyone, especially the youth, but women more harshly.
With internal censorship all the time, everyone is worried about what they write and how it will affect them. They wonder how they will get harassed, whether they will be banned from travel or the ability to leave. I am afraid that one day I will be where most others are, where they don't read any books and where they feel they have no options. It is a total closure of the mind. We don't even notice that we self-censor and we are afraid. This is not the religion I knew and grew up on. These are all new dictates and principles that are starting to suffocate us slowly.
You mentioned that there is a lot of policing of women's behavior; can you explain how this happens?
The Ministry of Women's Affairs in Gaza, which is headed by a man, focuses only on religious teachings. For the most part, women's public participation is only evident in the NGO sector, but even this is decreasing since there are so many restrictions on our work. For example, every year, women's groups plan for a big demonstration in Gaza city on March 8th, however, demonstrations are not allowed even with permission because any convergence of more than four people is outlawed. If we ask for permission, they are not likely to approve it. No one is allowed to act which affects women as well.
The Hamas government keeps devising more ingenious plots to constrain women, as if the siege and Israel's ongoing war are not enough. The Ministry of the Interior has forbidden male hairdressers from doing a woman's hair. They have also forbidden women from threading other women's eyebrows in the salons. If you cannot control your own face, how can you participate in anything else? They interfere even with children and how they are taught. At a private school run by Hamas, the teacher told my neighbors' kids that it is Haram (religiously forbidden) to watch Tom and Jerry, because when the cheese falls on the ground, they step on it, which is Haram. Girls are not allowed to wear jeans in schools anymore, and the school has tried to force them and the teachers to wear jilbab (a long garb) and hijab (headscarf). Now the majority of the female population in the South of the Gaza Strip is wearing hijab. I believe I am the only woman who does not wear a hijab there. Gaza City may be the only place with areas where you can find women not wearing a hijab. The majority wears the hijab, including Christian women, to avoid being identified or harassed.
Although it has not been officially declared, Gaza is under Emergency Law and very reminiscent of Egyptian police and other states under emergency law. Some rules are made public and issued with decrees and new laws, but many are enforced through intimidation tactics, warnings, and the policing of behavior that restrict programming. There is, however, no recourse. Just last week, I got a call from the amen dakhili (internal security) informing me of what is and isn't allowed in our activities. They have problems with the programs we organize for children that involve boys and girls dancing traditional folk dance. There is nothing written, nothing I can print or take to a court. If I go ahead with the event, they will try to prevent the event. Even if we reach out to human rights' moni- toring groups, we have no evidence because everything happened by phone with no record.
The order that forced female lawyers to wear the hijab in court was written, but after tremendous uproar, it was eventually revoked. The order revoking the forced hijabs, however, was not issued in writing, so although the hijab is no longer enforced, this does not stop the other forms of policing including discriminatory harassment and intimidation through constant preaching, advising, and religious teachings. All of this has made it more challenging for female lawyers to practice law. The Argilah (hookah) order, which was not a formal order but implemented, forbade women from smoking in public. The ban was eventually overturned after tremendous uproar. However, similar to the situation with the lawyers, women are harassed and further restricted in public spaces. A friend of mine who was speeding in her car was stopped by a police officer. When he discovered he stopped a woman, instead of giving her a speeding ticket, he gave her a lecture on morality and some pamphlets about religious practice and morality. She would have preferred a speeding ticket.
Can you describe women's resistance to the various oppressive structures surrounding them, siege, Israel, Hamas' patriarchal restrictions, etc...?
Always always there is resistance!
Women's groups and civil society actors resist in a many ways. There is no confrontation, but they use a diversity of tactics of resistance. They sometimes pressure high-level officials in the government to change their perspective, who in turn would then pressure the actors on the ground like the police to change their behaviors. They negotiate with members of judicial committees and the legislature. There is also pressure through human rights and women's groups who may work individually with some Hamas elected officials. Others use legal tactics by threatening to sue. Some exert pressure from the outside either through governments close to Hamas or through the Palestinian Authority (PA), which can be viewed as problematic but is a legitimate and effective tool. It has led in some cases to rethinking by the government and the realization that they cannot place this much pressure on everybody. When our organization was hassled, we pressured the minister to address the employee giving us trouble, given that our work was all legal.
Most women also practice negotiations on specific issues, such as offering certain concessions in exchange for more freedoms in decisions. For example, at my work, we wanted to keep the debke (traditional folk dance) group functioning because if this practice dies today in Khan Younis, no one can bring it back later. We had to negotiate and concede on some issues in order to get some of our demands met. The government wanted the girls separate from the boys in practice. We agreed but wanted to ensure that the girls who come to learn debke are not being harassed. They agreed.
We managed to keep the traditional dance, but it is exhausting. There is something like this to address on a daily basis, which takes a lot of energy to negotiate and leaves us with no energy to actually do something to advance our situa- tion. Our struggle is to try and stand still and not regress.
It was noticeable that the Hamas government along with the PA forbade any demonstrations in support of the revolution in Egypt. What, if any, implications do you see of the revolution on Gazan youth?
The implications for the revolt in Egypt are slow. We are still feeling the pressure of the old regime since Egypt has also contributed to the siege by closing its border to Gaza. The Mubarak regime had ties to all Palestinian political parties, including the PA and Hamas, so these parties were cautious about what to expect. The people, on the other hand, had a different reaction. A group of youth that organizes mostly on Facebook, made up of bloggers and activists working on a diversity of issues, decided to hold a protest to support the Egyptian uprising. They were all arrested, men and women. Although most women were released the same day, some they held for two weeks for refusing to sign statements given to them by the police.
Asmaa al Ghoul is one of those women activists. She has received individual threats, has been arrested and beaten up. They took pictures of everyone that was in the dem- onstration, even those on the sidelines. They follow every action, article, and blog, and mobilize their constituencies to write articles and issue statements opposing demands for more freedom and change.
More than 50 percent of Gaza youth have never left their immediate environment. They do not know any other city in Palestine, let alone another country. They have never left. They are imprisoned in Gaza even though they have not committed a crime. The Internet is not available for everybody but it does provide an avenue for some of the young generation. Internet cafes are costly and are increasingly restricted and policed. Some libraries and universities have Internet; but those who do not attend those institutions lack access. Parents are not allowing their girls to go out to Internet cafes due to the harass- ment I discussed and because of the propaganda that the Internet is only about sex and immoral behavior. Access is therefore extremely limited.
While many give in and give up because it is too exhausting to keep fighting, too terrifying to keep challenging, with too many risks and too few options, I do expect that these frustrations will lead to a major revolt, probably soon.
Majeda Al Saqqa, a native of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, finished her MA in the Anthropology of Media from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She is currently the Vice General Director and Director of Public Relations of The Culture and Free Thought Association, a group she helped establish in 1992.