A center for Bedouin women's rights, which opened in Be'er Sheva last December, is helping financially disadvantaged women to fight for their rights.

When Amal (not her real name) got up the courage to file a wife-beating complaint with the police, she failed to take into account one thing: Her husband was indeed arrested, but this cost her his National Insurance Institute (NII) allowance, on which the couple and their eight children lived.

The center helped her to fight and secure single-mother status. She got back the NII stipend and her peace of mind.

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The center operates under the auspices of the nationwide organization Itach-Ma'aki: Women Lawyers for Social Justice. The advocacy group provides legal aid to advance the rights of financially disadvantaged women. The Be'er Sheva branch recognized the particular needs of Bedouin women, and with the help of The Abraham Fund, which promotes Jewish-Arab equality and coexistence, it established the center.

Insaf Abu Shareb, 27, is the new center's lawyer. Becky Cohen Keshet, 36, is the director of Itach's Be'er Sheva branch. Both say that one of the major bureaucratic problems facing Bedouin women is the fight to be recognized as single mothers. The NII does not recognize a Bedouin woman as a single parent as long as she lives near her husband, a policy stemming from the widespread practice of polygamy. But a wife who moves away from her husband's place of abode risks losing custody of her children.

Many women are caught in this bind - living near their children's father, who does not support them or even maintain any contact with them, yet not recognized as single mothers.

Many of these cases are referred by regional welfare authorities to Itach's new center.
Sarah (not her real name), who lives in an unrecognized Bedouin village, is a good example of the women the new unit serves. She has three children from a husband who regularly beat her and is also married to two other women.

A year ago, she decided to flee from her husband's shack to her mother's home, located four kilometers away. Sarah's marriage is not recognized by the state because she is a second wife. Her only recourse is to prove spousal abuse in order to qualify for single-parent status. But Sarah never went to the police while she lived with her husband. Thus she is facing an uphill battle with the NII, and the legal rights center is proving a real lifesaver.