Arab Woman: Jews Don't Rape Us, Unlike Arabs
New Age Islam News Bureau
17 Feb 2013
• Mali's Sexual Violence Victims Left To Themselves
• Sindh HC Orders Protection to Free Will Marriage Couple
• Forced Into Prostitution: Bangladeshi Woman Falls and Breaks Back In Dubai Escape Bid
• Appeal By Women Of Mali: Say “No!’” To The War by Proxy
• Dreams Fuelled the First Emirati Woman Operator of Dubai Metro Drive
• Entrepreneurial Afghan Women Changing Perceptions
• Afghan’s Only Sikh MP Recounts Her Struggle
• In Bangladesh Abducted Madrasa Girl Found, Schoolgirl Yet To Be Rescued
• Princess Haya Islamic Centre Students Visit Women’s Museum in Dubai
• Wrong Blood Transfusion Blamed for Saudi Woman’s Death
• Iranian-American's First Novel about a Girl Fleeing Tehran
• Afghan Mps Lobby for Women's Rights through Country's Transition
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
Photo: Entrepreneurial Afghan Women Changing Perceptions
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/arab-woman-jews-don-t/d/10448
---------------
Arab Woman: Jews Don't Rape Us, Unlike Arabs
February 13, 2013
An Arab Muslim mother from northern Israel who is aspiring to a life in politics called out fellow Arab women on Tuesday for failing to differentiate between the Jews and Arabs with whom they are in conflict.
Commenting on a Facebook event page protesting the sexual harassment and torture of female activists in Egypt, Anet Haskia (who was interviewed in the latest issue of Israel Today) said Palestinian women should take a close look and realize how humane their Jewish "enemies" really are.
To the Palestinian women who commented on that event page, and apparently tried to draw Israel into the issue, Haskia had this to say on her own Facebook page:
"We are talking about the rape of Arab women in Egypt and other Arab states, and you still try to make a connection to Israel? Jewish men do not rape Arab women and girls! It is Arab Muslim men who are raping you, so focus this campaign on them and leave Israel alone."
Haskia has created her own Facebook movement called Another View (Hebrew) that is working to bring local Jews and Arabs together in true coexistence.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23678/Default.aspx?hp=readmore
---------------
Mali's sexual violence victims left to themselves
Feb 17, 2013
Now that northern Mali has been taken by French and Malian forces, the extent of rebel violence against women there has become clear. The women still have to deal with the consequences of their abuse.
Many women have been forced to leave their homes in northern Mali as they fled from the sexual violence of the rebels. They are finding it hard to move forward with their lives, with little support for themselves, and little chance of seeing the perpetrators punished.
In June 2012, Mariam went out to buy some soap as the sun was beginning to set. Her city, Gao, along with the entire north of the country, was under the control of rebel militants. Three men in a vehicle seized her and took her to a police station where they beat her and locked her up.
At two in the morning, they opened the door.
"They took me, and they did what they wanted," she said. "They raped me. Ten men. Not one man, not two men - ten. Afterwards, they took me to the place where they found me and left me there."
She fled to the capital, Bamako, taking nothing with her and leaving her family behind.
Mariam is one of many: in the past year, the United Nations has received increasing reports of insurgents using sexual violence to terrorize the local population. Of the 400,000 people who have been displaced by the crisis, 80 percent are women and children.
From one form of abuse to another
According to reports, rapes were mostly committed by Tuareg separatist militants, who had control during the onset of the conflict. When Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda hijacked the rebellion from the Tuaregs, the nature of the abuse changed: women were forced into marriage, subject to public beatings and had restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.
Zainab Wala Sidi also fled from northern Mali. She now lives in a one bedroom apartment with borrowed furniture and a blanket stamped with the UN Refugee Agency logo - a left-over from one of the country's past conflicts.
Sidi used to run a women's organization in Gao and was well known as an activist.
"[The rebels] were asking for women leaders, the women who were able to give information," she said, explaining why she had to escape.
She managed to hide from the rapists, but two of her sisters were not so fortunate. Insurgents went through their neighborhood, systematically stealing from some and assaulting others.
Sidi's 13-year-old daughter was traumatized by what she saw on that day. Even here in the safety of Bamako, she lies in a corner of the room, with a sheet over her head.
'It's not what I call Islam'
Not all those who have had to escape are living in poverty. On the other side of Bamako, Ommu Sellsek has installed herself in an air-conditioned house with a new four-wheel-drive car and a chauffeur.
Sellsek is the mayor of Goundam near Timbuktu, but she too has been forced to come to Bamako. She is one of three female mayors in the country and the only one to hold the post in the entire northern region.
But her prominence made her an easy target when Goundam was taken over by a Tuareg separatist group called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).
"Me, I was violated when they came to my house without permission and they took everything they wanted," she said. "They pointed their guns at our children. For me, that is violence."
Then came the Islamic militant groups, the "terrorists" who took over control from the Tuareg separatists. Things got even worse: "They added to the fires of hell. They re-ignited the fires of hell."
Sellsek is a Muslim, but she does not associate her religion with violence against women.
"Me, I am a true Muslim," she said. "I am a believer, and I practice. But I can't come to terms with what they do. It is not Islam."
More than 200 cases of sexual violence have been reported to the UN, though Sellsek believes that the actual figure is much higher.
"There are a lot of women who don't talk about being raped," she said. "But we know it because they are ashamed. For us, when someone learns that a woman is raped, it is impossible for her to be married."
Little chance of justice
Meanwhile, Mariam said she would like to forget her abduction and assault by the men in Gao - but she can't, because she's now eight months pregnant.
"My child won't have a father," she said. "I said I didn't want it, put people told me to keep the child. I don't have the means to keep it. I don't even have anywhere to live."
The EU said it will help people like her quickly by releasing some of the 250 million euros of development aid it froze after the coup in Mali in March last year. But most aid projects are targeted at the north of the country following the conflict, so Mariam is most likely to be left on her own - without help towards the living costs of herself and her baby, or towards the task bringing her attackers to justice.
But justice would make a difference to her: "I need them to be judged," she said quietly, "but I'm ashamed for everyone else over there to see me. But I do need them to be judged."
Some names have been changed to protect people's identity.
http://www.dw.de/malis-sexual-violence-victims-left-to-themselves/a-16597380
---------------
Sindh HC Orders Protection to Free Will Marriage Couple
Feb 17, 2013
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC), on a constitutional petition of a Karo-kari-labelled couple, issued notices on Saturday to the advocate-general of Sindh, a station house officer, a district police officer and other respondents and ordered the police to provide every possible protection to the couple. Samina and her husband Sajjad, residents of Shahpir, district Shikarpur, contracted marriage on January 15, 2013, after she made a freewill agreement at a local court. Samina submitted that her family did not accept their marriage and they had been declared liable to be killed in the name of honour. She stated that her family had lodged an FIR of kidnapping against her husband in order to persecute them at the New Fojdari police station, Shikarpur. Citing home secretary, SSP Shikarpur, SHO Faujdari police station as respondents, they prayed to the court to direct the respondents to provide security to them and quash the FIR. Headed by Justice Irfan Sadaat Khan, the division bench directed investigation officer to record statement of couple and appear before it on next date of hearing with police papers. The court directed police officials to provide every possible security to the couple and also ordered station house officer and a district police officer that there shall be no arrest in respect to the FIR. The hearing of the case was adjourned till February 22.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013\02\17\story_17-2-2013_pg12_9
---------------
Forced Into Prostitution: Bangladeshi Woman Falls and Breaks Back In Dubai Escape Bid
Salam Al Amir
Feb 17, 2013
DUBAI // A 30-year-old woman who was forced into prostitution tried to escape from her brothel by climbing down the pipes but lost her grip and fell to the ground, breaking her back.
The Dubai Criminal Court heard this morning how the Bangladeshi came to the UAE to work as a maid for an Emirati family in Fujairah before she absconded. She told prosecutors a second maid in that house gave her the telephone number of a man who would help her find another job.
AA, a 29-year-old man from Bangladesh, came to Fujairah and picked her up in a taxi then took her to Sharjah.
"He bought me some clothes because I didn't take any of my stuff when I ran away," she said.
Then, she says, he took her to a flat in Dubai where she remained locked up for nine days before she was told she would be working as a prostitute. "When I refused, I was beaten and raped by AA," she said.
The victim said she was moved from that apartment to another, where there were four other men. One of them helped AA lock her up and assault her. The other three, she said, were in charge of running the brothel.
After about 45 days in captivity, on October 6 last year, the woman seized a chance when AA went to the toilet and climbed out of an open window of the third-floor flat. She started climbing down the pipes but fell to the ground and lost consciousness.
She woke up in Rashid Hospital with multiple spine fractures that have left her dependent on a walking frame. She told police what had happened and they then raided the apartment from which she escaped and arrested five men, including AA.
AA and his compatriot SA, 24, were both charged with human trafficking and illegally imprisoning the victim.
Bangladeshis NH, 26, SAA, 32, and AH, 28, were all charged with aiding and abetting the first two defendants.
AA, AS, NH, and AH were also charged with promoting sin by inviting customers to the brothel.
They all denied all charges. The next hearing will be held on March 6.
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/courts/forced-into-prostitution-woman-falls-and-breaks-back-in-dubai-escape-bid#ixzz2L9dw8qGo
---------------
Appeal By Women Of Mali: Say “No!’” To The War by Proxy
16 February 2013
While the two jaws of the Malian trap - the warmongering Western intervention backed by the countries of West Africa, and the reactionary Islamism in the North - have not yet closed, an independent voice, the voice of Malian women, is trying to make heard its refusal of this war by proxy. We publish below their appeal, which is dated November 20, 2012.
From the dramatic situation in Mali, there emerges a terrible reality which can be verified in other countries in conflict: the instrumentalisation of violence against women in order to justify interference and wars whose objective is to grab hold of their countries’ wealth.
Full report at:
http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2890
----------------
Dreams Fuelled the First Emirati Woman Operator of Dubai Metro Drive
17 February 2013
Dream big. This is what the first Emirati woman operator of Dubai Metro does all her life; the secret that inspired her all these years.
Maryam Al Saffar, a 28-year-old graduate from Dubai Women’s College who did her major in business, loves to dream and fulfil those dreams fast.
“Being the first Emirati woman to drive the Metro in the Middle East, I’m proud of achieving this milestone,” she says.
She says that this career is ‘a dream come true’: “This is my target. I work hard to achieve this goal. My family and friends have also supported me and encouraged me to enter this field.”
Full report at:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-
---------------
Entrepreneurial Afghan Women Changing Perceptions
Feb 17, 2013
When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Zainularab Miri was a teacher in Kabul. The Taliban shut down schools for girls, and Miri fled to her home province of Ghazni where the Taliban had less influence.
There, she continued to teach secretly and opened a small, clandestine beekeeping and honey-making business, all the while fearing that if the Taliban found out about either, it could cost her life. She called the Taliban era “a black period for Afghan women.”
When the Taliban were overthrown, Miri was able to take her business out of hiding, but she really didn’t know how to run it, much less expand it.
Full report at:
http://www.voanews.com/content/project-artemis-brings-afghan-women-entrepreneurs-thunderbird/1602184.html
---------------
Afghan’s only Sikh MP recounts her struggle
Feb 17, 2013
Delhi, India: About a decade ago, Anarkali Kaur Honaryar was forced to leave her government job due to her religion. Now, she is a member of Afghan Parliament’s upper house, involved in nation-building for the war-ravaged nation.
Having worked for women’s rights all her life, Honaryar,37, the first women MP from Afghanistan’s miniscule Hindu and Sikh communities, has been closely monitoring the developments in India for the last few months after the Delhi gangrape.
“I saw how civil society raised its voice. I was very happy with the changes brought in the law by the President (of India),” said Honaryar, a trained dentist, who is currently in Delhi for a training programme for Afghan senators at Parliament.
Full report at:
http://sikhsangat.org/2013/afghans-only-sikh-mp-recounts-her-struggle/
---------------
In Bangladesh Abducted Madrasa Girl Found, Schoolgirl Yet To Be Rescued
Feb 17, 2013
A madrasa girl, abducted on Thursday in the district, was rescued in Rangpur yesterday while a schoolgirl picked up by criminals more than two weeks ago, still remained traceless.
The madrasa girl was rescued in unconscious state from the platform of Rangpur railway station yesterday noon.
She was admitted to Rangpur Medical College Hospital, police said, quoting her family members.
Full report at:
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=269357
---------------
Princess Haya Islamic Centre Students Visit Women’s Museum in Dubai
1 February 17, 2013
Dubai: Students of the Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain Cultural Islamic Centre visited the Women’s Museum in Dubai to learn about the history of women in the UAE and their cultural roles.
Hamad Al Muhairi, head of Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain’s Cultural Islamic Centre, spoke of the importance of educating young women about their ancestors’ achievements, saying: “The centre communicates with governmental and non-governmental bodies in order to achieve their goals, one of which is to teach our girl students the history of their country, the historical and cultural roles of women in the UAE and its development in the past and in the present in order to make them aware of their responsibilities and to encourage them to take on the same role in the future.”
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/islamic-centre-students-visit-women-s-museum-1.1147321
-------------
Wrong Blood Transfusion Blamed for Saudi Woman’s Death
17 February 2013
A 35-year-old Saudi woman died at Bisha General Hospital yesterday as a result of wrong transfusion of blood, Sabq electronic newspaper reported. The paper identified the victim as Zaraa Eissa Muhammad Faqeeh.
According to Zaraa’s relatives, she was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 12, 2012 for sickle cell anemia, rheumatism and diabetes. She was given wrong blood (Group A instead of O) during treatment, said her brother Ahmed.
Full report at:
http://www.arabnews.com/wrong-blood-transfusion-blamed-woman%E2%80%99s-death
---------------
Iranian-American's first novel about a girl fleeing Tehran
Fran Hawthorne
Feb 16, 2013
Iran may be almost alone in the political sphere, but literature concerning the Islamic Republic and particularly novels that consider the country's recent past, continue to flock to market. The latest offering arrives in the shape of Dina Nayeri's A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, an original but often flat-footed first novel by a talented but unsure young Iranian-American writer.
Full report at:
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/book-review-iranian-americans-first-novel-about-a-girl-fleeing-tehran#ixzz2L9ZaHfAP
---------------
Afghan MPs lobby for women's rights through country's transition
15 February 2013
There are fears in Afghanistan that gains made towards women's rights could be lost once international troops complete their withdrawal in 2014.
The Afghan Australia Development Organisation says the rights for females to gain access to education and employment would be compromised if the Karzai government holds direct peace talks with the Taliban.
Full report at:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/afghan-mps-
---------------
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/arab-woman-jews-don-t/d/10448