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Amnesty International reports that Saudi Arabia oppresses women
Recommended thematic category: women's rights and human rights. Amnesty International reports sexist and misogynist oppression of women by Saudi Arabia.
Amnesty International on Saudi Arabia (excerpts only, click on the link for the full article)
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE230732000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CSAUDI+ARABIA
"Discrimination against women touches virtually all aspects of their lives including family life, decision making, employment, education and the justice system. It impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia."
"Women can not walk alone even in their own neighbourhood without the fear of being stopped, beaten or detained particularly by the religious police as suspected moral offenders. This is because there are more constraints placed on the behaviour of women than men. For instance they are not allowed to go anywhere, or leave the country without a male guardian (mahram) or his written consent."
http://www.amnesty.ca/SaudiArabia/5.php
"Women in Saudi Arabia, whether Saudi Arabian or foreign, emerge time and again as victims of discrimination and human rights violations because of the gender bias in law, social mores and traditions. While women have gained some ground in terms of economic rights, their civil and political rights are systematically violated."
"Equal treatment for women and men is a fundamental principle of international human rights standards. Yet in Saudi Arabia discriminatory practices against women are not only prevalent, they are also in some cases required by law."
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/saudi_arabia/document.do?id=3DA6E806AD3D8B3C85256CDB0063B453
"Amnesty International today condemned Saudi Arabia for widespread abuse of women's rights as it released the third report in its worldwide campaign to expose and combat widespread human rights violations in that country. The world's largest human rights organization called on Saudi Arabia to fulfil its obligations under international law and to withdraw its sweeping reservations to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)."
"The report, "Saudi Arabia: Gross Human Rights Abuses Against Women," details how discrimination faced by women heightens their suffering under the injustices of Saudi Arabia's human rights violations."
http://t2web.amnesty.r3h.net/library/Index/ENGMDE230572000?open&of=ENG-2D2
SAUDI ARABIA:
GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN
"Discrimination against women impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia. These violations, which have been described in detail in two recent Amnesty International reports on Saudi Arabia, A Justice System Without Justice and A Secret State of Suffering1, include arbitrary arrest and detention as facilitated by the wide-ranging powers enjoyed by the arresting authorities; vague written and unwritten laws; secret and grossly unfair trials; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the use of the death penalty."
The report adds that domestic workers, who are usually female, are mistreated and abused by their Saudi employers.
"Domestic workers interviewed by Amnesty International described gross exploitation (including arbitrary deprivation of liberty, verbal and physical abuse, restriction of movement and non-payment) which may amount to slavery-like working conditions. The working day often allowed less than five hours sleep, with an even shorter break during the fasting month of Ramadan. Some domestic workers described having to go to the toilet to sleep and having insufficient time to wash or eat. No domestic worker interviewed had ever been given any time off, either in the form of weekly time off or paid holidays. Domestic workers described not being able to get time off when sick. Most were never allowed out, and some were even denied contact with their families at home because their mail was destroyed by their employers."
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/briefing/4.html
"The abuse of women's rights in Saudi Arabia is not simply the unfortunate consequence of overzealous security forces and religious police. It is the inevitable result of a state policy which gives women fewer rights than men, which means that women face discrimination in all walks of life, and which allows men with authority to exercise their power without any fear of being held to account for their actions."
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE230732000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CSAUDI+ARABIA
"Discrimination against women touches virtually all aspects of their lives including family life, decision making, employment, education and the justice system. It impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia."
"Women can not walk alone even in their own neighbourhood without the fear of being stopped, beaten or detained particularly by the religious police as suspected moral offenders. This is because there are more constraints placed on the behaviour of women than men. For instance they are not allowed to go anywhere, or leave the country without a male guardian (mahram) or his written consent."
http://www.amnesty.ca/SaudiArabia/5.php
"Women in Saudi Arabia, whether Saudi Arabian or foreign, emerge time and again as victims of discrimination and human rights violations because of the gender bias in law, social mores and traditions. While women have gained some ground in terms of economic rights, their civil and political rights are systematically violated."
"Equal treatment for women and men is a fundamental principle of international human rights standards. Yet in Saudi Arabia discriminatory practices against women are not only prevalent, they are also in some cases required by law."
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/saudi_arabia/document.do?id=3DA6E806AD3D8B3C85256CDB0063B453
"Amnesty International today condemned Saudi Arabia for widespread abuse of women's rights as it released the third report in its worldwide campaign to expose and combat widespread human rights violations in that country. The world's largest human rights organization called on Saudi Arabia to fulfil its obligations under international law and to withdraw its sweeping reservations to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)."
"The report, "Saudi Arabia: Gross Human Rights Abuses Against Women," details how discrimination faced by women heightens their suffering under the injustices of Saudi Arabia's human rights violations."
http://t2web.amnesty.r3h.net/library/Index/ENGMDE230572000?open&of=ENG-2D2
SAUDI ARABIA:
GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN
"Discrimination against women impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia. These violations, which have been described in detail in two recent Amnesty International reports on Saudi Arabia, A Justice System Without Justice and A Secret State of Suffering1, include arbitrary arrest and detention as facilitated by the wide-ranging powers enjoyed by the arresting authorities; vague written and unwritten laws; secret and grossly unfair trials; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the use of the death penalty."
The report adds that domestic workers, who are usually female, are mistreated and abused by their Saudi employers.
"Domestic workers interviewed by Amnesty International described gross exploitation (including arbitrary deprivation of liberty, verbal and physical abuse, restriction of movement and non-payment) which may amount to slavery-like working conditions. The working day often allowed less than five hours sleep, with an even shorter break during the fasting month of Ramadan. Some domestic workers described having to go to the toilet to sleep and having insufficient time to wash or eat. No domestic worker interviewed had ever been given any time off, either in the form of weekly time off or paid holidays. Domestic workers described not being able to get time off when sick. Most were never allowed out, and some were even denied contact with their families at home because their mail was destroyed by their employers."
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/briefing/4.html
"The abuse of women's rights in Saudi Arabia is not simply the unfortunate consequence of overzealous security forces and religious police. It is the inevitable result of a state policy which gives women fewer rights than men, which means that women face discrimination in all walks of life, and which allows men with authority to exercise their power without any fear of being held to account for their actions."
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At a time when the U.S. State Department and the United Nations labor to combat the international trafficking in women, the U.S. military supports a flourishing trade in sex slaves in South Korea.
Hundreds of trafficked women, mostly from former Soviet bloc countries and the Philippines, are forced by local bar owners to work as prostitutes in bars that cater to American servicemen. The women are typically lured to Korea with promises of high-paying jobs but end up being held against their will and coerced into working as prostitutes in circumstances that both the State Department and the United Nations condemn as a form of sexual slavery.
The U.S. military leadership in Korea says it is powerless to put a stop to the practice, which they claim is the responsibility of the Korean police. But the top Korean police expert on prostitution said it is unlikely Korean police will do anything to halt the trafficking because of widespread police corruption.
While U.S. troops continue to be the sex-slave racket’s best customers, U.S. commanders turn a blind eye. And there’s no end in sight.
http://www.armytimes.com/channel.php?GQID=292236#SEXSLAVES
Enslavement and deprivation of liberty
Amnesty International has received information indicating that in many instances women trafficked from FSU countries are literally bought and sold for large sums of money, often in auctions where they are purchased by the highest bidder. Some are held in debt bondage where they are forced to work to pay off large sums of money. Some women are kidnapped against their will in FSU countires or are lured to Israel under false pretences, and brought to work in the sex industry. Their "owners" restrict their movements in order to prevent them from leaving. There are many reports of women being imprisoned by their "owners" in locked houses and apartments and prevented from going out unaccompanied. There are also frequent reports of trafficked women's passports and other travel documents being taken away by their "owners" in order to prevent them from leaving the country. In some cases, the misappropriation by "owners" of the women's means of identification is also used to force them into the sex industry.
Violence against trafficked women
Women trafficked to Israel are frequently either threatened with or subjected to violence, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse, particularly if they refuse to have sex with customers or try to escape. There are reports of women being forced to have sex against their will with large numbers of men each day. Traffickers and others working in the sex industry sometimes issue threats against the lives and persons of trafficked women and their families, if they should leave the country and return to their countries of residence, or if they should provide intelligence to law enforcement agencies or testify in criminal prosecutions.
CASES
In the course of its visit to Israel in April and May 1999, an Amnesty International delegation visited Neve Tirza Prison and interviewed several women, including four who were being held in connection with their involvement in the sex industry and were awaiting deportation to FSU countries. As the following cases show, the response of the authorities has frequently compounded the problem by treating trafficked women who are subjected to human rights abuses as criminals and illegal aliens, rather than as victims of these abuses.
All names have been changed to protect the identities of the women involved.
Anna's story
''I don't know the outcome of the trial. I only know that Arthur [the pimp] is at liberty. I talked to him on the phone. When the police arrested us they did not allow us to take our things with us, so they are still there. Arthur knows my address in St Petersburg and my telephone number because he kept my passport. I have a small daughter, eight years old there. He threatened that he would find me in Russia, at home, if I did not do what he wanted me to.''
Anna, a 31-year-old physics teacher from St Petersburg in the Russian Federation arrived in Israel on a tourist visa in October 1998. She had been lured to Israel by the promise of a job earning US$1,000 a month, 20 times her salary in the Russian Federation. The Israeli national who had offered her the job made it clear that she would be involved in the sex industry, but promised her good working conditions. She was completely unprepared for the treatment that awaited her.
Anna was met at the airport and taken to an apartment. Her passport was taken from her and she was locked in the apartment with six other women from FSU countries. She was auctioned twice. On the second occasion she was bought for US$10,000 and taken to work in Haifa, where she was held together with two other women. The apartment in which she was held had bars on the windows. The women were rarely allowed to leave the apartment and never allowed out alone. Much of the money that they earned was taken from them in ''fines'', money extorted from them by their pimps.
In March 1999 Anna was arrested for involvement in prostitution after a police raid on the apartment where she was being held. In court the police alleged that Anna had signed statements admitting to involvement in prostitution -- but all the documents were in Hebrew, a language Anna neither reads nor writes. She later discovered that she had been accused of running a brothel.
Anna was held at the Kishon detention centre for almost a month awaiting deportation. During that time she was not allowed to talk to the Russian Consul. The reason for her detention was apparently that the authorities wanted her to testify against the pimp. But the authorities never told Anna this or asked for her consent to act as a witness.
Tatiana's story
Tatiana arrived in Israel from Belarus in April 1998 on a tourist visa. She had been promised a job working 12 hours a day as a cleaner in a hotel in the resort of Eilat. She was told the job would pay her enough to support her mother and her six-year-old son.
Tatiana was met in Eilat by a man pretending to be from the hotel where she was to be employed. He took her to a brothel, where she was forced to work in the sex industry against her will and told that she would have to repay her ''sale price'' and the travel costs.
Tatiana made various plans to escape. She was finally released from the brothel after a police raid -- a friend of hers had contacted the Belarus Consulate who contacted the police. Tatiana was taken into custody as an illegal immigrant and detained in Neve Tirza Prison awaiting deportation.
Three days after her arrest, Tatiana found an anonymous note on her prison bunk threatening to kill her and punish her family if she spoke out about what had happened to her. Tatiana wanted to testify against her captors in Eilat, but she was terrified that if she did so and was returned to Belarus the traffickers would meet her at the airport or come to her home, since they knew all her passport details and the address of her family.
A petition was made to the Chief of Police explaining that if Tatiana had no protection it would be unreasonably dangerous for her to testify in court. He replied that the Israel Police could not guarantee anyone's safety outside Israel and offered only ''minimal protection'' for Tatiana. She testified in June 1999 and was deported later that same month. Despite her request that she be flown to Poland or Lithuania and then allowed to cross into Belarus by car, the Israeli authorities deported her directly to Belarus. She was reportedly met by a male relative and taken to an unknown location. Tatiana's fate after that is unknown.
Valentina's story
"I had a nervous break-down. I wanted to escape from this place and asked a client to help me. He turned out to be one of them and I was beaten up by the owners. There was nowhere to run -- there were bars on the windows and bodyguards all the time, day and night."
Valentina, a 27-year-old psychologist and a social worker, arrived in Israel in August 1998 from Moldova. She believed she was going to work as a company representative. Her travel and visa were arranged by the Israeli national who had offered her the job.
Valentina was met at the airport and taken to a hotel. The following day her money, passport and return ticket were taken from her and she was taken to an apartment where she was held for two months.
''The conditions were terrible. One girl was kept to work in the basement for eight months. It was damp there and she got tuberculosis as a result. Most of the girls had different diseases -- venereal and others related to their reproductive organs. I do not wish even to my enemies to go through what we went through."
Valentina eventually succeeded in escaping with another woman by jumping from the first floor of an apartment building. The women returned to the brothel in order to help another friend to escape and were caught up in a police raid on the apartment. Valentina was arrested in March 1999 for not having proper documents or a visa. Although she was pleased that the police had raided the brothel, she was afraid to testify against the man who sold her to the brothel owners because he knew the whereabouts of her family in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Consul visited her only once following her arrest. Valentina did not know how long the Israeli authorities intended to hold her or when she would be allowed to go home.
Nina's story
''I want to go home but it is possible the trial [of X, the man accused of raping her] may not happen for six months. I also want to make sure that X ... goes to prison.'' "Deportation orders are not intended for keeping witnesses in detention. Foreigners without permits are only detained so that they leave Israel and do it quickly."
Batya Karmon, head of the Department of Aliens and Visas at the Ministry of the Interior (4)
"She is a criminal. She resided in Israel without a permit. It was obvious that she would not testify if she was not detained.''
Moshe Nissan, Haifa Police Spokesperson
Nina, a 19-year-old from Minsk in Belarus, arrived in Israel in late 1998 on a tourist visa. She knew that she would be working in the sex industry, but had been promised good working conditions. After about three months working in a brothel in Haifa, she was abducted at gunpoint, ''sold'' for US$1,000, beaten and raped. She escaped and returned to the first brothel in an attempt to earn enough money to pay for her flight back to Belarus.
Nina was arrested by the police in a raid on a massage parlour in Tel Aviv in March 1999. She was imprisoned in Neve Tirza Prison on the basis of a deportation order issued by the Ministry of the Interior. However, even though she had a valid passport and a ticket, she was not deported because the Haifa District Attorney's Office issued an order prohibiting her from leaving Israel to ensure that she testified in a criminal case being brought against the three men who had abducted and raped her. She was finally deported in June 1999 after having been held in Neve Tirza for more than two months.
Nina's plight was brought to the attention of various Israeli officials by the Hotline for Foreign Workers in Detention and reached the pages of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot in May 1999. Various government officials interviewed by the newspaper denied responsibility for her detention. A prosecutor from the Office of the State Attorney in Haifa commented: ''I didn't know that the girl was detained until the Hotline contacted me. I will make every effort to have her finish her testimony in one day so she can be released.''
STATE RESPONSIBILITY UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
Under international human rights law, states are responsible for protecting people against human rights abuses by private persons. Such responsibility is enshrined in all the core human rights treaties. For example, Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) requires a state party to ensure to all individuals within its territory the rights guaranteed in the Covenant, an obligation which, according to the Human Rights Committee, extends to protecting against acts inflicted by people acting in their private capacity.(5) In this connection, under international law, states are required to exercise due diligence in preventing, investigating, prosecuting and providing an effective remedy for human rights abuses committed by private individuals. If the state fails to do so, it will be regarded under international law as having responsibility for these abuses, and therefore deemed to have violated its international obligations.
With respect to the deprivation of liberty, violence and enslavement to which women trafficked to Israel have been subjected, several provisions in international human rights instruments are relevant. Article 7 of the ICCPR, which Israel ratified in 1991, states that no one should be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Human Rights Committee has stated in its General Comment 20, an authoritative interpretation of Article 7 of the Covenant, that "[i]t is the duty of the State party to afford everyone protection through legislative and other measures as may be necessary against the acts prohibited in Article 7, whether inflicted by people acting in their official capacity, outside their official capacity or in a private capacity" [emphasis added].(6) In addition, Article 8 of the Covenant prohibits slavery and Article 9 guarantees the right to liberty and security of person. Article 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, also ratified by Israel in 1991, states: ''States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution''.
ISRAELI GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS AND TRAFFICKED WOMEN FROM FSU COUNTRIES
The Israeli government has failed to take adequate measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish human rights abuses committed against trafficked women. In general, trafficked women are effectively treated as criminals by the various Israeli agencies with whom they come in contact, rather than as victims of human rights abuses. This is so even though many of them have been subjected to human rights abuses such as enslavement or torture, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse, by traffickers, pimps or others involved in Israel's sex industry. Trafficked women come into contact with many different Israeli governmental agencies, but there appears to be no coherent governmental policy to combat these human rights abuses. In meetings with Amnesty International's delegates, government officials expressed concern about the plight of trafficked women. But, except in the case of the Department of Criminal Legislation in the Ministry of Justice, most agencies had not apparently developed policies to combat these abuses (see section on criminal legislation below).
More
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE150172000
Neither the U.S. nor Israel have laws that prevent women from driving, getting an education or traveling outside the country without the permission of a male family member.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel sentences women to death for non-marital sex.
Yes, their are sexual abuses of women in the U.S. and Israel just like there is robbery and murder. These are contrary to law, not part of the law.
It is nothing but bigotry to excuse Muslim mistreatment of women under the law by comparing it to illegal mistreatment of women in non-Muslim countries.
I have no idea why "progressives" are so in love with Fundamentalist Islam while hating all other religions as repressive. I wonder if the "Progressives" know why either.