UN Women says such \u201coutdated and discriminatory laws\u201d impede justice
\n Gaza
\nSeventeen-year-old Istabraq Baraka fell pregnant soon after her wedding in the Gaza Strip. Three months later her husband killed her.
\n\u201cShe died from a severe beating, which caused bleeding on the brain and lungs and broken ribs,\u201d said her mother Nazmiya.
\nSitting with her husband Suleiman in a garden in Abassan, near the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the Palestinian territory, the 53-year-old talks at lightning speed about last year\u2019s killing of one of her two daughters, as well as the loss of an unborn grandchild.
\nIstabraq\u2019s father wipes tears away with the corner of a red-and-white keffiyeh wrapped around his head.
\nHe laments the slow pace of legal proceedings since his daughter\u2019s husband handed himself in to the police shortly after the killing.
\n\u201cThe perpetrator admitted his crime, a year and a month until now and nothing\u2019s happened,\u201d said the 70-year-old.
\nFemicide is on the rise in Gaza, according to figures from the Women\u2019s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, a Palestinian civil society group.
\nThe organisation registered six killings and suspicious deaths related to domestic violence in 2019, a figure which rose to 19 the following year.
\nUN Women said the situation worsened at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which resulted in the \u201clockdown of survivors of violence with their abusers\u201d.
\nAyah Alwakil, a lawyer from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said women can consider violence from their husbands normal behaviour in Gaza\u2019s patriarchal society, which has been controlled by the Hamas Islamist group since 2007.
\n\u201cSome women don\u2019t know their rights and some others are afraid of going to court, for lack of family support,\u201d she added.
\nThe Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said 38 percent of women in Gaza faced physical or psychological violence from their husbands in 2019, but Alwakil estimated the true figure to be far higher.
\nTied up, left to die
\nMen convicted of killing their wives can be jailed or face the death penalty. But the sentence is reduced if they commit a so-called \u201chonour killing\u201d, in which a relative is murdered because they are deemed to have brought shame to the family.
\nUN Women says such \u201coutdated and discriminatory laws\u201d impede justice.
\nAdditionally, those seeking to escape domestic violence risk losing their children.
\nIf a wife obtains a divorce, custody passes to the ex-husband once a daughter turns 11 or a son reaches nine.
\nNoha Khaziq, 31, stayed with her abusive husband because they had four children.
\nHe killed her in February.
\n\u201cHer husband tied her up and left her at home so that she couldn\u2019t escape and get out. When he returned she was dead,\u201d said her brother Abdelaziz, who shares his sister\u2019s green eyes.
\n\u201cWe feel satisfied with the death sentence ruling against the husband, five months after the heinous crime, but we demand the sentence be enforced quickly,\u201d said the 28-year-old.
\nThe Khaziq family has not seen Noha\u2019s children since she was killed, because custody was granted to their father\u2019s relatives.
\n\u2018Not on women\u2019s side\u2019
\nFifteen years since the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza began, it is almost impossible for women fleeing violence to leave the Palestinian enclave.
\nIn a territory home to 2.3 million residents, around 40 women are staying in only two specialised refuges.
\nWhen AFP visited one of them, a woman with bruises covering one side of her face sat in a corner. She was about to return to her husband, rather than risk losing access to her children.
\n\u201cThe law is not on women\u2019s side all the time in the Gaza Strip,\u201d said Aziza Elkahlout, a spokeswoman for the social development ministry which runs one of the refuges.
\n\u201cWe thought of opening the safe house because of the injustice women are exposed to,\u201d she added, blaming the Israeli blockade for Gaza\u2019s dire living conditions.
\nBut such reasoning is inadequate for Suleiman Baraka, who says the authorities are partly responsible for his daughter\u2019s killing.
\n\u201cThe government helps the offender because it doesn\u2019t take any immediate decisions,\u201d said Istabraq\u2019s father.
\nHe is reminded of his daughter every time he reaches for his phone, whose screen shows a photo of him with his two girls.
\nMore than a year since Istabraq was killed, he warned that delays in reaching justice only \u201cencourage criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN Women says such \u201coutdated and discriminatory laws\u201d impede justice Gaza Seventeen-year-old Istabraq Baraka fell pregnant soon after her wedding in the Gaza Strip. Three months later her husband killed her. \u201cShe died from a severe beating, which caused bleeding on the brain and lungs and broken ribs,\u201d said her mother Nazmiya. Sitting with her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-273513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n