It was 4am when Asma Dawaghreh fled her home with her sick husband and six children. With nothing but the loose change in her pockets, she packed her family into a car and left under the cover of darkness.
Her family is one of dozens uprooted every year in the kingdom under the tribal practice of jalwa — Arabic for “eviction” — in which an entire clan can be forced to relocate because of a crime committed by a family member.
In Dawaghreh’s case, a nephew on her husband’s side of the family stabbed his cousin to death, forcing three dozen relatives to flee their village in northern Jordan.
Photo: AP
The Dawaghrehs fled, fearing revenge killings, and then found that they were barred from returning. In exile, they were pressured into selling their supermarket, the family’s source of income.
Three years on, they have moved home six times and are increasingly impoverished.
“I can’t even afford to buy bread now. What is my crime? What is my son’s crime ... my husband’s crime?” said the 40-year-old, speaking in the family’s latest refuge, a run-down apartment in the northern city of Irbid.
“We had no business in this,” she said.
Jalwa predates the 1946 founding of modern Jordan. It is rooted in tribal tradition, according to which the practice was applied in cases of murder or rape when the assailant and the victim lived in the same area.
Although jalwa is not written into Jordanian civil law, the practice continues unchallenged — sometimes with the support of civil institutions — because of the country’s strong tribal influence. Over the years, tribal leaders and local authorities have arranged the forced relocation of hundreds of people across the nation. In some cases, relatives of the attacker as distant as a fifth cousin have had to move.
Supporters say forced relocation prevents blood feuds between tribes, while critics denounce it as collective punishment.
The Jordanian government is now trying to scale back the practice, proposing to limit forced relocation to the perpetrator and his immediate family. The initial period of banishment would be one year, with the possibility of extension.
The proposed amendment was adopted by the Jordanian Cabinet earlier this year. It now awaits approval by parliament and a signature by Jordanian King Abdullah II. If the amendment is passed, it will be the first time jalwa is enshrined in civil law.
Jordanian Ministry of the Interior tribal affairs head Turki Akho Arsheidah said that the government is trying to adapt tribal law to modern times.
Jordanians have homes and jobs, and can not just pack up tents and move to a different area, as during their nomadic past, Arsheidah said.
“We have to implement these amendments to adapt to the 21st century,” he said.
“In Jordan, tribal identity is connected to Jordanian identity,” Israeli historian Yoav Alon said.
Instead of ending tribal customs, the government has tried to strike a compromise with the tribes, who are the mainstay of the Hashemite monarchy.
Constitutional law expert Omar Jazi said that jalwa amounts to collective punishment and breaches the nation’s constitution.
“You cannot deprive anyone of his or her constitutional right, that can’t be tolerated,” Jazi said. “Jalwa does not make sense within a civic society, within the rule of law, and within the type of society we are living in.”
Some tribal leaders argue that reforms would be difficult to carry out and that Jordanians prefer the swift justice of tribal law.
“Civil law is weak, it could take up to six years or more for a court case to proceed,” said Sheik Hayeel al-Hadeed, a tribal leader from the capital, Amman.
The plight of the Dawaghreh family illustrates the practical difficulties of enforcing jalwa in modern times.
Before the eviction, the family lived with other clan members in an apartment complex in a village south of Irbid. Dawaghreh asked that the name of the community be withheld, to avoid causing harm to relatives through renewed public attention.
They fled their home in 2013, almost immediately after receiving a call from a relative informing them of the killing.
A year later, some members of the assailant’s clan reached a financial settlement with the victim’s family, including payment of 50,000 Jordanian dinars (US$70,000).
In theory, the deal enabled them to return, but Dawaghreh said she had been pressured to sell their supermarket to the victim’s family.
As a result, the family bounced from apartment to apartment, struggling to pay rent.
In Irbid. Dawaghreh cooks or babysits to make money. Her husband, who has cancer, works as a security guard.
Dawaghreh wants jalwa abolished, but is not hopeful.
“No one can interfere in the jalwa of the tribes, not the government, not the members of parliament ... not the ministries, nobody,” she said.
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