The Muslim Woman

Muslim women will have to remove their ‘niqabs’ if they want to cast their vote on 26th of this month.

However, initially they were allowed to vote as such, which ignited sparks from public.

Marcel Blanchet the chief electoral officer’s headquarters were flooded with angry e-mails and phone calls, compelling him to appoint two personal bodyguards and assign security officials to survey the building.

Some Quebecers warned to turn up at polling stations wearing masks, which prompted the authorities to reverse its decision so voting day could go on without trouble.

Quebec’s three main party leaders have urged Blanchet to reverse the verdict by permitting Muslim women wearing ‘burqa’ to vote without removing the full veils, which leave only the eyes exposed.

I totally agree with Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair according to whom, if people have to show their faces to obtain a driver’s licence or health card, then they should have to show their faces when they vote.

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Dr. Fatima Al-Abdali, Secretary General of the Arab Women’s Network has been chosen for 2007 award for distinctive public service in appreciation for her contributions in enhancing the image of Arab women at conventions across the globe by the Center for Studying Arab Women’s Participation.

Al-Abdali is a senior specialist in the health, safety and environment group at Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and is the first woman who stood for elections in 2006.

She said the award was proof of the import role civil society played in pushing forth development and innovation, adding this was

an important achievement for Kuwaiti women and encourages them to give more for their country.

Achievements:

Al-Abdali holds masters and PhD degrees in environmental and industrial health sciences from the University of Michigan, USA.

She was in charge of the Amiri Diwan’s health committee, is a researcher at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and a member in a number of civil society organizations and became secretary general of the Arab Women’s Network in September 2005.

We’d like to congratulate Dr. Fatima Al-Abdali for the honor and also wish her luck for future endeavor.

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The English Department of Education and Skills in Great Britain has decided to give teachers the right to be able to ban Muslims from wearing their religious veils to school.

The authorities in favor of the ban asserted that the veil puts hindrance between the direct interaction involving teachers and students. Also, it acts as a separating wall with other students.

Consequent upon which, Islamic students may lag behind in comparison with their peers.

People who are not in favor of the ban argue that authorities are creating differences on the basis of religion and that the state is stripping a certain group of people from their religious beliefs.

Well, I assume, when we deicide to live in some other country then it becomes obligatory on our part to go according to rules and regulations of the nation. Every country has it own norms according to which it looks after the welfare of the citizens, after all, the norms aim at safeguarding public interests.

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In a gruesome incident in the tribal areas in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province a woman and two men were brutally stoned and shot to death.

Hundreds of tribesmen watched the executions carried out by the pro-Taliban Lashkar-i-Islam group on Wednesday in th etribal area bordering Afghanistan. They were earlier caught by the group which found them guilty of adultery after investigations.

They had been abducted by a group led by cleric Mangal Bagh who raided their house, residents in the Bara region said.

‘We had reports about the killings, but we do not interfere in the matters related to tribal customs and traditions’ an official of the local administration said. He also said ‘Pakistani laws do not apply as the tribal agencies are semi-autonomous.

The region has become restive in recent times, as the influence of Taliban has penetrated into the tribal villages. The militant group wants to impose what it calls Islamic Law in the society. Sharia, a compilation of traditional Muslim laws, prescribes death by stoning as punishment for adultery.

Pakistan’s under-developed tribal areas have become a haven for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who flee Afghanistan, unable to effectively resist and win the US-led forces there. The Taliban, which is basically dominated by the Pashtun tribe, has found it easy to establish a stronghold here as a majority of the local people in the region are ethnic Pashtuns.

English language schools have been closed in the region since they received threats from Islamic militants. Fundamentalist restrictions on men and women have increased, which include the compulsory use of veil by women. Men are told to give up shaving the beard.

But there are numerous versions of the Sharia. Twenty five people died last year in this region as mullahs, who preached rival versions of Islam, engaged in street battles.

Last Wednesday’s killings have come as the last in a series of such fundamentalist executions in this region by Islamic groups associated to the Taliban.

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Recent report by the Equal Opportunities Commission has revealed that Muslim women are amongst the most deprived group in Britain’s labor market. They experience high rate of joblessness and the lowest represented in senior level jobs.

The report asserted, ‘racism, sexism and anti-Muslim prejudice based on widespread stereotypes make it harder ethnic minority women to integrate in the workplace and to get promoted’. They also faced a bigger gender pay gap than white women.

The report advocated that if these women are given chance, they might make a ‘big difference to social exclusion, community cohesion and child poverty.’

Liberal Democrat Shadow Communities Secretary, Andrew Stunell MP, commented,

in the longer term UK businesses and firms won’t be able to maintain their growth unless they start tapping into the skills and talent that young black and Asian women can provide. We’ll also fail to build more cohesive communities unless our black and Asian women can get the jobs they want.

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Throughout the world, women are victims of violence on a daily basis whether in the context of peace or in conflict. Perpetrators may be officials of the state, armed opposition groups or individuals - including family members.

Women in Muslim countries have given numerous testimonies of their bleak and wretched life conditions.

Finding no way out, they prefer to self immolate. And reasons coming to the fore are domestic abuse, forced marriage and other misogynistic social customs.

Testimony gathered by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has postulated how women have been brutally ill-treated by their family members. And that the trend is mounting up in the province.

Reliable nationwide statistics are not available. Many families cover up what happened because of shame, while a lack of medical care and government services mean many such cases are never officially recorded.

Needs a re-think

Afghanistan is still facing an internal armed conflict and is ruled by a fragile government. Condition of women has hardly improved even after the fall of Taliban regime. Cases of violence are generally kept secret in rural areas but if the victim or family chooses to complain, tribal Jirgas or local councils are convened to resolve it.

There is a huge gap between the reality on the ground and the ‘remarkable progresses’ claimed by western diplomats who sit in fortified compounds behind guards and concrete blocks and who never leave Kabul. The only area in which the country could really be said to have made remarkable progress is in growing the poppy and ‘violence against women’.

End of the Taliban was meant to be like this?

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It seems that the notorious killings in the name of family honor are next to impossible to root out from the social milieu of Muslim countries, worse yet is that they get legal justification.

Who on earth gives anyone the right to kill in the name of honor?

The most astounding fact in the whole system is that murders are treated with sympathy by local communities who see them as victims of the shameful actions of their female relatives. It’s as if by calling them ‘honor crimes’ we are letting the murderers get away with their goal of keeping their fake facade of honor.

Does it imply that spilling women’s blood is socially acceptable in the nation?

Officials from Jordan’s National Institute for Forensic Medicine said they had encountered several incidents where young girls had been killed ostensibly for having sexual relations with a man but autopsies had revealed something different... they were virgins.

But whether a murdered girl was a virgin or not holds little weight in the eyes of her family or indeed the court.

Is it a tradition?

The ‘tradition’ is difficult to remove because it has been nourished by the cultural and political ethos making it all the more difficult for the activists to work towards the emancipation of women folk.

Reem Abu Hassan, a leading women’s rights activist goes on the extent of personifying it as a ‘tribal mentality’ that ‘makes this phenomenon spin out of control’.

But what has given rise to this ‘tribal mentality’, which can go to the extent of committing this gruesome deed. Well, it has a rhetoric answer too, that is, male chauvinism.

Men have dominated in the past in nearly all the countries. In some places, women have themselves come forward and exploded the stereotypical myth regarding their timidity. However, they were not able to do so in Muslim countries and we can actually see this happening across these countries.

Is a woman vessel of family reputation?

Most honor killings occur in countries where the concept of women as a vessel of the family reputation predominates.

These barbaric killings continue to be an issue and therefore needs to be addressed more closely.

We must never become immune to news like this because it is such a despicable act of bigotry to allow these men to continue murdering their wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, friends, lovers with totally immunity.

These same conservative can probably talk for hours about the esteemed position of women in society and in Islam. I’m waiting for them to demonstrate respect and honor by demanding tough penalties, including death, for those who murder female relatives for ‘honor’.

Please stop this genocide, it’ll solve no body’s purpose, would just catalyze more hatred and bloodshed.

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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.

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.

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Every now and then, we come across the deplorable condition of women in Muslim countries.

Recently, we saw the detainment of some women activists who were protesting outside a court in Tehran. And their ‘crime’ was, taking stand against the discriminatory laws of the nation.

Laws in Iran are weighted against women. Even in divorce cases, the father automatically gets custody of a boy over two years of age or a girl over seven.

Painful separation

Forugh, a victim of this tyrannical law is suffering till date. After she got separation from her ’shauhar’, her husband, kept the custody of their only son. He did not let them talk on the telephone and didn’t even allow them to see each other.

The situation got worse when she received no financial support from her ex husband.

It is quite rhetoric that the law is overlooking the miserable condition of the woman in pain.

Fighting for justice

Now at this juncture, some women have come up and are trying to halt this pervasive menace but look what they are getting in return!

Parisa is approaching total strangers on the street and talking to them about the legal status of women and making them sign a petition, which she thinks would change the fate of native women.

Getting inspired from her, women like Mahnoush and Shima too have joined the league and are hopeful towards the emancipation of women folk.

Collecting signatures from the passersby is not an easy job, especially for women in Iran. The girls feel threatened by the police authorities as well. Who knows they might be the next one going into the Bastille!

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The authorities of Iran would not tolerate setting-up of any kind of activities around International Women’s Day, which is on eighth of March.

On fourth of this month, some activists were detained outside a court in Tehran where they were protesting the detainment of four other activists.

Thirty-three protestors were arrested after gathering outside the court to show their solidarity with the four women who were facing trial for their activities protesting Iran’s laws that discriminate against women.

Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s Secretary General said,

Rather than arresting peaceful demonstrators, the Iranian authorities should be taking seriously women’s demands for equality before the law and addressing discrimination against women wherever it exists in the Iranian legal system.

Under Iran’s constitution, protesters have the right of assembly provided they are not carrying arms or defaming Islam. Yet Nusheen Ahmadi Khorasani, Shahla Entesari, Parvin Ardalan, Sussan Tammasebi and Fariba Davoodi Mohajer went on trial Sunday on charges of acting against national security by participating in an illegal gathering.

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