The Muslim Woman

Women in Lebanon are busy these days with demining stuff. Nearly seven women are clearing about one million cluster of bombs sprinkled across the south because of the 2006 Israeli offensive. These seven women have been selected from 30 applicants who have had applied for the job, selected by a Swedish demining team. A few of the women left their earlier jobs to join the foreign teams helping in demining areas across southern Lebanon. There are nearly 100,000 bomblets in the region and about 1.2 million clusters have been anticipated across southern Lebanon. Israel had launched a land, sea and air offensive into Lebanon after the Lebanese Shia militant movement Hezbollah snatched two Israeli soldiers during a cross-border attack. The war ended in mid-August with an UN-sponsored ceasefire and these clusters of bombs are the aftermath of that attack. The newly hired women de-miners are mainly Shia Muslims from southern Lebanon. Image Read

It seems that honor killing is a deep-seated tradition in Muslim countries. It is a kind of manacle that has been created by man to restrict the over all progress of women. How often we have read the outcome of this weird custom, which has slaughtered numerous women in Muslim countries, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan to name a few. A similar threat has smacked the headlines in Israel. A seventeen-year-old girl, Doaa Fares has withdrawn her name from a beauty pageant because she was threatened with death, allegedly by two uncles and other men from her village who accused her of disgracing the family name with promiscuous behavior. Facts & figures: 1. 17 Palestinian women were reported killed in honour crimes. 2. In Israel, seven women were similarly killed. 3. 13 girls and women were murdered in the name of ‘honour’ on International Women’s Day. Bottom line Many women are killed and buried in unmarked graves. Their very existence is removed from community and clan records. The fact that so many murders go unreported is indicative of the status of women and the role of culture in fundamentalist Islamic countries. Women often accept their fate and expect to be executed, even when they are not at fault. Read

There are between 1,000 and 3,000 women in Israel who are subjected to sex slavery, and there is an intensive commerce in women in the country. Girls as young as twelve are being lured into the pretext of wealth and prosperity in the west but instead of making their dreams come true, they are held into the noose of sex trade, this is the ground reality that is taking place in Israel and the issue has been surfaced by Canadian journalist and social activist Victor Malarek. A report postulated that women are sold to pimps for as much as $10,000 each, work 14-18 hours a day, charge about $30 a client but receive only a small fraction of the money for themselves. Statistics have revealed that there are more than 10,000 trafficked women and at least 280 brothels in Tel Aviv alone, this is more than enough to assume the condition in whole of Israel. While talking to Jewish Tribune, Malarek said, Newspaper ads from modeling and employment agencies promise exciting jobs, but the women are duped. They must submit, or they are raped, beaten and tortured. The irony of the situation is that, the UN troops instead of acting as a peacekeeping force are playing the part of predators. They are actually molesting the girls sexually, in Kosovo to be more specific. Sex- slavery: A ‘budding trade’ in the nation The so called ‘business’ is churning around 12 billion dollars a year, compelling more than 800,000 women yearly to make a choice between prostitution and death. UNICEF too has given out a statement, according to which, nearly, 1.7 billion kids are swindled annually with a decrease in the age of victims every year. Malarek further added that government isn’t taking the issue seriously as it brings in money along with it. And who would deny such a huge capital? The women are shown false colors of good social conditions and hence they are motivated to fulfill their dreams but unfortunately, it was nothing more than a mirage. They land up in nightclubs and bars from there they are send to brothels where they become puppets in the hands of buyers. Upon questioning, authorities in Israel said that there is ‘no law against trafficking people, and no law against prostitution’, and also that they are not in a position to take any legal action against the perpetrators because the victims are too scared to speak out anything. While talking to Reuters, Rachel Benziman the legal advisor to the Israeli Women’s network said, It’s not a problem of finding the right section in the criminal code. It is more a problem of finding the women who will testify and finding the motivation. Now, the question of the hour is, will the women ever experience a day-light of freedom? What do you have to say? Image: [1], [2]

Despite of a large number of women rights movement across the globe it seems that the larger portion of the fruits of women rights have gone to the woman of the western world while their sisters, especially in the Islamic world still remain deprived behind the veil of anonymity. For a society that treats its women as wealth to be possessed and kept fettered inside the secure environs of home, Nadia Abu Amar, an Israeli Arab’s desire for freedom cannot be tolerated. So even by escaping from her home in Ramle to a women’s shelter in Jerusalem she could not save herself from being killed by the male relatives of her family in the name of salvaging the family honour. Nadia’s case is not a stray incident among the Israeli Arabs. Honour killing is prevalent not only throughout the Arab world, but also in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even among some non-Islamic groups in India. For a woman it is her duty to maintain her family honour at all costs even if that amounts to settling for an unhappy arranged marriage. While women have been guaranteed rights to participate in electoral politics and cast their votes to choose their representatives during elections but they do not have the right to choose the mode of life they prefer worth living. According to Ramle police superintendent, who is investigating Nadia’s case, even if an Arab woman spoke on a cell phone or laughed with a man it will be regarded as violation of family honour. Israel on its part is trying to resolve the incidents of honour killings by executing strict measures against the perpetrators of the crime. However, unless there is an endogenous social reform from within the conservative societies, Islamic and non-Islamic, any exogenous legal effort will prove futile. Source:ABC News