Nov. 21, 2008 (World News Trust) -- Qurban-Bibi
and Nahil Abu-Rada are two women, one Afghan and the other Palestinian,
who made news with similar tragedies. But their losses also helped
further delineate the plight of millions of women in war zones and poor
countries.
The
United Nations news service reported on the troubles of Qurban-Bibi, a
pregnant woman who simply needed to reach a hospital. Doctors had
instructed that she must deliver in an equipped medical facility,
considering her previous Caesarean delivery. The desperately poor
husband and her brothers opted for a delivery at home, citing the
unaffordable taxi ride. The woman almost bled to death. When the
delivery turned for the worst, the family rushed her to Faizabad
hospital in a nearby province. Her life was saved, but, evidently not
that of her baby.
Nahil’s
story also fails to deviate from the ever-predictable norm. The
pregnant Palestinian woman was joined by her family on their way to a
hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The hospital was so close, yet so far. Between their ambulance and
salvation was an Israeli army checkpoint, Hawara. “Nothing helped. Not
the pleas, not the cries of the woman in labor, not the father's
explanations in excellent Hebrew, nor the blood that flowed in the car.
The commander of the checkpoint, a fine Israeli who had completed an
officers' course, heard the cries, saw the woman writhing in pain in
the back seat of the car, listened to the father's heartrending pleas
and was unmoved,” reported Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in Haaretz.
He added, “Nahil Abu-Rada is not the first woman to lose her baby this
way because of the occupation, and she won't be the last.”
The
bearings of the painful losses of Qurban-Bibi and Nahil bring to mind
two recently published reports pertaining to the rights of women and
gender equality around the world: The State of the World Population
2008 report, produced by the United Nations Population Fund and The
Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum.
The
State of the World Population aims at development strategies that are
sensitive to the uniqueness of particular cultures, for it found that
culture is central to people’s lives as are ‘health, economics and
politics.’
As
for the Global Gender Gap report, it was a largely statistical study
co-authored by researchers from Harvard and University of
California-Berkeley, and published by the World Economic Forum.
Researchers examined definite factors, such as jobs, education,
politics, health, etc, to determine how improvements, or lack thereof
in these areas have affected, or failed to affect, the equality between
the sexes in 130 countries, that represent 90 percent of the world
population. The outcome was predicable for the most part, but with
notable deviations. “Out of 130 countries, Canada ranked 31 while the United States came in at 27. Canada also ranked behind Namibia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Lithuania and the Philippines, among other countries,” reported Canada’s Globe and Mail.
The
reports raise many questions, present many challenges, but on their own
fail to address the struggles and tragedies of women like Qurban-Bibi
and Nahil Abu-Rada.
The
Global Gender Report ignited media frenzy more appropriate for a beauty
contest -- winners and losers -- not a pressing issue that continues to
victimize millions of women worldwide. This was hardly the intent of
the report, one would fairly assume. Expectedly, it was later turned
into an opportunity to settle political scores, stereotype religion
and, at times, disparage entire cultures.
The
State of the World Population was largely sensible in its view of
culture: non-Western cultures were not simply chastised as the problem,
but cultural sensitivity was recommended as part of the solution.
But
addressing women’s rights and cultural patterns (as if these issues are
not unique in time and space) without examining the underpinnings of
the inequality is also a mistake.
Culture
is hardly the summation of rational choices made by individuals in a
specific time and easily demarcated space. It’s an innate collective
response to internal and external factors, changes and events -
political, economic or social. Chances are Palestinian women in
villages surrounded by Israeli checkpoints tend to deliver their babies
at home or in an unfit local clinic, a natural response to risking
losing one’s baby altogether. Such a practice could eventually develop
into a cultural pattern.
Many
Afghan women are caught between the lethal occupation of foreigners and
the extremism and vengeance of the Taliban. Early marriages are often
the only available opportunity for women in some parts of the country,
once they reach a certain age, sometimes as young as nine-years-old.
The same can be said about Iraq, where women, who comparatively achieved high status in pre-war years; have since endured untold humiliation. Thanks to the U.S.
‘liberation’ of their country, they now constitute a large percentage
of regional prostitution, a phenomenon alien to Iraqi society of
yesteryear.
This
hardly means that the suffering of women is always the outcome of
foreign military interventions -- masked as ‘humanitarian’ in some
instances -- nor does it render blameless local cultures, outdated
customs and interpretation of religion. But what is missing from the
reports, and subsequent analyses is how conflict, war and military
intervention often jeopardize, more than anything else, the rights and
welfare of women.
The
issue of women’s rights is a pressing one, not just because of the
horrifying statistics. (Women and girls are the poorest, least educated
and most victimized the world over.) But also because no real progress,
development or sound governance can ever take place when half of the
society is marginalized and mistreated. Equality between the genders is
not an act f virtue, but also a sound strategy for a brighter future
for any nation, rich or poor. To address the issue correctly, studies
and reports must delve into the roots of women’s suffering, and not be
satisfied with numerical indicators that tell half of the story.
{mosimage}Ramzy
Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers
and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian
Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).