From the parents prison to the husband’s one

Gaza-CMC-Renad Ghernada

The sufferings of the family home have moved to new sufferings in the marital home, where the denial of the most basic rights continues, spread and multiply.

Alaa, a 20-year-old, fearing her family, preferred not to mention her real name and chose her pseudonym; “Despite my academic excellence and my great dream of completing university education, I am deeply hurt by the way that my parents treat me, especially my father, not only that I am a female,” she saidز.

“I am the only daughter of my father between two brothers who married a traditional marriage against me, and I was forced to do so since my father imposed his opinion by choosing a good-looking life partner,” she added.

She explains that the cruelty of her father to her as a female inside the house withdrew in imposing his opinion in every small and large, until she spread to her university study where she imposed a study specialization Islamic legality because of not mixing with males in the university and lectures, and when she objected the answer “You are a girl you don’t have the right to choose something just stick to saying the word Okay”.

She adds with sadness: “Things have become impossible to endure and my life with them has become an impossibility inside the house; I felt unable to continue in that life, and because of my parents ‘ desire to marry me I could only say” I want to get married “, and I didn’t feel her day with anything just where I wanted to throw away the prison in that house that was going My father”.

Alaa follows: My father was the one who chose the partner of life, my cousin because for my father it was the best choice, and I could not refuse or discuss it”.

She did not feel lost or nostalgic for her family to hate them and turn her life into a” hell “, and she did not go to visit them for more than two consecutive months after marriage”.

“Then nothing changed for my life, my husband was like my father with his thoughts and beliefs, he was working day and night, returning from his work just to eat and then going to sleep, and he was not listening to any conversation I was trying to talk to, and I once tried to open a conversation with him to complete my education, but he categorically rejected him, and told me : “You are not missing anything because you are happy at your husband’s house!”

She points out that she always hears this sentence of him when she tries to reach out to him in something to change her life or to depart from the routine she used to be in her home, which she was pleasantly surprised at in her husband’s house.

She concluded her speech with sadness, saying: “Sit in the house alone, I can’t hear me, between the four walls that I do housework from morning to night and so on, to the extent that I have reached a dull person, thinking nothing but preparing food and finishing household chores”.

The violation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to participation and choice as fundamental rights guaranteed by international law and universal conventions, said lawyer Bahgat El-Helou, Coordinator of Education and training at the Independent Human Rights Commission; “CEDAW and the International Covenant of Rights Civil and political “, as well as in violation of the provisions of national law and the Palestinian Basic Law.

El-Helo explained that statistics and indicators showed that women, children and persons with disabilities need more care as a result of cultural, economic and political considerations overcoming human rights considerations, and thus call these groups “vulnerable groups” that the law He took special care of her because the effects of the violation were greater than others.

He stressed that these violations must be documented in order to enable women to have access to justice and their mechanisms in society through the judiciary, civil society institutions and independent Women’s and human rights bodies, adding that “exposing these cases of violations would allow such victims to be fair and not aggravate the problem and perhaps not Its future recurrence.

This story was released within the project “young women advocate their rights as human rights” @ 2018