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VI. JORDAN’S OBLIGATIONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

Jordan is a party to international human rights treaties protecting women and girls from gender-based violence and discrimination.¹³³ In 1975, Jordan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which requires governments to ensure the rights to life and security of all individuals in their jurisdiction, without distinction of any kind, including gender.¹³⁴ In 1992, Jordan ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), specifically assuming the obligation to protect women from discrimination and gender-based violence perpetrated by both state and private actors.

By definition “honor” crimes are committed by private actors. Nonetheless, states parties to CEDAW are still bound to protect women’s lives and physical security. General Recommendation 19, adopted by the CEDAW Committee in 1992, reinforces this principle, noting that “states may also be responsible for private acts if they fail to act with due diligence to prevent violations of rights, or to investigate and punish acts of violence.”¹³⁵

Official involvement in the forcible infliction of virginity exams violates guarantees of freedom from discrimination found in CEDAW and the ICCPR.¹³⁶ Such exams also violate provisions of the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ensuring the right to bodily integrity.¹³⁷ When conducted against the will of the girl or woman and with no medical justification, the examinations are themselves a form of sexual abuse. They are degrading and intimidating, both as a physical violation and for the threatened consequence of loss of family honor.¹³⁸

In the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted in 1993, the U.N. General Assembly affirmed states’ obligation to protect women from violence. The declaration explicitly provides that “states should condemn violence against women… [and] exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and in accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women” and emphasizes that the declaration applies regardless of whether acts of violence are perpetuated by the state or by private actors.¹³⁹

International law addresses situations in which custom and tradition interfere with the treatment of women as citizens and human beings with the same rights as men. Under CEDAW, the government of Jordan has an obligation to “modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.”¹⁴⁰

Furthermore, international human rights law guarantees women the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters relating to their sexuality free of coercion, discrimination, and violence.¹⁴¹ International protections for the right of women to sexual autonomy can also be found in the principal of bodily integrity enumerated in ICCPR provisions on liberty and security of person.¹⁴² Therefore, when a woman is severely punished for pre-marital sex, her right to make free decisions regarding her body is violated.