The Muslim Woman

After the proposal of ban on burqa, more than a dozen women remonstrated outside the Dutch parliament. They wore a niqab, long robes and veils that expose only their eyes. Ayse Bayrak, protest organizer said, ‘We live in a free country and the government cannot tell us what to do with our religion. We don’t live in a dictatorship. We don’t live under the Taliban, which oppresses women’. Hardline Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is trying to stop the legislation banning the burqa and other clothes that cover the face in public places. However, its not clear whether the new coalition government will accept the views of Verdonk’s Liberal Party or not. There are clear signs of a shifting away from the Netherlands’ traditional spirit of tolerance as the country struggles with how to incorporate the mounting immigrant population. Out of 16 m people in Dutch, nearly 6% are Muslim. Image Read

The Taliban Movement was a Sunni Islamist fundamentalist movement that successfully ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. The Taliban government has been severely condemned for violating the human rights of women. They were compelled to wear ‘burqa’ of specific length and slight variation could result in public punishment, as women were beaten with thin sticks at the ankles for wearing burqas that were ‘too short’. Moreover, the women were deprived of elementary education and voting as well. Today, there is no such regime in Afghanistan so the rhetoric situation should be… woman and man working together in all the walks of life. However, this is not the actual picture. The living condition of women folk in Afghanistan is so bleak that they prefer self- immolation since they consider it to be the only way out to escape the harshness of life in this conservative and violence-plagued country. A case like the previous one has come up again and this time, a sixteen-year-old girl has become the victim of this pernicious trend… a trend of detesting life and giving oneself to immolation. After marrying a forty-year-old man, Gulsum, a sixteen-year-old girl’s life became miserable. It started to deteriorate further as her husband, became accustomed to heroin, alcohol and started manhandling her. The abuse became worse when she confronted him about his addictions, unable to bear any longer, she took the extreme step of self-immolation by dousing herself with gas and letting herself to ablaze. This is one such case, which has become known, but there are lots of them that are still covered in the name of religion or some ‘psychological problem’. Present scenario: Statistically, there were 93 such cases last year and 54 so far this year and more than 70 percent of these women have passed away. Womankind Worldwide says millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face systematic discrimination and violence in their households and communities. However, guarantees given to Afghan women after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 have not translated into real change. These abuses including rapes, assaults and other such crimes are being committed with total impunity by government forces and armed political groups who are prepared to terrorize the civilian population in order to secure and reinforce their power bases. Who could be the culprits: While frequently claiming that they wish to ‘restore’ religious, ethnic and humane standards, those engaged in the fighting have persistently indulged in widespread human rights abuses and looting of property. Even non-violent groups such as women’s organizations have been systematically targeted for attacks. Consequent upon which, women find no shelter to shed their grievances. What could be done: 1. Issuing a clear warning to the military factions in Afghanistan that the world’s governments will not ignore abuses of human rights against women and other civilians. 2. Ensuring that standards set out in international humanitarian and human rights law designed to protect women’s rights are upheld in Afghanistan. At present, women who are working to promote development, equality and peace in Afghanistan risk imprisonment, torture and other human rights violations and abuses. 3. Publicly state their commitment, ensuring that the intergovernmental bodies which monitor human rights violations against women, including the UN Commission on Human Rights and its Special Reporter on violence against women , the UN Commission of the Status of Women and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, have adequate resources to carry out their tasks effectively. 4. Support education and training programs in Afghanistan designed to promote awareness of women’s rights as human rights. 5. All governments, particularly those in Pakistan and Iran, to respect fully the rights of Afghan refugees and offer them adequate protection, both at border-posts and in refugee camps. Image Read

I guess, Taliban style regime is not far away from now in the Gaza strip. Recently some anonymous group who personify itself the Just Swords of Islam has come out with a warning to the native women folk, which asserts that they are not suppose to go against the norms and traditions of Islam and so are not to be dressed in an ‘immodest’ manner. The ‘immodest’ manner targets to not wearing of the ‘burqa’. They reveled that last week they threw acid on a girl’s face who was not in the ‘hizab’. Addressing to the girls, they said, ‘We will have no mercy on any woman who violates the traditions of Islam and who also hang out in Internet cafes’. They openly accepted the responsibility for attacks on 12 Internet cafes over the past few days and on a number of music shops in different parts of the Gaza Strip with the help of rocket propelled grenades. They did so because it was ‘distracting an entire generation of Palestinians from their duty to worship [Allah] and jihad so that they could serve their Zionist masters and the Crusaders’. Read

From now, onwards women in burqa would now have to reveal their face in order to disclose their identities at the UK airport. The immigration officials made such a move after it assumed that a suspected police killer might have escaped from the nation dressed as a Muslim woman. However, the move has created a spark among the community according to whom, it would impose unbearable demands on their members, particularly female officers who would be the only ones allowed looking under veils. Previously, the officers used to wave off passengers without scrutinizing because of the shortage of time but the recent incident where, an asylum seeker Mustaf Jama who was wanted for the murder of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky escaped using her sister’s passport created a very critical situation for them. Thus, authorities came out with the idea, which would legally entitle them to ask any female passenger to lift her veil in order to verify her identity against passport photographs. In order to stress the idea, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, ‘We must find methods of allowing people to take off the veil in a way that’s dignified.’ Personally, I feel that all must be equal under the eye of law and disclosing ones, identity at the airports shouldn’t be a tough job for the women folk. After all, it is the question of our social security; moreover, the authorities have no hassles if they remain in the clad during their stay. So I guess, there shouldn’t be any kind of fuss over the issue. Read

The veil is increasingly becoming a torment in Britain, not for those who wear it, but for the rest. Even in a secularly tolerant society like Britain, the veil is becoming hard to absorb. And efforts are going on to place legal curbs on the burqa to the dismay of the Muslim community. Muslim women in Britain wear black gowns that cover them from head to toe in leaving only a slit for their eyes. There have been many instances where citizens of Britain have shown their reluctance to accept the veil draped Muslim women. The past year has seen numerous examples, where the veil-covered women have been targets of abuse. An immigration judge told a lawyer dressed in a niqab that she could not represent a client for he could not hear her. A student lost a case she was fighting for being barred from wearing a niqab. Moreover, the British education authorities are proposing to disallow niqab in schools altogether. While few like David Sexton, columnist for The Evening Standard, find Britain to be too deferential toward the veil. Young Muslim women who started wearing niqab since Sept. 11, 2001 concede that it is a frontal expression of Islamic identity, which they have embraced as a form of rebellion against the policies of British Government in Iraq and at home. Few feel it is an act of faith towards Alha, while some take it as a symbol of Muslim identity and solidarity in the British society, which is increasingly becoming intolerant towards the burqa and taunting them. There is also a group of Muslim women who find the niqab objectionable. Imran Ahmad, author of ‘Unimagined’, an autobiography of growing up Muslim in Britain, and head of British Muslims for Secular Democracy feels that the veil is offensive, something steeped in subjugation. While few Muslim women in Britain wear the headscarf, called the hijab, covering all or some of their hair, some wear the nikab. Like in France, Turkey and Tunisia, where students in state schools and female civil servants are banned from covering their hair, UK is also trying to bring in a similar legislation. Muslim women have been wearing burka or nikab for time immemorial. While few have been forced to wear it as a compulsion, some wear it as a ritual, while the rest for their self-pleasure. But, burqa is considered as a kind of subjugation and backwardness, but when religion permits, what can others do? And, more importantly, why? Image Va: IHT