Progress Amid Resistance

QATAR 409Violence against women has been officially recognized by governmentofficials as an important issue in need of attention. During a two-day seminarheld in November 2008, a representative of the SCFA called upon thecountry to address violence against women openly and without shame.The event, which followed another held in November 2006, gatheredwomen’s rights leaders from around the world, including the UN specialrapporteur on violence against women, to discuss how to prevent violencefrom occurring, protect victims, and effectively prosecute perpetrators. 40Some protection from domestic violence is provided by social networksrather than by law. Notably the tendency toward family endogamy (a culturalpreference fo r marriage between cousins) offers some protection towomen because an abuser married to his cousin would have to answer tohis wife’s parents, who are members of the same clan and may come to herdefense. As family standing is critical to economic and social access andsuccess in Qatar, this pressure can be formidable.There are few, if any, independent, nongovernmental women’s rightsgroups working on domestic violence or immigrant women’s rights issuesin Qatar, and no organizations of female lawyers or independent legal aidgroups operate in the country.RecommendationsF The government should criminalize domestic violence and take effectivemeasures to prosecute offenders and protect victims by, amongother things, increasing police and medical training to recognize andintervene where abuse is evident, continuing to conduct workshopsand seminar series intended to help society overcome its reluctance toaddress the issue, and providing shelter and economic aid to victims ofdomestic abuse and their dependent children.F The government should rescind the law requiring a male guardian’spermission for a woman to obtain a driver’s license and abolish rulesthat may prohibit women from travelling freely.F The government should deepen its commitment to fighting humantrafficking by establishing more severe punishments for violators andby more strictly enforcing existing labor laws.F To further understand the extent to which trafficking is an issue andhow to allocate its resources better, the government should collectgender-disaggregated data regarding how many people are trafficked