"Incest": a crime that must be punished by sharia and by law

Nablus / Zein Asqalan
"All I did wrong was that I was female and not male; he is a beast and not my brother." Those were the words of the victim M.S., who was the victim of the recklessness of an adolescent, her brother, who raped her and practised his brutality on her, robbing her of her virginity overnight and turning her into a mass of despair and frustration cast by the roadside of time, with no one to hear the scream that broke out in rebellion against her wound and her pain, and no one to answer her call. The victim, who began recounting the story to me with force and urgency, left me no choice but to set it down with my pen in written form, so that it may be a lesson to those with collapsed values and rusted hearts. She says: "I feel that everyone has the right to know what is happening, and when a discussion is raised with me about this subject I feel a hatred filling me towards my elder brother and I wish for his death. But when I settle down intellectually I begin to think about it, and it is an extremely difficult feeling in which my love for the one called my brother struggles on one side with what he did on the other. Often my eyes fill with tears before I finish that storm full of confused thoughts, for I do not love him as I did yesterday, and I also cannot hate him."
The victim, who opened the doors of her soul so her voice might escape, goes on: "My brother used to travel a great deal, and when he came back he would exploit the moments of his longing for me and begin with his touches and embraces. At first I saw this as an ordinary matter, for he was my brother. But one night, while I was asleep alone in my room, and it is not my habit to lock the door, my brother came into the room and began touching my body while I was asleep. I trembled and woke and was shocked by him and could not resist him, and he did what he did, and the greatest catastrophe of my life fell upon my head." And when I asked her about her feelings towards what had happened she replied: "I cannot describe my feelings, and even if I did I would not be truthful or precise, for my feelings mixed between my extreme fear of everyone around me, especially my brother, and regret and loneliness and terror (as if I were going to die). I was ashamed to mention the subject, and I did not speak to my brother or even look at him after that ill-fated night, and he did not try to speak to me or look at my face. Out of fear of scandal I decided to hide the matter, until a day came that I had not expected, when people came to visit us wanting to ask for my hand. When I came in they liked me very much and decided to ask for me for their son, and my family saw him as a catch of a bridegroom, especially as I did not like studying and had not completed my schooling. When my family agreed to the engagement and set a date for the marriage contract, they were surprised by my refusal, and that was the only time they saw my boldness, for I was very shy and afraid of my own shadow. When the family insisted on the bridegroom I told them the truth, and that truth was like a thunderbolt falling on their heads. They began screaming and beating me severely, and among them was my brother, who began striking my head as if he wished me to die, until I was unable to speak or scream, and I did not know what happened afterwards except that I found myself lying on a hospital bed."

The immunity of males
What we regret is that the perpetrator here was not given the punishment he deserved, because he is male, according to the victim, who burst into tears: "My family did nothing to punish my brother. My mother was shocked that her only spoiled one had committed such a grave act with his sister, and she did nothing but curse him, while my father threw him out of the house and then secured him work abroad in an Arab country, and he travelled at once, leaving me a catastrophe that cost me my future and made me hate the whole of Adam's race, because no one directed any accusation at him. Beyond that, ever since childhood the one they call my brother received pocket money greater than mine and my elder sister's, and no one asked him about the reasons for his coming home late, and no one knew anything about his friends or their morals. I still remember that he began smoking while he was young, and my uncles used to help him smoke in secret."

Out of a desire to bury the shame and kill the scandal, the victim's family repeatedly tried to kill her, which drove her to flee the house and take refuge with one of the bodies concerned in order to end this crisis, and she lived far from her family, of whom she no longer knows anything.
And in keeping with the differing ways of rape and sexual assault, the grandfather of one of the victims raped his granddaughter while she was sleeping beside him after her parents had travelled for her father's treatment abroad. He robbed her of her virginity and threatened to kill her if she told anyone, but the victim was an outstanding university student, and in her second year of study she took her own life by throwing herself from a high place.
And the victim S.D., who lives in one of the villages, was assaulted by her father while her mother was out of the house, and when she told her mother about the matter the father and the mother killed the girl at once.

Incest: a compound crime
The issue of rape is one of the thorny issues that carries within it much of the meaning of harshness, oppression and the robbing of the self and of honour, and leaves effects that are almost destructive, physically first and then psychologically and socially in their various forms, among them the phenomenon of the rape of females by males. Rape has become a crime that neither the law nor any divine religion forgives, since it is an extension of the intellectual backwardness and social disorder societies have faced since ancient times, where in wars of old the victorious armies would plunder, steal and rape the women of the defeated armies without mercy or pity and without respect for the humanity of the female, indeed with contempt for her dignity and her standing, until Islam came, and before it the other divine religions, forbidding rape and imposing the prescribed penalty on the perpetrator of the crime and inflicting on him the severest punishments. Yet societies, whatever their regions and their advancement, are hardly free of the sick of soul and the twisted of thought, who think only of their abject and animal desires, so that the wreckage of the self descended upon them and they drew before their eyes a curtain of humiliation and greed, and did not see the road of righteousness.
What calls for regret and disgust at one and the same time is that beliefs become lost, morals scattered and values expired so that they are no longer in force, leading some to commit what is called "incest", where the perpetrator of the crime does not assault just anyone, but assaults one of his own close relatives. It is a moral crime, where one of the male members of the family, such as the father, the brother or the grandfather and so on, sexually assaults or harasses one of his female relatives. Some of them assault their daughter or their sister, and sometimes the mother or the granddaughter. Here Dr. Maher Abu Zant of the sociology department at An-Najah National University says: "The crime of incest is one of the hidden crimes whose rate in society is difficult to determine, and although it occurs rarely compared with other crimes such as murder, theft and rape, the existence of a single case and a single crime in society is an extremely dangerous indicator."

The factors driving the commission of the crime of incest
Dr. Abu Zant adds: "There are many factors driving the commission of such a crime, and these factors may come singly or in combination. Foremost among them is the psychological factor, which may arise from a psychological and intellectual disorder in a person that stirs in him a search for this side of things, such as sexual arousal, or the disorder resulting from the desire to practise sex in an illegitimate and incorrect way. This is considered a kind of deviance or a kind of dysfunction in the brain and the psyche, so he looks for the nearest victim to satisfy his animal desire without thinking about what will result from that. And there are those who passed through oppressive circumstances in childhood, which generated in them a psychological pressure that became difficult to be rid of with the passage of time except in a bad and illegitimate way, so they turn to the wrong road to meet their needs. The other factor is the moral factor, where the weakness of a person's religious, moral and value-based restraint leads him to be unable to control family relations, so that in his view what is forbidden to him in sharia becomes permitted. This also results from poor family upbringing, keeping bad company, and parents failing to hold their children to account and failing to watch over them.
And there are other social factors that drive a person to commit the crime of incest. Dr. Abu Zant goes on: "Such as a defect in the marriage of a married person that drives him to rape, as when a father commits adultery with his daughter. This father may be married, but there is a difference in age between him and the mother, and so he looks for a substitute to have sex with, or he may suffer from a lack of sexual satisfaction from his wife and looks for the nearest victim. The second social cause is the weakness of the victim, particularly if she is young in age, so the assailant exploits her weakness, her fear and her lack of experience of life, and it may reach the point of having sex with her under threat. The third factor is connected with the population factor in particular, for those who live in overcrowded areas, as when the father, the mother and the children live in a single room because of their poor economic conditions. This creates a kind of arousal, so that if the father does this with his daughter, for example, it is because of preliminaries such as seeing her changing her clothes or while bathing or half undressed."
Also, the lack of awareness among families of the importance of separating their male and female children in bedrooms or beds is one of the principal factors, for as soon as both male and female reach puberty and therefore adolescence, both move to a new intellectual stage that the family may not take into account. Here the noble Messenger urged the importance of separating them in their beds, saying: "And separate them in their beds."
And the abundance of free time, which many children spend watching satellite channels that stir sexual desire and are indeed one of the means of arousal, particularly among young people. Among them are the visual and printed media and also the many sites on the electronic network, "the internet", that specialise in such matters, which many of them watch without their family's knowledge, so that it spreads its poison in their souls and they begin either imitating what they see before them or looking for a nearby victim with whom to practise vice, turning her into a helpless being in whom the least elements of life have been killed.

The effects on the victim
Incest has destructive effects, as Mr. Ahmed Abu Ayyash, director of the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, points out, saying: "It is tantamount to a complete or near-complete demolition of the personality of the one assaulted, and many things follow from this. When incest is practised on a girl, a kind of deep psychological complex is generated in her, particularly as she realises that she cannot marry. Some of them resort to suicide or to getting rid of the foetus if there is a pregnancy, out of fear of scandal. And not only that: it extends to psychological illnesses such as depression, the severe fear that accompanies the victim, withdrawal and difficulty in mixing with others, where she cannot speak and cannot complain."
He adds: "It becomes difficult to rebuild the self anew, because the one assaulted feels dissatisfied with herself and feels no respect towards herself and her dignity, which someone disfigured to satisfy an evil whim. This therefore creates in her a great feeling of inadequacy and guilt, even if it was practised on her under pressure and threat, and it is also difficult for the victim to break that solid barrier between her and society."
Beyond that, her capacity to produce and to develop in society is affected, and it becomes impossible for her to do any fruitful work that would pull her out of the walls of silence surrounding her on every side, particularly as her feeling that society is unjust to her keeps growing, for there is no one to take up her right and protect her, even if it be the law or the family, and the perpetrator is not given the appropriate punishment. This leads to a growing feeling of guilt and of hatred towards society, so she goes back to killing herself or killing the perpetrator, and the family stands at a crossroads: is this a matter of shame and scandal, or is there a victim here?

Killing or rehabilitation?
The victim needs rehabilitation and psychological and social counselling, where psychological rehabilitation is done by supporting and reordering the victim's psyche, restoring her self-confidence and making her aware of such crimes, and this is done through male and female specialists working in the field of psychological support and counselling.
As for the field of social support, Abu Ayyash says: "The victim is guided on how to resort to the law and how to obtain her right legally, if that is possible. Her social life is rebuilt and work is done to reintegrate her into society gradually, by providing her with simple work that guarantees her a safe living without her family harassing her. It is also possible to protect the victim by sheltering her in what are called safe houses, to protect her from being killed and to follow her up psychologically and legally through centres specialising in this field."
And if the victim's condition grows worse, then in rare cases she is referred to a doctor for treatment. On this, one of the doctors who treated one of the cases says: "Sometimes the victim's condition is very bad and she cannot be calmed and returned to her normal state except by treating her with medicines. Those are rare cases, where the victim, who becomes ill, needs to unburden herself continuously of what is on her mind in order to help herself recover, and if she cannot unburden herself she develops psychological illnesses that are difficult to treat except with medicines, which are the last thing we resort to in such a case."

Shame or injustice?
The Arab girl in general is ashamed to complain, out of fear of scandal, when she is raped or sexually exploited, so she prefers silence to admitting even to herself what happened. The nature of eastern society unfortunately does not help in protecting the girl and regarding her as a victim; rather it considers that a shame and a scandal, and many families work to kill the victim even when that criminal act was practised on her under threat, and they do not punish the perpetrator or take anything from him.
On this Abu Ayyash adds: "There is no doubt that the victim is completely destroyed if she is not rehabilitated socially and psychologically, particularly as she suffers from a negative view of her situation from the family and society, and this is a very dangerous indicator, because it is unreasonable that the victim should be turned into a criminal in the eyes of the family and relatives, and in many cases the family considers her the cause even if she was not the cause."
It is worth noting that eastern society is by its nature a male, patriarchal society, for the male is the head of the family and the ruler, and it is he who manages the details of social life within the family. The nature of the male's life is not limited, for he can move wherever he wishes and do what he wants, and therefore he is the one who decides. As for the female, many believe she is a lesser rib whose duty is only to obey and to say "yes", and her life is limited and bound by restrictions imposed by society and tradition more than by religion. And despite the development of societies and their keeping pace with the developments of the age, some customs and traditions still tear at us and place their blade at our necks, for the issue of incest has in our day turned into a clan and family matter, on the view that the negative consequences of incest show on the girl more than on the man.

Limiting the crime
Dr. Abu Zant comments: "The view towards the girl or the female in general must change, and there must also be a very great punishment for the perpetrator, whether by imposing the law or the necessary punishment, and the law must be derived from Islamic sharia, since Islam imposed the prescribed penalty on the one who commits adultery and counted this crime among the major sins. Work must be done to spread awareness among the members of society, particularly awareness of the importance of separation within the single family, especially for those living in overcrowded areas, because the crime of incest is a crime that is increasing in society, and this warns of nothing but a danger threatening the future of the nation and its young people."

And to limit the crime, moral, value-based and legal awareness must be created among individuals, as well as awareness of the methods of self-protection, along with work on training law enforcement institutions, "the police and others", in how to deal with these cases, training psychological and social specialists in how to deal with victims, focusing on the importance of religious restraint within every family, and working on educating those of a young age in all social respects.

The law and punishment
The laws currently in force regarding the issue of incest are laws that do not express a Palestinian society, since they are old laws not written by Palestinian hands, some of them Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian, and they do not do the victim full justice, since they do not guarantee her full protection. Therefore many resort to solving the problem in a family or clan manner rather than turning to the law. Lawyer Ashraf Hanani says: "Article 285 of the Jordanian penal code currently in force provides that incest between ascendants and descendants, whether legitimate or illegitimate, and between full brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters by father or mother, or those of their standing, is punishable by temporary hard labour for a period of not less than four years. And incest between a person and another person subject to his legitimate, legal or actual authority is punishable by temporary hard labour for a period of not less than five years. And according to article 286 of the Jordanian penal code, the incest described in the preceding article is prosecuted on the complaint of a relative or in-law of one of the offenders up to the fourth degree."
And in many cases accompanied by pregnancy, the girl disappears or flees the house until she gets rid of the foetus in order to avoid shame, and in this field too the woman or girl is punished with detention for a period of not less than five years and not more than fifteen years.

A word must be said
The Almighty says: "And when the girl buried alive is asked, for what sin she was killed." Killing ascendants or descendants to a certain degree is a crime against nature before it is a crime against the law, for whoever commits a crime against his daughter, his sister, his granddaughter or his mother, after having raped her, commits a hideous crime forbidden by God, and whoever does that is a criminal and ungrateful before God Almighty, because this involves a denial of the deepest bonds and the strongest ties, and is a violation of the sanctity of human feeling, for the tenderness of the ascendant towards the descendant has vanished in it, and the loyalty of the descendant towards the ascendant has disappeared.
And because we carry within us nothing but simple words that we wrap in all spontaneity and offer as moral and human support to one who suffers such a crime, life lies ahead of her, and collapsing in the face of this crime is of no use. Rather there are those who want to help her break the barrier of silence, and those who extend to her the ladder of rescue while she is in the middle of the sea. The safe houses still exist to protect her from the humiliation and harshness of eastern society, because Islam obliged the family and society to give the woman her right and to work on protecting her, and not the opposite. Of this the Arab poet said: "And the injustice of kin is more painful to the soul than the blow of a sharpened sword."