ISLAM OPPRESSES WOMEN
58 Palestinian
women murdered in domestic violence in 2 years; PA blamed for not ratifying law
to protect them
Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Jul 8, 2021
Palestinian
Media Watch
“The women in
our society are still being subjected to murder and violence… A chronic
illness” – official PA daily
“In the
absence of the law to defend the family against violence, the men of the family
will continue to do as they please with the women” – Palestinian NGO
“The increase
in the murder of women in Palestinian society under different circumstances and
unjustified and illogical excuses indicates the exacerbation of fundamentalism
and social seclusion” – Palestinian NGO
Palestinian
women’s rights organizations blame PA inaction in passing a law to defend women
from domestic violence as the reason murder of Palestinian women in domestic
violence is increasing.
According to
the independent Palestinian NGO, the Women's Centre for Legal Aid and
Counselling (WCLAC), over a two-year period (2019-2020), 58 Palestinian women
and young women were murdered in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including
Jerusalem. In 2019, 21 cases were documented – a number that rose to 37 cases
in 2020.
Palestinian
NGOs fighting for women’s rights are calling on the PA to finally ratify the
laws that will protect women and limit domestic violence:
“Member of the
Board of Directors of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) and Secretary of the
Women’s Activity Committees Association in Nablus Sana’a Shbeita
emphasized that… ‘The laws… increase the consciousness in society regarding
rights, and also constitute a deterrent and bring about security and stability.
Therefore, ratifying the law to defend the family against violence will
limit the violence against women and will thus protect them from the danger of
murder.’”
“The absence
of a defense mechanism for the women” and “the patriarchal culture that gives
men custody over the women and young women” were cited by Tahrir Al-A’araj, Director-General of the Palestinian Initiative for
the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy “Miftah,” as the main reasons
for continued violence against and murder of Palestinian women. She foresees
that “in the absence of the law to defend the family against violence, the men
of the family will continue to do as they please with the women.”
Another
representative from the same NGO interpreted the rise in murders of women as a
sign of the “exacerbation of fundamentalism,” and implied the moral failure of
the PA as a “state that aspires to lay the foundations for the rule of law and
proper governance”:
“The increase
in the murder of women in Palestinian society under different circumstances and
unjustified and illogical excuses indicates the exacerbation of fundamentalism and
social seclusion… The law is the legal tool to deal with an attacker or
abuser in a state that aspires to lay the foundations for the rule of law and
proper governance, and ratifying laws, including the law to defend the family against
violence, is what will strengthen the achievement of justice and
security for the weak sectors of society, including women and young
women.’”
Palestinian
Media Watch has previously reported on honor killings and domestic violence in the PA. Although
focus on these problems has increased in the PA over the last few years, the
one thing that could make a difference - tougher legislation – has not been
taken on by the PA. On the contrary, PMW has shown that it is the PA itself and
often its religious representatives who
keep things at a standstill by for example telling women not to submit
complaints over their spouses to Israeli police, and justify that men beat their wives.
Speaking in
2019 - during the period of the WCLAC survey - a lecturer at the Bir Zeit
University also cited “the social culture and the domination of a male-patriarchal culture” and the “lack of defined and
detailed deterrent laws” as some of the reasons for violence against women in
the PA. Other experts on the same program explained that the concept of
“marital rape” is not even recognized in Palestinian culture because women’s
bodies are “a right permitted to the man”:
The
Palestinian Human Rights and Democracy Center "SHAMS" also explained
in 2019 that the male culture grants men the status of moral guardians who can
do as they please:
"Women
remain the most prominent victims of the male culture and of the violence that
grows out of it, while this culture elevates men beyond the culture of shame,
appoints them the masters and guardians of morality - even when they act
immorally - and grants them complete immunity. Reducing a woman's honor to her
hymen indicates a superficial and uncivilized mentality that stems from viewing
women as bodies and private property."
It should be
noted that in the PA with a nonfunctioning government and parliament all that
would be necessary to enact the law protecting women which has been under
discussion for years would be a statement by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas. His
refusal to do so may be an indication of the social pressures in Palestinian
society against changing the status quo of male dominance over women.
The following
is a longer excerpt of the article on the new report on murder of Palestinian
women cited above:
They treat the
women’s lives as they please and spill their blood, and the victims are entire
families under the powerlessness of the law”
“Despite all
the efforts at all levels, and despite the ongoing work by institutions, figures,
and media and social influencers, the women in our society are still being
subjected to murder and violence. Every time a case of murder occurs whose
victim is a woman in her youth, the criminal remains free without giving an
accounting, and these cases indicate a chronic illness from which we are
suffering, which is accompanied by violence and ignorance.
Recently, the
[independent Palestinian] Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC),
one of the institutions dealing with monitoring issues and affairs of the
Palestinian women, published a report that shed light on the phenomenon of
women being murdered between the years 2019-2020…
According to
the information presented by the WCLAC, 58 cases were documented of Palestinian
women and young women being murdered during the last two years of 2019-2020 in
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, which were divided into
21 cases in 2019 as opposed to 37 cases in 2020…
The severity
of the phenomenon lies in the general trend of an increase in the rates of
murder of women and young women in all areas, as at the time when an increase
took place in the cases of murder of women and young women – 25 cases in the
Gaza Strip and 33 in the West Bank – a significant increase also took place in the
cases of murder in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2020 as opposed to 2019…
Member of the
Civil Organizations Network’s Board of Directors and Secretary of the Women’s
Activity Committees Association in Nablus Sana’a Shbeita
emphasized that… ‘The laws play a central role in protecting the social
sectors, the individual, his possessions, and his beliefs, and particularly the
women. The laws also increase the consciousness in society regarding rights,
and also constitute a deterrent and bring about security and stability.
Therefore, ratifying the law to defend the family against violence will
limit the violence against women and will thus protect them from the danger of
murder.’ …
In the same
context, [Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and
Democracy] Miftah institution Director-General Tahrir Al-A’araj
emphasized that ‘One of the main reasons for violence against women, which is
violence that leads to murder in most of the cases, is the absence of a defense
mechanism for the women that constitutes a continuation of the violence against
women in the private space, which is connected to the mechanism of the
patriarchal culture that gives men custody over the women and young
women in this space. Therefore, in the absence of the law to defend the
family against violence, the men of the family will continue to do as they
please with the women.’ …
Miftah
Director of Projects Najwa Sandouqa said that ‘The
increase in the murder of women in Palestinian society under different circumstances
and unjustified and illogical excuses indicates the exacerbation of
fundamentalism and social seclusion… The law is the legal tool to deal with an
attacker or abuser in a state that aspires to lay the foundations for the rule
of law and proper governance, and ratifying laws, including the law to defend
the family against violence, is what will strengthen the achievement of justice
and security for the weak sectors of society, including women and young
women.’”
Push to protect Iraq women from domestic
violence by changing laws falters, experts say
By Associated Press, Published: October 10,
2011
BAGHDAD — Salma Jassim
was beaten, kicked out of her marital home with her newborn daughter on her
shoulder and then deserted by her husband. But she says the threat she faces
from her own family, who feel shamed because of her divorce, is just as bad as
the abuse.
There are few places in Iraq where Jassim can turn for help. Iraqi experts believe that
domestic abuse has increased during the years of war and economic hardship
since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But attempts to strengthen laws to protect
women have gone nowhere in the face of heavy cultural and religious resistance.
The World Health Organization has estimated
that one in five Iraqi women has reported being a victim of domestic violence,
and experts say the rate is much higher. Government officials say for the time
being there’s little hope that laws giving men wide rights to “discipline”
their wives will be changed.
“There are abusive laws against women ... but
we believe that in this era, this project will be rejected,” said the Human
Rights Ministry’s spokesman Kamil Amin. “Politicians have no will to change
these abusive laws.”
State Minister for Women’s Affairs Ibtihal al-Zaidi agreed.
“The new reforms might raise issues against
Islamic laws as well as tribal and traditional norms,” she said. “It is a very
sensitive issue.”
Al-Zaidi’s ministry is working with other
ministries along with civil society organizations in coordination with the
United Nations to finalize a national strategic plan for the advancement of
women, combating violence against women, and preparing draft legislation to
protect against domestic violence.
However, al-Zaidi said she was “very hesitant”
to present the draft legislation to parliament because of unsuccessful attempts
made by Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry to repeal discriminatory provisions.
“The Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council thwarted
our attempts under the pretext that the time was not right for such amendments
which would be rejected by the Iraqi street because they conflict with
religious, tribal and traditional norms,” said Amin, the Rights Ministry
spokesman. “Not only male lawmakers but even some female lawmakers stood
against such reforms because of their extreme religious convictions.”
At issue is Iraq’s penal code, written in 1969,
that excuses crimes “if the act is committed while exercising a legal right.”
Husbands punishing their wives, and parents and teachers punishing children are
considered permissible “within certain limits prescribed by law or by custom.”
In Iraq, some tribes and fundamental Muslim
sects believe that Islamic laws allow husbands to beat unruly wives, and even
for families to kill women relatives who are accused of bringing shame upon the
home, such as in cases of adultery. The authority given to husbands can
sometimes be exploited by their families to abuse wives as well.
More often than not, women like Jassim routinely are blamed instead of helped.
Jassim said her husband’s
family, which became wealthy after their son started a thriving car spare parts
business, was ashamed of her because of her humble background.
She said her husband’s sisters beat her so
badly her breast milk dried up and she could not feed her baby. The sisters one
day kicked her and her baby out of the house, even ripping her headscarf and
some of her hair off, she said. Jassim’s husband
eventually divorced her after his sisters accused her of stealing money from
them.
But when Jassim, 22,
returned to her family home with her baby, her brothers blamed her for the
entire debacle and said she’d shamed their family by being kicked out and
divorced. They refused to let her leave the house, held her at gunpoint and
threatened to kill her.
“I accept insult, degradation and abuse rather
than the hellish condition I am living in now,” Jassim
said recently, sitting in the Baghdad office of an Iraqi aid agency that offers
legal advice to such women.
In September, Iraq was named among 34 countries
that will share a $17.1 million grant from the U.N. for programs to end
violence against women. The U.N. says the money can be used to give women legal
and medical access, provide counseling for men and women and other programs.
Even small efforts to curb domestic violence
short of changing the law have largely failed, officials and experts say.
Last year, the Interior Ministry opened two
women’s protection centers in Baghdad, where victims can file abuse complaints
with police. The centers are sponsored by the State Ministry for Women’s
Affairs, which opened at least one in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
Police Col. Mushtaq Talib, who oversees the two
centers in Baghdad, said women rarely file complaints because “they would end
up homeless, for their families would surely reject them.”
At any one time, Talib said, the centers deal
with less than a combined 100 cases which were referred to them from court.
The WHO study found that 21 percent of Iraqi
women — out of the country’s population of 30,747,000 — reported being victims
of domestic violence in a survey taken in 2006 and 2007, the latest data
available.
Talib said the actual number of domestic abuse
victims likely is far higher. A 2010 U.N. report concluded that while it’s
impossible to gauge how often Iraq women are beaten by family members since so
few report it, “the problem may be widespread.”
In its own study, Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry
found that domestic violence was a factor in the nationwide increase in divorce
cases, Amin said. In 2010, 53,840 marriages ended in divorce, compared to
52,649 in 2009 and 28,800 in 1997, according to the latest available U.N. and
Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council data.
In previous generations, women suffering
domestic abuse would stay with their husbands regardless of how bad it got. But
Amin said now Iraqi women are starting to push back and ask for a divorce when
they’re abused.
These women who are “better educated,
enlightened and aware of their rights,” he said. “They are ready to sacrifice
their married life for the sake of preserving their dignity.”
But even so, many women prefer to stay in abusive
relationships because the social stigma of divorce isn’t just embarrassing — it
can put them in danger of their own families as Jassim’s
divorce did.
“When divorced women leave one abusive family,
they fall victims to another abusive family,” said lawyer Wijdan
Khalaf. “In our society, women have no options. There is no social protection.”
Saudi woman sentenced to 10 lashes for driving
car
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press
September 27, 2011
CAIRO (AP) — A Saudi woman was sentenced
Tuesday to be lashed 10 times with a whip for defying the kingdom's prohibition
on female drivers, the first time a legal punishment has been handed down for a
violation of the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation.
Normally, police just stop female drivers,
question them and let them go after they sign a pledge not to drive again. But
dozens of women have continued to take to the roads since June in a campaign to
break the taboo.
Making Tuesday's sentence all the more
upsetting to activists is that it came just two days after King Abdullah
promised to protect women's rights and decreed that women
would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015. Abdullah also
promised to appoint women to a currently all-male advisory body known as the Shura
Council.
The mixed signals highlight the challenge for
Abdullah, known as a reformer, in pushing gently for change without
antagonizing the powerful clergy and a conservative segment of the population.
Abdullah said he had the backing of the official
clerical council. But activists saw Tuesday's sentencing as a retaliation of
sorts from the hard-line Saudi religious
establishment that controls the courts and oversees the intrusive religious
police.
"Our king doesn't deserve that," said
Sohila Zein el-Abydeen, a
prominent female member of the governmental National Society for Human Rights.
She burst into tears in a phone interview and said, "The verdict is
shocking to me, but we were expecting this kind of reaction."
The driver, Shaima Jastaina, in her 30s, was found guilty of driving without
permission, activist Samar Badawi said. The punishment is usually carried out
within a month. It was not possible to reach Jastaina,
but Badawi, in touch with Jastaina's family, said she
appealed the verdict.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world
that bans women — both Saudi and foreign — from driving. The prohibition forces
families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400
a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school,
shopping or the doctor.
There are no written laws that restrict women
from driving. Rather, the ban is rooted in conservative traditions and
religious views that hold giving freedom of movement to women would make them
vulnerable to sins.
Activists say the religious justification is
irrelevant.
"How come women get flogged for driving
while the maximum penalty for a traffic violation is a fine, not lashes?"
Zein el-Abydeen said. "Even the Prophet (Muhammad's)
wives were riding camels and horses because these were the only means of
transportation."
Since June, dozens of women have led a campaign
to try to break the taboo and impose a new status quo. The campaign's founder,
Manal al-Sherif, who posted a video of herself
driving on Facebook, was detained for more than 10 days. She was released after
signing a pledge not to drive or speak to media.
Since then, women have been appearing in the
streets driving their cars once or twice a week.
Until Tuesday, none had been sentenced by the
courts. But recently, several women have been summoned for questioning by the
prosecutor general and referred to trial.
One of them, housewife Najalaa
al-Harriri, drove only two times, not out of
defiance, but out of need, she says.
"I don't have a driver. I needed to drop
my son off at school and pick up my daughter from work," she said over the
phone from the western port city of Jeddah.
"The day the king gave his speech, I was
sitting at the prosecutor's office and was asked why I needed to drive, how
many times I drove and where," she said. She is to stand trial in a month.
After the king's announcement about voting
rights for women, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Abdel Aziz Al Sheik blessed the
move and said, "It's for women's good."
Al-Harriri, who is
one of the founders of a women's rights campaign called "My Right My
Dignity," said, "It is strange that I was questioned at a time the
mufti himself blessed the king's move."
Asked if the sentencing will stop women from
driving, Maha al-Qahtani, another female activist,
said, "This is our right, whether they like it or not."
Egyptian women, long allowed to vote, lag
despite uprising
BY HANNAH ALLAM
McClatchy Newspapers
Septempber 26 2011
Cairo • Thousands of Egyptian women fought in
the 18-day uprising that unseated longtime President Hosni Mubarak. They hurled
stones at pro-regime attackers, delivered meals to hungry protesters, and drew
global attention to the struggle through their blogs and Twitter accounts.
At least 15 women died in the uprising,
according to official figures. Hundreds were wounded.
And still, complain prominent Egyptian
feminists, women are being sidelined from post-Mubarak politics: their names
ignored for government posts, and their divorce and custody rights threatened
by a powerful new Islamist lobby.
Egyptian activists shrugged off the
announcement over the weekend that Saudi women, who cannot drive and require a
male guardian for even mundane business, finally won the right to vote and run
as candidates in local elections. Egyptian women have been voting, in mostly
rigged elections, since 1956.
But the revolution that ended Mubarak’s 30-year
dictatorship has done little for women’s rights in the Arab world’s most
populous country. With parliamentary elections just two months away, the
outlook for women candidates is so dismal that Egyptian women activists are
shelving dreams of leadership and progressive new laws because they fear
they’ll be too busy guarding their few hard-won gains of recent years.
"We won’t waste our time finding women,
training women, to run a campaign. They won’t win," said Nehad Abu el-Komsan, head of the
nonprofit Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights. "We’re using these two
months just to strengthen groups that support women’s rights."
Another obstacle for activists is that because
Mubarak’s widely despised wife, Suzanne, projected herself as a champion of
Egyptian women, women’s rights are stigmatized as belonging to the old regime,
or, worse, imposed by the West.
Nonprofit groups that once relied on U.S. or
other foreign aid said their funding has dried up, partly because of political
pressure against accepting American money, and partly because of new layers of
bureaucracy in applying for such grants.
"Since the revolution was against the
system, and Suzanne was the wife of the head of the system, women’s rights were
seen as part of a corrupt regime," said Hoda Badran, head of the Cairo-based nonprofit Alliance for Arab
Women, which used to receive U.S. funding. One newspaper published the word
"traitor" next to Badran’s photo to smear
her as an American agent.
As a result, even some of the young female
protest leaders are keeping quiet on women’s issues, frustrating older
feminists who consider them naive for thinking that the slogans of the uprising
will automatically protect their rights.
"These girls think the revolution called
for equality, democracy and social justice, so when that’s accepted, women’s
rights will be covered," Badran said. "They
think equality will free them all. We have great respect for them, and we are
trying to discuss this. Our wisdom and years of experience with their energy
and technology is what we need."
Many women from the new generation of Egyptian activists bristle at highlighting women’s rights, insisting
that the revolt was for reform in all sectors of society. To them, cultural and
educational changes have to take place before any meaningful discussion of
women’s rights. And they deride Western-style feminists who push for women’s
rights without sensitivity to Egypt’s conservative context.
"There are still women — and I meet them
often — who think they were created to stay at home and be good and faithful
housewives," said Rola Badr,
an officer in the April 6 Democratic Front, an offshoot of the youth movement
that was at the forefront of the uprising. "I can’t talk with them about a
woman becoming a minister before I help them erase what they’ve been fed for
the past 30 years."
So far, women have been conspicuously absent
from the government’s efforts to build a more democratic Egypt. An early
transitional advisory panel, the so-called Wise Men, included just one woman,
out of about 30 members. There were no women on the board to draft
constitutional amendments, and none included in the reshuffling of governors.
Only one woman serves in the caretaker Cabinet, and she’s an unpopular figure
from the former regime.
The interim government also scrapped a
Mubarak-era quota that guaranteed 64 new parliamentary seats for women. Even
youth groups that are demanding quotas for young Egyptians in the next
government won’t back the same kind of quota for women, activists complained.
And despite the recent amendments, wording in the constitution still implies
that only a man can serve as president.
"It’s a combination between the weak
performance of the government and the poor attitudes toward women in
Egypt," said Abu el-Komsan, who recently received
a death threat because of her work. "Instead of asking, we must show our
strength."
After several fruitless meetings with senior
officials from the ruling military council and caretaker government, women’s
activists said, some groups are pushing for dramatic measures. One idea —
scrapped for security reasons — called for mothers to drop off their children
in Tahrir Square and let government forces deal with them for a day.
They’re also trying unconventional conduits to
decision-makers.
One recent afternoon, a small group of women
gathered outside Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s house,
shouting for his wife to push her husband to address their demands. Public
relations specialists are teaching the activists how to pitch profiles of
inspiring Egyptian women to local newspapers.
In June, women’s activists held a national
conference that created an umbrella group — the National Federation of Egyptian
Women — to fight attacks on women’s rights in family law cases, promote the
inclusion of women in government, and launch a public awareness campaign. They
work long hours, fielding calls for guidance from
discouraged activists around the country.
"I get literally hundreds of calls, women
crying and afraid. After the first 20, I started telling them, ‘Go to
hell,’" Abu el-Komsan said. "’If you’re not
going to defend yourselves, I’m not going to do anything.’ I told them, ‘Go
write letters to all the newspapers, write in your own language, write with
your spelling mistakes.’ Just organize."
In the election-season political grandstanding,
candidates are courting the Islamists, the business community, Coptic
Christians and the poor. Women, however, still aren’t viewed as a vital
constituency, despite official figures that show about 20 million women are
eligible to vote.
Just one presidential candidate — the former
Arab League chief Amr Moussa — has approached women’s groups to pitch his
vision for a new Egypt. Only a couple of the many emerging political parties
explicitly call for women’s rights as part of their charter goals. Even the
secular, intellectual elites, activists said, address women’s rights with
flowery words of support, but no real action.
"’Oh, our sisters, oh, our daughters.’ I
hate that," Badran said, referring to male
politicians’ pandering. "It’s a power transaction. It’s not about feelings
and emotions, and they won’t get it until they feel our power. We have to show
that we are half the society, we are organized, and we can use our votes for
empowerment."
Feminists' dilemma: How to respond to Muslim
oppression
Nina Funnell
January 6, 2011
On Sunday, it was announced that Iranian woman Mohammadi
Ashtiani's sentence of death by stoning could be
overturned, after a senior judiciary official stated that ambiguities remained
in the case. Ashtiani had previously been sentenced
to death by two different courts in Tabriz in separate trials in 2006 for
having allegedly committed adultery.
But in a peculiar about-face, Ashtiani has lashed out
at the anti-stoning campaigner Mina Ahadi and the two
German journalists who raised international awareness about her case after
interviewing her son and former lawyer about the case.
"I have told Sajjad (my son) . . . to sue the ones who have disgraced me
and the country . . . I have a complaint against them," she said. "I
am willing to talk because many people exploited (my case) and said I have been
tortured, which is a lie... Leave my case alone. Why do you disgrace me?" Ashtiani asked reporters.
It is very possible that Ashtiani may have been
pressured, forced or coerced into making such a statement. She may also be
trying to strategically curry favour with the
authorities. But the issue of Muslim women becoming complicit in their own
subjugation (through fear, obeisance or wilful
intent) and by extension, the issue of some Muslim women becoming complicit in
the symbolic oppression of women in general is an important — though fraught —
topic.
In 2010, three Muslim women in Malaysia who were caned for having sex outside
of marriage claimed that the punishment was justified and even beneficial. The
three women, aged 17-25, said they turned themselves in after feeling guilty
for having pre-marital sex with their respective boyfriends.
This sort of resignation to anti-feminist ideals is also reflected in the
beliefs held by some Muslim women who not only accept but also defend the
actions of men who abuse them (or other women) physically, psychologically, or
through other means such as by forcing a girl into an arranged marriage.
While many of these women are victims of the regimes they live under, this does
not mean that they will not collude as misogynists themselves. Mothers who
arrange for their daughters to undergo female genital mutilation or worse, the
mother who stands by as her daughter becomes the victim of an honour killing may well have suffered in their own lives
(and indeed they may participate in such misogynistic rituals because of their
own normalised experience of suffering), but this
does not excuse such abuse. Cultural relativism is not a defence
for human rights abuses.
So what is an appropriate feminist response to all this? How are feminists
meant to react when, as happens in Western countries too, women act as their
own worst enemy? It's a difficult dilemma. Painting Muslim women as victims
only infantilises and alienates them. Conversely,
ceding agency to Muslim women by claiming that they freely "choose"
their religion only obfuscates the complex systems of power and gendered
exploitation that continue to exist within many Muslim communities.
Of course, just because some Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression
doesn't mean that all Muslim women feel, or are, powerless. Indeed
there are growing pockets of feminist resistance and collective networking
within many Muslim female communities. In Australia, organisations
such as the Muslim Women's National Network of Australia and Immigrant Women's Speakout Association along with the many grassroots groups
for women of all cultures are growing in number and influence. Individual women
are also making a difference such as Samah Hadid, a practising Muslim, who acts as Australia's Youth
Representative to the United Nations.
Similarly, it is also not helpful to assume that just because some Muslim
clerics endorse misogynistic practices such as domestic violence and marital
rape, that all Muslims do. Extremist fundamentalist Muslims do not represent
the majority and their comments often only fuel xenophobic attitudes.
But Western feminists have still been far too politically correct in their
approaches. Muslim women may not all be victims but when feminists such as
Naomi Wolf argue that the burqa is potentially liberating and empowering
(because it supposedly frees women from the male gaze) it just makes a mockery
of the process by which a woman's social identity is systematically erased. If
non-Western cultures are designated as "off limits" to unadulterated
feminist criticism, then the advances made by Western feminists since the 1970s
are intended and reserved for Western (predominantly white) women only.
These issues are clearly complex. But ultimately blaming Muslim women for
participating in their own oppression (and the subjugation of women at large)
does little to advance the situation. Those women who accept and even condone
their own persecution merely illustrate the need for more education and
feminist intervention.
Nina Funnell is a researcher in the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the
University of NSW.
Islamic Feminists Storm Some Barricades
Can pray-ins by Muslim women end segregation at
U.S. mosques?
Muslim feminists call it the "penalty
box." It's the area of a mosque where women, segregated from the men, pray.
In Islam, prayer is required five times a day and Muslims often pray in
congregation at mosques. During these prayers, women usually are partitioned
off in a separate room or behind a curtain, "like naughty children,"
one Muslim woman tells me, while men pray in a grand main hall.
One Muslim, Fatima Thompson, describes the
penalty box at her mosque in Maryland as an overheated, dark back room. Another
Muslim woman, Asra Nomani,
tells me that at a major Washington D.C. mosque, the female section was in a
trailer, where the voice of the imam (the prayer leader) came from a crackling
speaker. "It was so humiliating I never went back," says Ms. Nomani, a former reporter for the Journal.
Now these Muslim feminists have had enough.
Hoping to reform Islam by making it more women-friendly, Ms. Thompson—an
American convert to Islam—has organized several "pray-ins" at mosques
in the D.C. area. These include the Islamic Center of Washington and the Dar
Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., a mosque attended by several of
the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood mass killer Maj. Nidal Hasan. Ms.
Thompson's next pray-in target is a mosque in Washington.
Like the civil rights activists of the 1960s,
whose "sit-ins" were part of a movement that ended racial segregation,
Ms. Thompson hopes her peaceful pray-ins will help initiate a movement that
ends overt sexism in Islam, despite the conventional wisdom that regards Islam
and feminism as anathema. Her efforts come at a time when, as of a 2001 study,
66% of American mosques segregate men from women during prayer, an increase of
14% from 1994.
During the pray-ins, Ms. Nomani,
Ms. Thompson, and several other women walk through the front door of the
mosque—many require women to enter through a side or back door—and into the
main hall. They then seat themselves behind the rows of men to pray.
The Muslim men get rattled. Ms. Nomani remembers one bearded man who "furrow[ed] his
brows and scream[ed]… 'Sisters go over there!'"—indicating the dreaded
penalty box. Ms. Nomani humorously refers to him as
the mosque's "bouncer." At one pray-in, the women didn't budge when
they were asked to move, and the service began with them praying with the men.
Though neither Ms. Thompson nor Ms. Nomani has been arrested, say, for trespassing, Ms. Nomani—who has been fighting sexism at her mosque in West
Virginia for seven years—says she has received several death threats. Such
violence-oriented intolerance, which in the West has become the public image of
Islam, seems irreconcilably at odds with the moderate feminism of the pray-in
group.
While people like Ms. Nomani
work for reform, other women question whether it is possible. Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
the Somali author of "Infidel" and a former-Muslim-turned-atheist,
agrees with the Islamic feminists that a mosque is "an island of gender
apartheid." To her, however, such practices represent Islam's essential
sexism. Being a Muslim and a feminist, she told me, are inherently
contradictory.
For her bold denunciations of Islam, Ms. Hirsi
Ali lives under constant threats against her life by Muslim fanatics. But
anyone who questions, even from within the faith, risks trouble, she says.
"A single attempt to change things, to innovate, invites accusations of
blasphemy" she notes, "because you're considered to be someone
putting [yourself] on Allah's [God's] throne." Islam means submission.
Muslims must submit to the Quran's God, not change him.
Yet, nowhere in the Quran does it say that
women and men should be segregated during prayer. The Hadith, a large body of
holy Islamic texts chronicling the life and attributed sayings of the Prophet
Muhammad, notes that for women at prayer, the "best rows are the last
rows." And even then, some scholars, like UCLA's Islamic law expert Khaled
Abou El Fadl, don't see
this as an admonition. After all, in the seventh century, at the Prophet's
mosque, women did not pray behind a partition. And today in Islam's holiest
spot, Mecca, women and men can pray side-by-side.
Still, there is an undeniable sexism that gnaws
away at many Muslim communities—communities that center around the social space
of the mosques. Whether the pray-in movement will encourage mosques to grant
women more rights is yet to be determined. Until then, Ms. Thompson and Ms. Nomani are initiating a much-needed debate about the status
of women in Islam.
Rebel Muslim's book due out Tuesday
ARTHUR MAX
Associated Press
April 28, 2006
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - She breaks all Dutch molds. A former refugee from Somalia, she is a black face in the white crowd in parliament. She seeks blunt confrontation rather than the quiet consensus of traditional politics. In a country that used to pride itself on its free and easy ways, she lives under constant guard.
What makes Ayaan Hirsi Ali stand out is
religion: She is a Muslim who rejects the Prophet Muhammad as a guide for
today's morality. For this she is castigated as a "traitor" by the
Muslim community she abandoned, and is accused of heightening tensions with
"Islam bashing" and mindless provocation.
Elected to parliament four years ago, she
became internationally famous when a film she wrote provoked the murder of its
director, Theo van Gogh, by an Islamic radical on an Amsterdam
street. It drove home to the Dutch how vulnerable they were to
terrorism.
To meet her at the Dutch parliament, a reporter
must be escorted by a security guard who stays by the door throughout the
interview.
Hirsi Ali's unusual trajectory started when she
was 22 and passing through Germany en route to Canada
for an arranged marriage to a distant cousin she had never met. She instead got
on a train to Amsterdam and got asylum.
She briefly worked as a chambermaid and
part-time translator before enrolling in university for a political science
degree and joining the leftist Labor Party.
In 2002, on the promise of a parliament seat,
she jumped to the conservative Liberal Party, causing a political storm but
guaranteeing her a high visibility platform and a regular spot
on TV talk shows.
Today, at 36, she feels she is having an
impact.
"Issues that I wanted to put on the agenda
in 2002 and that were dismissed as incidental or unimportant are now issues
that are discussed at all levels of government," she said. "I have a
satisfaction that this wasn't for nothing."
Not all Dutchmen agree. Hirsi Ali was
indirectly targeted in a report by a government advisory group which criticized
the "climate of confrontation and stereotypical thinking" about Islam
and its activists.
Its author, Jan Schoonenboom,
was more direct in news interviews, accusing Hirsi Ali and other politicians of
"Islam bashing" and of appealing to "gut feelings" rather
than reason.
Immigration and integration, women's rights and
the place of Islam in Western countries are subjects of "The Caged
Virgin," a book Hirsi Ali will launch in New York on Tuesday.
The essays and reprinted articles explore
"my relationship with Islam. We Muslims should learn to look at ourselves
critically, at our moral values," she says. "The best agent for this
reform is emancipating or liberating our women."
"We Muslims" may sound curious coming
from Hirsi Ali, who was raised a strict Muslim but now calls herself an
atheist. She would like to see a Muslim Reformation of the kind that remade
European Christianity in the 16th century.
Muslims need "to develop a different
relationship, a different concept of God, of what God means," she says -
not just total submission to God's will but "a dialogue with God."
Such a reformation is more likely to emerge
from the West, she said, because for reformers in Muslim societies "there
is always the fear of being killed, of being shunned by your community, of
being exiled, jailed, tortured."
But Holland hasn't proved much safer. She went
into hiding after Van Gogh's murder, spending 2 1/2 months in the United
States.
She faults the Dutch intelligence service for
focusing too late on the Islamic fringe, and the government for then
overreacting by allowing infringements on civil liberties.
"There is ethnic profiling. But unlike in
the United States, we don't even debate it. That's bad," she says.
"In the Netherlands and in the rest of Europe we pretend that we are
morally superior to the United States, that we are not doing any form of ethnic
profiling. But we are."
She was a critic of Dutch immigration policy at
a time when it was unfashionable to talk about an immigrant underclass, high
crime rates among second generation migrants, and crowded Muslim ghettos.
As a translator for the immigration service,
she says, she saw evidence of the mistreatment of women in Muslim families and
the difficulty of the Calvinist Dutch to deal with an alien culture.
Joining the conservative governing coalition in
parliament hardly softened her criticism.
"Our migration policy is a failure,"
she said. "We used to pretend that we were a homogenous little country and
that Holland is not a migration country. We have become a migration country
like the United States."
She believes the housing projects that have become
immigrant ghettos should be demolished and their inhabitants blended into
mainstream society.
Hirsi Ali is the daughter of Hirsi Magan, a Somali politician who opposed the regime of
Mohammed Siad Barre and took his family into exile in
Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and finally Kenya.
Her 11-minute film "Submission" got
its director killed three months after it aired on Dutch television, but Hirsi
Ali is undaunted. She says she's going ahead with "Submission Part
II," a 90-minute sequel.
Veil a 'mark of separation' - Blair
Press Association
Tuesday October 17, 2006
The veil worn by hundreds of Muslim
women in the UK is a "mark of separation" which makes people of other
ethnic backgrounds feel uncomfortable, Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.
Mr Blair's
comment was his strongest intervention yet in the debate sparked by Cabinet
colleague Jack Straw's assertion that the wearing of full veils - or niqab -
made community relations more difficult.
The Prime Minister also backed a
local education authority which has suspended a teaching assistant who refused
to remove her veil during lessons.
And he said it was
"absurd" to suggest that Britain's foreign policy was to blame for
the radicalisation of Muslim youth.
Speaking at his regular monthly
press conference at 10 Downing Street, Mr Blair said
that the veil was a visible symbol of a wider debate about the way the 1.8
million-strong Muslim community integrates into British society.
Questions were being asked, not
only in Britain and across Europe, but also within the Muslim community and in
the Middle East, about how Islam "comes to terms and is comfortable
with" the modern world, he said.
Asked if a woman who wore the veil
could make a full contribution to British society, Mr
Blair paused before saying: "It is a mark of separation and that's why it
makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable."
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell this
weekend described the veil as a "symbol of women's subjugation to
men" and suggested that women wearing it "cannot take their full
place in society".
But Mr
Blair stressed that he was not suggesting women should be ordered to remove
their veils: "No one wants to say that people don't have the right to do
it, that's to take it too far, but I think we do need to confront this issue
about how we integrate people properly with our society."
Mr Blair said
he could "see the reason" why Kirklees
Council chose to suspend 24-year-old Aishah Azmi for refusing to remove her
veil in the classroom at Headfield Church of England
Junior School in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. While stressing that such decisions
were a matter for local authorities, he added: "I do support the authority
in the way that they have handled this."
Afghan girls sold off to settle disputes
ALISA TANG
The Associated Press
July 10th, 2007
JALALABAD, Afghanistan – Unable to scrounge
together the $165 he needed to repay a loan to buy sheep, Nazir Ahmad made good
on his debt by selling his 16-year-old daughter to marry the lender’s son.
“He gave me nine sheep,” Ahmad said, describing
his family’s woes since taking the loan. “Because of nine sheep, I gave away my
daughter.”
Seated beside him in the cramped compound, his
daughter Malia’s eyes filled with tears. She used a black scarf to wipe them
away.
Despite advances in women’s rights and at least
one tribe’s move to outlaw the practice, girls are traded like currency in
Afghanistan and forced marriages are common. Antiquated tribal laws authorize
the practice known as “bad” in the Afghan language Dari – and girls are used to
settle disputes ranging from debts to murder.
Such exchanges bypass the hefty bride price of
a traditional betrothal, which can cost upward of $1,000. Roughly two out of
five Afghan marriages are forced, says the country’s Ministry of Women’s
Affairs.
“It’s really sad to do this in this day and
age, exchange women,” said Manizha Naderi, the director of the aid organization Women for
Afghan Women. “They’re treated as commodities.”
Though violence against women remains
widespread, Afghanistan has taken significant strides in women’s rights since
the hard-line Taliban years, when women were virtual
prisoners – banned from work, school or leaving home unaccompanied by a male
relative. Millions of girls now attend school and women fill jobs in government
and media.
There are also signs of change for the better
inside the largest tribe in eastern Afghanistan – the deeply conservative Shinwaris.
Shinwari elders from several
districts signed a resolution this year banning several practices that harm
girls and women. These included a ban on using girls to settle blood feuds –
when a man commits murder, he must hand over his daughter or sister as a bride
for a man in the victim’s family. The marriage ostensibly “mixes blood to end
the bloodshed.” Otherwise, revenge killings often continue between the families
for generations.
Jan Shinwari, a
businessman and provincial council member, said a BBC radio report by a female
journalist from the Shinwari tribe, Malalai Shinwari, had exposed the
trade of girls and shamed the elders into passing the resolution to end the
practice.
The Women and Children Legal Research
Foundation in Afghanistan investigated about 500 cases of girls given in
marriage to settle blood feuds and found only four or five that ended happily.
Much more often, the girl suffered for a crime committed by a male relative,
said Hangama Anwari, an independent human rights
commissioner and founder of the organization.
The story of Malia and the nine sheep
illustrates the suffering of girls forced into such marriages.
Malia listened as her father described how he was
held hostage by his lender, Khaliq Mohammad, because he could not come up with
the money to pay for the sheep, which Ahmad had sold to free a relative seized
because of another of Ahmad’s debts.
Ahmad was freed only when he agreed to give
Malia’s hand in marriage to the lender’s 18-year-old son. Asked how she felt
about it, Malia shook her head and remained silent. Her face then crumpled in
anguish and she wiped away tears.
Asked if she was happy, she responded
halfheartedly, “Well, my mother and father agreed… ”
Her voice trailed off, and she cried again.
Does she want to meet her husband-to-be? She
clicked her tongue – a firm, yet delicate “tsk” – with a barely perceptible
shake of her head.