Women in Moslem countries, as promised.

Here is the long-promised text on the position of women in Moslem countries. Moslem countries in this context means countries that are officially Moslem, countries where 50% of population or more are Moslem, and countries where Moslems are the largest religious group. There are 52 of them by my count, but YMMV a little. The position of women in Iraq and Afghanistan is so much in transition that take anything I say about them with a grain of salt. Somalia is pretty much lawless and in transition, but there the position of women does not change or vary quite as much. Nigeria has different laws in different states, not all of them are Islamic but the Islamic ones tend to be very Islamic.

In short:

Sharia: Sharia is the Islamic law. It, and civil laws based on it, are in effect in most Moslem countries of Middle East, Northern Africa and Asia, except those of former USSR, and in some countries in Africa. Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Egypt, Gambia, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Nigeria (some states), Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen are all more or less Sharia states. In the vast majority of these countries Sharia only covers matters of family, inheritance and sex. In some countries (Gambia, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Sudan, Syria) Sharia is applied only to Moslems and other people are expected to follow the laws of their own religion. Sharia varies from country to country and from Shia to Sunni. The most common points of Sharia:

• Women are not property.
  
• Women can own property.
  
• Women's consent is needed for marriage.
  
• Woman can be granted a divorce if she has a good reason; man does not need a good reason to get a divorce.
  
• Spousal violence is illegal, rape is illegal, but spousal rape is not illegal.
  
• In divorce children go to the mother if they are under a certain age; after that, to the father.
  
• A woman gets half of the inheritance the man gets; here Sunni and Shia Sharias vary in that among Shias if a parent has only daughters, they inherit everything, and among Sunnis they inherit half and the other half goes to male relatives.
  
• A woman's word in court is worth half of that of a man.
  
• A Moslem man may marry a Jewish or Christian woman, but a Moslem woman can only marry a Moslem man.
  
• Sex outside marriage is bad, and adultery is even worse.
  
• A non-Moslem widow of a Moslem husband receives no inheritance.
  

Sharia varies by country in many things: ease or difficulty with which women can obtain a divorce, whether or not the woman's testimony is indeed just half of a man's (it is the case only in Iran, Mauritania, some Nigerian states and Saudi Arabia; in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan and Qatar this concerns only family courts; a catch in Pakistan is that courts dealing with rape are sort of family courts there), whether or not a Moslem woman can marry a non-Moslem (usually not), and whether or not polygyny is allowed (it's allowed in Algeria (with wife's permission), Bangladesh, Burkina Faso (with wife's permission), Chad (with wife's permission), Gambia, Kuwait, Mali (with wife's permission), Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, UAE (with wife's permission) and Yemen; some of these are not even Sharia countries).

Sharia is obviously a discriminatory law which restricts women's lives in more or less semicivilized countries, but in some African countries Sharia is actually an improvement over what women would have otherwise - in worse parts of Mauritania and Nigeria Sharia's idea that women are not property and can actually own some property is novel and progressive.

Female Genital Mutilation: This is not an Islamic custom at all. It's African, very widespread among all the religious groups in Sub-Saharan Africa and widely illegal there, too. The percentage of women circumcised varies from 5-20% in Niger to 98% in Somalia. The only Moslem African country without this problem in Comoros. The only Arab countries where it is widespread are Egypt and Sudan. FGM is illegal in all the Moslem countries where it's practiced except Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Somalia and some states of Nigeria.

Travel restrictions: A lot of Moslem countries (most of the Middle East and North Africa and a few elsewhere in Africa) have travel restrictions for women. Afghanistan, Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Nigeria,Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, UAE and Yemen are such countries. The restriction vary from mild (in Qatar and Syria a husband/father can demand to block a wife's/daughter's travel, but otherwise nobody asks) to severe (Iraqi women were not allowed to travel abroad without a male relative at all). In many countries a father's/husband's permission is only needed for a passport, but after that a woman can travel freely. In Kuwait and Lebanon only a married woman needs a permission.

Honor killings: They happen in the Middle East, but are generally considered a redneck thing to do even there. Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria and Yemen have laws giving more lenient punishment for "honor killings" than for other murders.

Citizenship: Citizenship is transmitted only through the father in Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Morocco. In most of these countries a citizen woman's husband can't get citizenship as easily as a citizen man's wife; in Kuwait being married to a Kuwaiti woman is not even enough for a residence permit. Saudi women need a king's permission to marry a foreigner, but then so do also Saudi men unless the bride is from a Gulf country.

Veil: Wearing veils is rarely demanded by law. Only Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran require it, and Brunei requires it in government buildings. OTOH, Tunisia, Turkey and Uzbekistan ban veils in public buildings.

Rape and domestic violence: As usual: statistics are hard to find, urban women have it better than rural women and rich and educated women have it better than poor and uneducated. Arab countries tend to be very strict with rapists, African less so. In Pakistan a proper Hadd (Koranic) rape conviction requires 4 adult Moslem male witnesses, and since people rarely rape each other in front of 4 adult Moslem men, there has not been a Hadd conviction in 20 years, but there are convictions in secular courts. Anyway, in both Pakistan and Bangladesh rape and domestic violence are rampant, and it has been my uneducated observation that anywhere on the border of Moslem and Hindu cultures women get the worst of both worlds.

Work and education: Varies by country and region, quite a lot of places in the Middle East have equal pay legislation. etc. Saudi Arabia is the only country that limits women's education and keeps them out of some fields. (Apart from the late Taliban Afghanistan, of course.)

No significant legal discrimination: : Albania, Bosnia, Comoros, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. Also Turkey and Uzbekistan, if you don't count the ban on veils in government buildings.

Various: Mauritania is AFAIK the only Moslem country where a woman can be married without her consent. In Iran and Mauritania a marriage needs the woman's father's consent.

Segregation of public space is practiced widely in Iran and even more in Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive.


Here it is, folks. Corrections and additions are welcome.