'Much needed to protect, empower female children in Jordan'

TheJordanTimes: 'Much needed to protect, empower female children in Jordan'
AMMAN - Customs, society and family form the primary sources of conviction for the parents of a girl or boy child, a local study revealed on Tuesday.

The study also reiterated previous initial findings that Jordanian families in general are more worried about how they are perceived by their own communities when bringing up their daughters, rather than how existing laws protect their female members.

Titled, “To be a Girl in Jordan: A Legal and Cultural Bias”, the survey, funded by USAID through the Rule of Law Project, covered 2,011 households in six governorates. It aimed at finding out about the culture and the environment in which girls are raised in Jordan.

Nermeen Murad, director of the King Hussein Foundation’s research centre, which carried out the survey, highlighted the challenges females face in Jordan, saying that the study in question “gave indicators on where we should focus our efforts”.

One of the findings, according to Murad, was that religion was a significant knowledge source for the families surveyed “but not as significant as the environment, including customs and society, in judging their daughter”.

The apparent effects of the media and the law with regards to how families bring up their daughters “were negligible”, Murad added.

Murad said another finding of the study indicated that the majority of girls surveyed had limited ambitions about their future lives and many reflected that by stating their interests as being mainly on how their wedding dress will look like, wearing makeup and following movie stars news.

“We rarely found a female child who said she wants to be a doctor or a scientist when she grew up and this is an indication of how they are brought up at their homes,” Murad explained.

Turning to education, Murad said many families prefer to educate their daughters “not for the sake of ensuring a better education, but more for the sake of guaranteeing a good husband who is looking for an educated wife”.

On the other hand, she added, many families prefer not to support their daughter’s higher education “thinking that it will make it easier for their daughters to get married since some men prefer uneducated women”.

Murad said several steps should be adopted to empower female children in Jordan.

Appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures are urgently needed to protect the girl child, in the household and in society, from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse, Murad said.

Another important step, according to Murad, is to empower the girl child to be aware of her own potential, her ability to make decisions, to control her own destiny, and to be confident, and to educate her about the rights guaranteed to her under all international human rights instruments, legislation enacted for her and the various measures undertaken by both governmental and non-governmental organisations working to improve her status.

The aim of the project was to contextually map the state of the girl child in Jordan and determine the manner by which cultural ideology practised by the community influences the formulation of the law.

Murad said the findings will be announced in a publication called “The Book” that will form the basis for how stakeholders will deal with the girl child in Jordan.

Murad also announced that anyone interested in learning more about the study or the interviews that were done can check the project’s website at www.teflah.com