generalspeaking

 Being Happy

"I am very, very happy", said the young woman. Who might ever imagine a woman visiting a foreign country and being raped by a collegial conference attendee, reporting the outrage to authorities and being summarily arrested for a grave offence according to that country's domestic laws, might confess to being "happy". No woman is "happy" after being raped, and no woman could ever be anything but aghast that her appeal to the authorities results in her being charged with a criminal offence.

Clearly, Marte Dalelv, 24 years of age, and of an obvious ambitious and confident nature in setting out to assert herself professionally in the United Arab Emirates, was "happy" because the authorities in Dubai relented, allowing her to depart the country, dropping the 16-month sentence levied against her for outraging the nation's expectations on the behaviour of all those who live within its confines. She may have been a victim of rape but she was also convicted of engaging in sex outside marriage.

This is, needless to say, Islamic Sharia law where women are never innocent of anything, particularly when an outrage is committed against them, forcing sex upon their bodies by men incapable of resisting a woman's clear invitation to availability through the medium of social relaxation. Marte Dalelv knows her human rights in Norway where she was born and raised, she obviously had no idea of her lack of human rights in Dubai.

That gap in her education has now been closed. Ms. Dalelv had the experience of having sex forced upon her after an evening out with acquaintances who had attended a business conference. After cocktails, she was raped by a co-worker. She fled to the hotel lobby, asking that police be summoned. The hotel staff asked, was she entirely certain she meant to involve police?

"Of course I want to call the police. That is the natural reaction where I am from", she responded. Which led to this naif being held in custody for four days, and finally the indignity of  sentencing to a sixteen-month confinement in prison, as just punishment for illicit sex outside marriage, and just incidentally consumption of alcohol, technically illegal in Islamic societies.

Her attacker, a 33-year-old Sudanese man was charged with an identical offence and received a lesser sentence. And he was cleared by a pardon, which goes a long way to restoring confidence in the judicial system in the UAE. Ms. Dalelv's Qatar-based employer, Al Mana Interiors, fired her after having claimed she "ceased communications" with the company following her unfortunate run-in with the law in Dubai.

And then reversed itself, when Thomas Lundgren, owner of The ONE, the Dubai-based company whose franchise Al Mana represents explained that the firing represented "a mistake". Ms. Dalelv is free to return and take up her position with the company, should she so desire.

Labels: Human Relations, Islamism, Justice, Middle East, Sexism

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 24, 2013