Progress Amid Resistance

402 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA14 of 2004). 5 Domestic workers are protected under a different decreeissued in 2008, which stipulates that domestic workers are to work only inconditions agreed upon by both parties and should not be forced to workin a way that would insult them either mentally or physically. The sponsormust provide them with suitable accommodation and health care andpay the agreed-to salary into the worker’s bank account at the end of everymonth or three days after. If the worker has no bank account there shouldbe a proof that the salary was paid in full.Despite legal protections, domestic workers who do face physical, mental,and sexual abuse are often reluctant to seek court protection due to fearsof job loss and deportation. It is thus too early to tell how effective the newlaws will be, particularly without significantly strengthened enforcementmechanisms and public education about their existence.Both the Penal Code (No. 11 of 2004) and the Code of Criminal Procedure(No. 23 of 2004) treat men and women equally. Accused criminalsare presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and are en -titled to all “necessary legal assistance” under Article 39 of the constitution.Although Shari‘a prohibits all forms of physical violence, the Qatarilegal system often treats leniently those men who commit acts of violenceagainst women who, in their view, behave immodestly. 6 In January 2007,the sentence of a Jordanian teenager convicted of murdering his sister wasreduced by an appeals court from three years’ imprisonment to a one-yearsuspended sentence. The sentence was reduced because the court foundthere to be insufficient evidence to establish premeditated murder. Thisruling overturned the lower court, which had held that it was a premeditatedmurder based on the suspect’s admitted displeasure that the sister hadbeen having a “telephone affair” with one of his friends. The lower court,however, stopped short of calling it an honor killing because the autopsyproved that the sister was still a virgin. 7Article 36 of the constitution protects all persons from arbitrary arrestand detention, and Article 38 protects citizens from exile. In practice,un justified gender-based imprisonment and detention are rare. Prisonsgenerally meet international standards, with overcrowding as the mainconcern, and women are held separately from men. At the end of 2004,women constituted only 1.1 percent of convicted prisoners, down significantlyfrom 11.8 percent in 2000. 8 Detention centers for noncitizensawaiting de portation, however, have been roundly criticized by both theNHRC and international bodies as failing to satisfy detainees’ basic rights