RAMALLAH, West Bank — In a divorce court where a man’s testimony is worth twice a woman’s, victory for lawyer Reema Shamasneh is rare and often bittersweet.
On this morning, a young nurse is desperate to end her marriage to a truck driver who she says beat her, doused her with scalding tea and kept her from seeing her dying mother. But her husband will only agree if she forgoes all alimony, including the $14,000 stipulated in the marriage contract.
Eager to escape and claim her young son, she says yes. The man stands before a copy of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, and repeats after an Islamic judge: “You are divorced.”
Shamasneh blinks back tears of relief and frustration, and then quickly composes herself. “This is not a big victory,” the 39-year-old lawyer says with an air of quiet determination. “I gave her what she wanted, but at the same time I am not happy because she gave up her rights.”
Dressed in the headscarf and long robe of a devout Muslim, Shamasneh fights for Arab women in the most intimate arena of their lives: Marriage and divorce.
Shamasneh believes the laws are the way they are because they were passed by men.
“They were raised in a certain culture that says men are better than women, and this is reflected in the laws,” she says.
As a girl in the farming village of Qatana, Shamasneh would see women get the leftovers at wedding feasts, after the men. And while her four brothers could come and go, she and her five sisters had to account for their limited movements.
“Until now, there is discrimination, even with simple things,” she says. “This makes me angry.”
However, her father Mohammed, a retired contractor, wanted all his children, including the girls, to get an education. Shamasneh chose law, a profession that turned out to be a good fit for her pragmatic, analytical nature.
Her 74-year-old mother Amneh, sitting across from Shamasneh, says she is proud of her daughter’s success. But her mother was against her studies, Shamasneh interjects.
“At the time, it was shameful for a woman to study and have a job,” Amneh says apologetically.
On a typical day, Shamasneh arrives before 9 a.m. at the Islamic courthouse in Ramallah. One recent morning, she meets a 25-year-old client, a thin, pale woman in a frayed green robe who says she wants a divorce from her abusive husband.
Her father is also there to testify on her behalf, but her brother didn’t turn up because he was sick. Shamasneh sternly cautions her client that this may hurt her case, because the court usually requires two male witnesses or a man and two women.
In a small victory, the judge rules later that day that the case can move forward.
The growing presence of female lawyers like Shamasneh has helped create more empathy for women going through divorce. When Shamasneh began practicing 15 years ago, female lawyers were rare.
Now women occasionally outnumber men in the courthouse.
There’s even a female judge. Kholoud Al-Faqeeh defends the law in principle, saying that it reflects different gender roles, and that women sometimes fail to exhaust their legal rights. — AP
