In a patriarchal society like Jordan's, people put traditions and social misconceptions ahead of the law or even religion in dealing with certain situations, and women are not aware of the rights guaranteed to them.
This is what Taghreed Al-Dughmi, human rights lawyer and radio show presenter, realized through the court cases she worked with and through her interactions with listeners of her general legal awareness show on the community radio station Radio Al-Balad - "My Right."
"We sensed a dire need for a program that focuses specifically on women's legal issues," she says. So Radio Al-Balad launched the show "Women Decision Makers," funded by the Gender and Social Fund/CIDA.
The program took issues that women deal with in their everyday lives, and helped them understand the laws related to them, what procedures they need to take, what their rights are, and who to go to in order to resolve the problem.
"Some women know their rights and know what they need to do," says Taghreed, "but because of society's stereotypes and social stigma, they're afraid to take actual steps to address their problems, so we try to help them."
"Women Decision Makers" brought a lot of previously taboo issues under the spotlight. One such issue was virginity tests. Parents or fiances would take their daughters or fiances to the Center for Forensic Medicine and request that they undergo tests to ensure they were virgins before their first night of marriage. This was a subject previously untouched by the media.
Taghreed regularly sent summaries of every episode's content to local newspapers and media outlets, and they often published it as is. "With the virginity tests episode, instead of just publishing what we sent them, they sent their reporters to cover this story," she says. "As a result, numerous extensive reports appeared in the local media."
"For at least four months after the episode aired, local papers kept covering it and the public debate around it grew," she added. "It was the first time this topic was debated and given so much attention by the media."
Another episode addressed the marriage contract, and the conditions a woman is entitled to request. One man called in and was furious. "He accused us of promoting ideas that go against Islam," she said. "And then he just hung up."
Taghreed and her guest speaker on that episode went on to explain that Islam grants a woman the right to request certain conditions in the contract. The following week, the same man called in again and apologized on air, acknowledging that he was wrong. "He said he took a recorded copy of the episode to an imam and asked him for a religious opinion," says Taghreed. "And the imam told him that what we said on the show was correct."
For Taghreed, this was one example of the kind of difference the program was making.
She realizes that a lot remains to be done and that change is incremental, but she firmly believes that many women's lives can improve when such debates are started.
