Libya: Bad behavior toward women in public 'risks damaging the country's development'

by: Salaam

Thu Nov 20, 2008 at 19:29:17 PM EST

Clothing in a Tripoli store last year. Said the photographer Sebastià Giralt: "I was shocked by the gay colors (and the daring) of the women's clothing sold everywhere, a great contrast with the dark cloths that almost all women wear in the street...so that is like "underwear" clothing, just visible in private life."

More Libyan women are venturing from home in search of work but they complain of antiquated male attitudes that decades of gender equality reforms have failed to dislodge.

Muammar Qhaddafi's 1969 Islamic Socialist revolution began a gradual improvement in the legal rights of women, who once could not walk the streets without a headscarf and the presence of a male relative.

Female illiteracy has fallen over the years and today's women can seek careers where their mothers could only hope to be housewives. Polygamy is restricted and child marriage banned.

But the streets of Tripoli remain a male preserve where women are often subjected to verbal abuse and harassment.

Single women in western dress say they are taken for prostitutes and avoid taxis after dark for fear of being molested.

Yolanda Zaptia, a foreigner married to a Libyan, said Libyan men must get used to seeing more women in public and behave better or risk damaging the country's development.

"The authorities need to confirm that this male behavior is unacceptable," she wrote in the Tripoli Post newspaper. "If Libya wants to increase the number of women making an active contribution to the economy they must be better protected."

Story here.