Femicide and the Palestinian Criminal Justice System: Seeds of Change in the Context of State Building?

Despite the criminalization of abuses inflicted upon women, laws are still considered major sources of women's oppression. This article discusses how Palestinian society and its criminal justice system, during a politically formative period of state building, relates to "femicide." Femicide in this study pertains to the murder of girls or women for allegedly committing "crimes of family honor." Official statistics, Cassation Court rulings, and six documented cases were analyzed in depth to determine the role played by the penal code, the legal system, and the external sociocultural context in exonerating the perpetrator of femicide and placing the victim on trial. The data reflect a silent masculine conspiracy that empowers sexist and gender-biased legal policies. The article concludes by challenging Palestinian legislators to fight legal discrimination against women. It argues that state-building periods can be a "window of hope," offering societies such as Palestine's the unique opportunity to reexamine and reconstruct their laws from a gender-sensitive position. Introduction The killing of women for reasons related to their perceived or actual misconduct is not a neoteric historical phenomenon; femicide is as old as patriarchy. Females continue to be killed because of their gender, despite the emergence of increased tolerance and sociopolitical and legal changes. Notwithstanding recent efforts in many societies to control violence against women through criminalization of such abuses and modification of legal systems and codes, policymakers and criminal justice professionals continue to be influenced by the sociopolitical, patriarchal legacy of the formal legal system, as well as the cultural and political context of informal legal codes (Merry 1995; Shalhoub-Kevorkian 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b). Stanko (1985) has shown that the law is gender-biased, particularly in the context of crimes of violence against women. Legal personnel involved in prosecuting such crimes, the criminal proceedings themselves, and even the families of victims, continue to be prejudiced in this respect. In Palestinian society, as in many Arab countries, femicide may occur in response to "crimes of honor"; that is, actual or perceived behavior of girls and women, generally involving their sexuality, considered socially and culturally taboo. As such "immoral" behavior is believed to tarnish the honor of the woman's family, femicide in reaction to "crimes of honor" is usually committed by her relatives. As will be shown, the sociocultural roots of this phenomenon are so deep that the Palestinian legal system fails to deter it, blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator. In the context of an ongoing struggle for the liberation and economic and political independence of Middle Eastern women, there are signs of resistance to sociocultural norms that encourage violence against females (Afshar 1993). Notwithstanding the sexism of certain legal policies and codes, the law has been a major tool that can also support women in their fight against social inequality and gender discrimination. Indeed, the legal system has contributed to change in the social and political perception of and reaction to violence against women. This study is based on official statistics, court rulings, and an in-depth analysis of six legal records of femicide cases. The latter reflect the narratives of cases in which Palestinian women were killed in the name of cleansing the "tarnished honor" of their families. Herein, I consider the position of the Palestinian society's legal system toward these crimes of violence against females. In the context of the politically formative period of state building and of resistance to various forms of oppression, the study questions whether the Palestinian legal system can be reconstructed in a gender-sensitive manner. In other words, can the state-building process and the aspiration to construct a democratic society promote legal and social human rights and protect women from "legalized" violence (Abdo 1999; al-Rais 2000; al-Saadawi 1993; CEDAW 2001; Dara'awi & Zhaika 2000)? …