In Arab countries, women and men are not equal in marriage. A wife is only allowed to marry one man at a time, although a husband is able to have four wives at a time. Also, women have to be compliant with their husbands, and if they aren’t …show more content…
When women are raped in Arab countries, instead of getting protection and justice, they have the possibility of being incarcerated for unlawful sexual intercourse. The law system in the Middle East does not care about the safety of a women, but rather if the woman is "pure" or not. Many rape victims are persuaded to marry their rapist. If they refuse to marry their attacker, they have a chance of being the target of an honor crime. An honor crime is the punishment of a woman at the hands of her family members in order to restore honor to her family. To prove that a Middle Eastern women was raped, the rapist must “confess or four male witnesses must testify that the rape occurred” (The Religion of Peace, “Rape and Adultery”). Also, Islamic law forbids the use of forensics to prove a rape victim's case. If the accused does not confess to sex of any kind (consensual or not), the accuser is punished of unlawful intercourse while the accused is not. Another jarring fact about rape cases is that, in 2013, Syria's chief Mufti declared that soldiers are legally allowed to rape captured women for religious reasons. However, the captured women are unable to receive justice due to the “unlawful sexual intercourse”