Womens Rights in Australia versus Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example

Comparing Women’s Rights in Australia versus Saudi Arabia I. Introduction In this work, we compare western and Islamic notions of women’s right and focus on the differences in the situation between Australian and Saudi Arabian women’s rights. At the outset, this is difficult because the literature has not been clear on how one can define the rights of women from which we can assess the situation of women in general and the situation of women in any country. It seems reasonable to use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948, to define women’s rights. The fifth paragraph of the preamble of the December 10, 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the commitment of the General Assembly of the United Nations in the equality of rights between men and women. Among the rights that were upheld in the General Assembly declaration of the United Nations include the right to life, liberty and security of persons under Article 3, right against torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under article 6, right against arbitrary interference under Article 12, freedom of movement under Article 13, right to work and free choice of employment under Article 23, right to education under Article 26, and right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community under Article 27. It follows that women have the same rights as men in enjoying rights like those we have mentioned in Articles 12, 13, 23, 26, and 27 as well as the other rights identified in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. In recent years, there have been talks pertaining to reproductive health rights. The said rights, although not identified in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, deserve attention. According to the United Nations Association in Canada, the general assembly in 1948 voted 48 votes to none in favour of the UN declaration and, thus, technically, the document is not legally binding among nations but the document constitute as a standard of achievement among nations. Further, according to the UN Association in Canada, although the declaration may not be binding among nations, the document is being “used to apply moral and diplomatic pressure on states that violate the declaration principles.” The 2012 report of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition has confirmed that patriarchy or male dominance continues to be an important problem in the 21st century. According to the organization, as late as 2012, “patriarchal principles and practices are aimed at the preservation of male power, and are therefore reflected in the formation of social and political structures and institutions, public discourses, and the broader social and cultural domains” (WHRDIC 2012, p. 2). In contrast, the 2010-2011 United Nations Annual Report of Women declared that the recent years have been a turning point for women or “without doubt, the last century has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of women’s rights, in one of the most profound social revolutions the world has ever seen” (UN 2011, p. 3). According to the UN Women Annual Report for 2010-2011, “one hundred years ago, only two countries allowed women to vote” (p. 3). However, today the right of women to vote is virtually universally recognized (UN 2011, p. 3). Yet at the same time, the same document noted that that “girls still are less likely to be in school than boys” (UN 2011, p. 3). The document noted other problems: 1) women compose two out three adult illiterate; 2) women have less right to land and credit; 3) women are paid less than men; and 4) fifty percent of women are in temporary jobs and the wage gap between genders average between 10 and 30 percent in favour of the men. In contrast, the ILO (2009) revealed that gender disparities are worsening because women without work increase from 6.0 percent in 2007 to 6.3 percent in 2008. The rates are much higher for women than for men because in the latter, it was 5.9 percent in 2008 from 5.5 percent in 2007 (ILO, 2009). II. Background It is a common perception that western nations have achieved better compared to Arab countries with regard to advancing women’s rights. As the OECD (2011, p. 6) pointed out, “gender equality in terms of participation in, and attainment of, education has been achieved in most OECD countries; girls have on average better grades and often outnumber boys among new college graduates.” Girls just like boys “generally participate in mandatory schooling for at least 10 years from age 5 or 6 onwards and participation in primary and most of secondary education is close to 100%” (OECD 2011, p. 9). Moreover, “tertiary attainment rates of women are now equal to or exceed those of men in OECD countries and beyond” (OECD 2011, p. 17). The OECD countries are largely composed of “western” nations that include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom and the United States (OECD 2012). Nevertheless, greater things have to be achieved. For example, there are gender gaps in employment. According to the OECD (2011), the gender gaps in employment are higher than the gender gaps in education in the OECD countries. Earlier, OECD (2006, p. 15) pointed out that “in a majority of countries, the gender gap is larger for the high wage earners.” According to the OECD (2006, p. 15), the implication is that in the OECD countries, “women are less likely to get into higher paid and managerial occupations.” Meanwhile, although there were significant strides in the advancement of women’s rights, strides are taking place differentially wherein the Arabic women appear to be lagging behind compared to their counterparts in the West. According the WHO (2007), “the League of Arab States adopted an Arab Human Rights Charter in 1994 but it never came to force” (p. 1). Nevertheless, according to the WHO (2007) document, “the Council of the League of Arab States adopted resolutions in 2002 and 2003 to “modernize” the 1994 Charter through the Arab Standing Committee on Human Rights.” But it was in 2004 that a charter was ratified. Yet, “the 2004 Charter is not in force yet since a sufficient number of Member States has not yet ratified it.” (UN 2007). Based on article 49 of the Charter, each member state of the Arab League has to ratify the Charter for the Charter to be in force (UN 2007). The Arab Charter on Human Rights contains a section that State parties have to implement and protect rights without distinction based on “race, colour, sex, language, religious belief, opinion, thought, national or social origin, wealth, birth or physical or mental disability (the right to non-discrimination” (UN 2007, p. 1). The exact words of Article 3 (1) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights are as follows, “…each State Party to the present charter undertakes to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the right to enjoy all the rights and freedoms recognized herein, without any distinction on grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, opinion, thought, national or social origin, property, birth or physical or mental disability.” However, Article 3 (3) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights appear to negate Article 3(1) through the following declaration, “Men and women are equal in human dignity, in rights and in duties, within the framework of the positive discrimination established in favour of women by Islamic Shari’a and other divine laws, legislation and international instruments” (Arab League 2004, p. 151). According to GTZ (2009, p. 1), “the Shari’a is derived from the Qur’an and Hadith---the texts that record the sayings and practice of the prophet Mohammed, which were compiled over a century after his death.” Thus, in effect, there are so-called positive discriminations tolerated under the Arab Human Rights Charter of 2004. According to the GTZ (2009, p. 1), “interpretations of Islamic sources as well as the Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) itself have been and still are almost exclusively in the hands of male religious scholars.” The GTZ (2009, p. 1) continued that “the effect is that the majority of the Islamic sources are interpreted in a patriarchal way.” Nevertheless, the Arab Declaration of Human Rights of 2004 has positive qualities. For example, Article 34 (4) provides that “no distinction between men and women shall be made in the exercise of right to benefit effectively from training, employment, protection of work, and equal pay for work, of equal value and quality” (Arab League 2004, p. 158). III. Women’s Rights in Australia versus Saudi Arabia We focus on the differences between women’s rights in Australia versus Saudi Arabia. It appears logical to conclude that women have more rights in Australia compared to their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. However, gender equality is by no means perfect in Australia as elsewhere in any advanced or western country of the world. For instance, in Australia, the OECD says that gender gap in gender participation rate between male and females is 16% in favour of the males (OECD 2011). Worst “the median earnings of women are 88% of that of men” in Australia (OECD 2011, p. 27). The OECD found that women in Australia spent more time on unpaid work compared to men (2011). Women in Saudi Arabia compose only 14.4 percent of the workforce (Human Rights Watch 2012). Yet, the Human Rights and Equality Commission of Australia has declared that “gender equality is a daily experience” in Australia (2008, p. 3). The Human Rights and Equality Commission of Australia (2008, p. 5) has made the declaration even as it recognized that “women working fulltime today earn 16 per cent less than men” or the same data reported by OECD in 2011. In addition, notwithstanding the declaration of “gender equality as an everyday experience in Australia,” the Human Rights and Equality Commission of Australia (2008, p. 6) declared its recognition of three features on the state of women equality with men in Australia. First, “women’s unpaid work is not properly valued by society.” Second, it is the women who usually leave the paid workforce to care for family members. And third, Australian women are usually employed in non-permanent position at work. Focusing on select specifics, we note the following differences between women’s rights in Australia versus women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. First, unlike in Australia where women have the right to vote and be elected, it was only recently, that Saudi Arabian women were given the right to vote and be elected. Unfortunately, based on the report of MacFarquhar (2012), the right appears limited to municipal, not national, elections. According to the BBC (2011), the restrictions on the women’s right to vote are an offshoot of a “strict version of the Sunni Islamic law.” Second, Saudi women’s travel are restricted because they have to be chaperoned unlike in Australia where women’s right to travel are ungoverned by such a rule (MacFarquhar 2012). Third, based on the 2011 Human Rights Watch report on Saudi Arabia, “Saudi Arabia continues to treat women as legal minors, allowing male guardians to determine whether a woman may work, study, marry, travel, or undergo certain medical procedures (2012, paragraph 3). In contrast, Australian women at least 18 years old may contract marriage in Australia without parental consent. Further, women of legal age may apply for work on their own in Australia. Women of legal age can decide on their own whether or not to avail medical procedures on doctor’s advice. In contrast, the Human Rights Watch reported that the Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia “has refused to issue a 43-year old divorced woman cardiologist a new passport without a male guardian approval” (2012, fifth paragraph). Related perhaps to the treatment of women as “legal minors,” the Human Rights Watch also reported that genders are segregated in Saudi Arabia unlike in Australia where the same is not practiced. Based on the Human Rights Watch report, gender segregation is also imposed in Saudi Arabia even in the workplaces unlike in Australia where the same is not practiced. Fourth, unlike in Australia where a woman can choose the work she likes, this is not the case in Saudi Arabia. For instance, “women cannot work as judges or prosecutors” in Saudi Arabia based on the report of the Human Rights Watch (2012, ninth paragraph). Fifth, unlike in Saudi Arabia, a parent can marry off his daughter for money based on the report of the Human Rights Watch (2012). The same would be unthinkable in Australia. The women’s right to decide who to marry is a right recognized in Australia, whether one is legally a minor or not. In the case of Saudi Arabia, parents can imposed on their children whom to marry. Finally or sixth, unlike in Australia, women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive (BBC, 2012). As last as June 2012 this year, a lady activist, Manal al-Sharif, was jailed in Saudi Arabia for driving. Worst, she was not really caught in the act but she was arrested for posting a video of herself driving in Saudi Arabia (BBC, 2012). MacFarquhar (2012) pointed out that if women are not allowed to drive then it follows that their ability to launch a campaign to get themselves elected will be constrained by ban on women to drive. IV. Summary and Conclusion Based on the foregoing the applicable summary and conclusion to make is that although one can assert that women’s equality with men in Australia is superior to that of Saudi Arabia as viewed from western or what can be asserted as globally recognized and widely accepted perspective, women’s equality with men in Australia is far from perfect and several issues have to be resolved. On the other hand, what has been perceived as relatively inferior state of equality women equality with men in Saudi Arabia is deeply linked with Islamic faith. In the case of Australia, advancing women’s rights can simply take the form of legislative reforms. In contrast, legislative reforms are probably not enough for women’s equality in Saudi Arabia to advance. The advancement of women’s equality in Saudi Arabia would probably involve reforms on how Saudi Arabians interpret their faith. Alternatively, the reforms can also take place simultaneous with a decrease in the influence of Islam in their national life. Finally, although recognition of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia are relatively far behind compared to Australia, a key achievement has been made in the women’s right to vote and be elected at the municipal level. The significant achievement can lead to more success in the future as Saudi Arabian women are more able to determine the course of their political life. 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