CEDAW from an Islamic Perspective: Jordan Reservation to Some of the Articles and its Effect on Women's Right

Abstract

One of the most controversial human rights issues in the Middle East is woman's right issues as this region is considered a unique and dynamic region related to implementing CEDAW as a result of the region's social, political and economic diversity and the multi-cultural map. Accordingly, there are many social, political and legal obstacles face women to achieve quality in this area.  Although most states in the Middle East have ratified in CEDAW convention, but some of these states (Jordan one of them) have entered reservations related tothe primacy of the Islamic law for the reason of incompatibility with the provisions of CEDAW.

Therefore the primary objective of this study is to better understanding the studies that concern with women and their rights, in addition to exploring the justification by Jordan expressing the reasons that cause its reservation to some CEDAW's articles in which some of them were related to Islamic religious law and othersconcerning the difficulty to implement some of the convention's articles as it has offended the internal and family laws.

The main research question in this study states that why did Jordan reserve on some of CEDAW articles and how some of these articles do differ from the Islam law?To achieve the study goals the study used the descriptive analytical approach being the best for answering the main research questions.The data that is collected for this thesis consists of qualitative data through analyzing mechanisms, reports by Jordanian government, Amnesty International, Human Right Watch and other related organizations issuing important reports on implementing of CEDAW and the status of human rights, in addition of providing overview of the human rights situation in Jordan and the changes that take place over the years.

The study reached to many conclusions, the most important is if CEDAW comes into force and is implemented in the Muslim countries then the result will be going against the Islamic law of life.