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June 1, 2007
Israeli women helping Bedouins
Legal rights centre staff work for social change by offering pro
bono service in Beersheba.
WENDY ELLIMAN ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE
There were weeks on end when Ikraam, 23, couldn't afford milk for
her infant son. "His father told me he'd take my baby away
if I ever asked him for money, so it was better to listen to the
child's cries of hunger than to lose him altogether," she said.
The last beating that Asiya, 41, endured from her husband put her
in hospital for six months with multiple fractures. "He hit
me through all 20 years of our marriage," she said. "Only
towards the end, when things got really bad, did I realize that
our eight children were suffering just as badly."
Ikraam and Asiya (not their real names) are Bedouin women who do
not come from a bygone age or live deep in some forgotten desert
but reside in modern-day Israel, an hour-and-a-half drive from Tel-Aviv.
"Bedouin women are the most oppressed and marginalized women
in the country," said Insaf Abu Sharb, one of three Bedouin
women lawyers in Israel. "They live in a culture that values
community above the individual, in a society that is fiercely patriarchal
and in a religious-ethnic minority that is inequitably treated by
the state of Israel."
Since December 2006, Abu Sharb, 26, director of the newly created
Bedouin Women Legal Rights Centre – a unique effort to empower
the estimated 50,000 Bedouin women aged 18 and over in Israel's
Negev - has been a key player in attempting to overturn that oppression.
A strategic partnership between Itach-Maaki (Women Lawyers for Social
Justice) and the Abraham Fund Initiatives, the centre's seeds were
sewn in 2001 when Abu Sharb (whose first name fittingly means "justice"
or "equity") was still in law school and lawyer Becky
Cohen Keshet, an American-born Orthodox Jew, opened the Beersheba
branch of the Women Lawyers for Social Justice.
"Our centre comprises some 100 women lawyers in private practice
in Israel who help other women pro bono," said Cohen Keshet,
"and its goal is to create social change by using the law.
We aim to empower low-income women and help them obtain justice,
whether it's explaining the implications of a cancelled cheque or
representing them in court. We knew when we opened the Beersheba
office that many local Bedouin women had legal problems. When they
didn't come, we decided to bring in Bedouin students to translate
for them and see if that made a difference."
Nasrin and Suzanne are both Bedouin college students in their early
20s, part of a growing group who are daring to move beyond the confines
of their villages to study, work and find a new sense of self. Two
years ago, they began volunteering in the office and Bedouin women
began flocking in. "When they knew we were here, they dared
to come," said Nasrin.
Itach-Maaki had succeeded in reaching troubled Bedouin women but
it quickly became clear that their needs exceeded translating social
security forms from Hebrew to Arabic. "Most of their problems
– their legal status, poverty, the physical abuse that more
than half of them suffer from their husbands – relate directly
to their lifestyle," said Cohen Keshet.
And so, in December 2006, Itach-Maaki set up the Bedouin Women Legal
Rights Centre. Abu Sharb, who qualified three years ago, serves
as its director and the Abraham Fund is its major partner.
The new centre had expected perhaps 100 Bedouin women clients during
its first year, but at least double that number is now foreseen.
Ikraam and Asiya were among the first to come – Ikraam finding
it through word of mouth and Asiya being directed there by her social
worker, when she was finally discharged from hospital.
"My husband's family knew he hit me but they never did or said
anything," said Asiya. "After that last time, the police
came and he is now serving three-and-a-half years in prison. My
children and I are safe from him at the moment, but we have no money
to live on."
In traditional Bedouin society, women and girls remain at home.
Like 90 per cent of Israel's Bedouin women, Asiya is under-educated
and has no job.
"Because of their lack of education, the poverty in which they
live, their isolation and their very traditional culture, most Bedouin
women in Israel have little access to information about their rights,"
said Cohen Keshet. "Add to that the fact that Israel's National
Insurance Institute essentially ignores their customs and conventions
and it's clear why these women fall through the so-called safety
net. We helped Asiya get the social security to which she's entitled
and, for the moment, she's doing well. But she knows things aren't
over yet. Her husband will be released from prison one day."
Ikraam is among the one in every three Bedouin women who is a second
(or third or fourth) wife. "When I was 20, my father gave me
to a man 10 years older than me as his second wife," she said.
"There was no marriage ceremony because polygamy is considered
illegal in Israel. My father shook hands with my future husband,
and that was it. I stayed with him a year, by which time I was pregnant.
He hit me a lot and he hit his first wife, too. She stayed but I
ran away to my mother. She has no money to feed me or my son. Because
I wasn't married by Israeli law, I'm not considered a divorced woman.
Social security wants to give me a child allowance as if my husband
was supporting me, not the higher payment given to single mothers.
But I want to be recognized as a single mother, because that's what
I am."
Despite this, Ikraam considers herself fortunate. Her husband has
allowed her to keep their little boy, now 13 months old, as long
as she makes no financial demands. Israeli law states that custody
should be in the best interests of the child. For the Bedouin, who
live by Shari'a law, the child's welfare is always best served by
staying with the father.
"We're trying to persuade the authorities that Ikraam is a
single mother and entitled to appropriate support," said Abu
Sharb. "We're also trying to open their eyes to the fact that
polygamy is a cultural practice in the Bedouin community and that
Bedouin women, whether separated or divorced from their husbands,
continue living near them so they can keep their children."
Despite the immense challenges, the mood among the Bedouin women
at the legal rights centre is upbeat.
"I've learned to be strong because no one ever helped me,"
says Asiya. "Now I have these people to help me and I have
hope as well as strength."
"I grew up in an unrecognized Bedouin village, like many of
these women," says Abu Sharb, "and I know all about poverty
and domestic violence. I am happy that I am able to work for my
community and help where there is such desperate need. The legal
rights centre is trying to create sustainable social change in the
lives of these women so that ultimately they will attain the knowledge
and the tools to protect and claim their rights."
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