Syrian refugees in Passau, Germany: a lot of these in search of refuge are from extra conservative rural areas the place divorce is stigmatised. Jazzmany by way of Shutterstock

A few years in the past, I noticed a dialogue on Fb of the affect of migration on Arab households. The primarily male writers had been arguing that leaving the safety of the homeland has destroyed the material of Syrian households and society within the diaspora. They believed it had led Syrian girls in direction of inhiraf or “deviation from the true path” as extra of them had been in search of divorce.

Whereas this phenomenon has been disparaged amongst Syrians, it has been celebrated by some western commentators. They noticed it as a part of the western mission to “save Arab (and Muslim) girls” from the Muslim males who oppressed them. This can be a clearly reductionist and Orientalist (western-centric) account of the state of affairs.

In her guide Do Muslim Ladies Want Saving?, the Palestinian-American scholar Lila Abu Lughod condemns this western mindset. She maintains it has justified all types of western interference within the Arab and Muslim world – together with invasion – within the identify of rescuing girls from Islam.

However most of the refugee girls in query have taken benefit of their new lives in western, secular societies to ask for divorce – usually from abusive husbands they needed to marry as younger women. They’d not been compelled to marry the boys for non secular causes however actually because they got here from rural backgrounds the place patriarchy (and patriarchal interpretations of Islam) had been predominant. The non-public standing legal guidelines in most Arab nations additionally usually deprive girls of fundamental rights akin to alimony or custody of their kids after divorce.

However patriarchal legal guidelines should not the principle motive for Syrian girls’s silence and acceptance of the established order when of their homeland. The idea of ‛ayb (disgrace) fairly than the idea of haram (religiously forbidden), has usually ruled these girls’s behaviour. For instance, whereas ‛isma (a further clause within the marriage contract permitting girls to provoke divorce) is permissible in Islam, it’s socially frowned upon in most Muslim communities. Ladies who’ve such a clause of their marriage contract are sometimes seen as morally and sexually suspect.

Fashionable mores

A feminine Arabic-speaking lawyer who helps these Syrian girls with their divorces in Germany is reported as saying: “I’ve by no means seen so many individuals from one nationality need to get divorced,” including, “I’ve by no means seen a social construction break down prefer it has amongst Syrians.”

That is most likely on account of the truth that most of the households escaping Syria got here from rural areas and from provincial cities . As soon as they escaped the oppressive eyes of their family members and neighbours, and will provoke a no-fault divorce, they didn’t hesitate to request such a divorce. They knew their rights would now be protected and their kids left of their care.

This phenomenon isn’t distinctive to Syrian refugees in Germany. It may also be noticed in Sweden, the place Syrian girls have been more and more empowered by the feminist insurance policies of the Swedish authorities. Additionally they began demanding separation from abusive husbands they needed to marry as younger women.

This isn’t an indictment of refugee girls as a lot as it’s an indictment of Syrian society and legal guidelines that pressure girls to just accept mistreatment. They accomplish that in an effort to hold a roof over their heads and custody of their kids.

The Syrian authorities itself has seemingly not too long ago realised its legal guidelines are problematic and amended the Syrian Private Standing legal guidelines in February 2019. The amendments included greater than 60 authorized articles. They not solely raised the age of marriage, and granted girls custody of their kids after divorce, but additionally gave all Syrian girls ‛isma – the proper to petition for divorce with out anybody’s permission.

As anticipated, Syrians had been break up of their reactions to those amendments, with some welcoming these adjustments whereas others seeing them as not going far sufficient. A 3rd group learn these amendments as a pathetic try by a regime that had misplaced legitimacy amongst giant swaths of the inhabitants to instrumentalise girls’s rights in an effort to rehabilitate itself within the eyes of the west.

By amending these legal guidelines, the Assad authorities is making an attempt to painting itself as a contemporary and “civilized” regime that protects girls’s rights towards the “backwardness” of what it depicts as Islamically impressed legal guidelines. The Assad regime is positioning itself as an enlightened authorities, one the west doesn’t want to save lots of girls from.

Alternative and dignity

Within the meantime, in Europe the place giant numbers of Syrians have taken refuge – and away from the opprobrium of patriarchal society – girls are making the most of legal guidelines that grant them equal rights and social norms that don’t put the blame on them within the case of divorce, or take into account them fallen girls in the event that they depart their husbands.

By way of recourse to a extra sympathetic regime for girls, Syrian refugees are demonstrating an company that’s usually denied to them by western politicians and lots of Arab mental elites. These legal guidelines should not inimical to Islam – feminist interpretations of Islam holds that the non secular doctrine grants girls rights – however that these rights are all to usually denied by patriarchal interpretations of faith and by Syrian societal norms.

The rules of social justice are fairness, entry to sources, human rights and participation. And in Sweden and different European nations refugee girls more and more have entry to sources and are made conscious of their human rights. In her guide Intercourse and Social Justice, the American thinker and authorized scholar Martha Nussbaum sees alternative because the centrepiece of her theoretical understanding of justice, and hyperlinks it to dignity.

Alternative and dignity are rules of justice missing for each ladies and men within the Arab world, however particularly for girls. Hillary Clinton famously mentioned “girls’s rights are human rights,” and the situation of ladies at giant is just one manifestation of the dearth of respect for human rights (for all) within the Arab world.

Rola El-Husseini doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.