Muzghan And Her Aunt Nasreen - The Women Who Served As A Deadly Duo For The Taliban
New
Age Islam News Bureau
22 November 2020
• Muzghan And Her Aunt Nasreen - The Women Who Served As A Deadly Duo For The Taliban
•
Women's Bike Rally Held In Karachi To Provide Awareness Among The Women At
Homes
•
Stella Dadzie: 'Women Resisted Slavery At Every Stage Of The Journey'
•
Express Report On Drug Addiction Among Punjab Women Wins Laadli Award
•
Initiative For Women Entrepreneurs In Pakistan To Thrive In Global Markets
Compiled By New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/muzghan-her-aunt-nasreen-women/d/123541
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Muzghan
And Her Aunt Nasreen - The Women Who Served As A Deadly Duo For The Taliban
AFP
Nov
22, 2020
Muzghan
(pictured in this confession video) and her aunt Nasreen walked free from jail
in September after confessing to being members of the Taliban’s ultra-violent
Haqqani network
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KABUL:
Female assassins who lured an Afghan security official to his death with
promises of sex before shooting him and dumping his body at a cemetery are
among thousands of Taliban criminals freed as part of a fragile peace plan.
While
the ultra-conservative Islamists ban women from many areas of life -- often
forcing them to stay home and barring them from most jobs -- they are not above
using them as killers.
Muzghan
and her aunt Nasreen walked free from jail in September after confessing to
being members of the Taliban's ultra-violent Haqqani network.
They
had used Nasreen's daughter as bait "under the pretext of selling her
body", on the orders of a Taliban commander, a security official told AFP.
The
pair then shot the man with a pistol fitted with a silencer and crammed his
corpse into a metal box that they left in the local graveyard, case files say.
Court
documents seen by AFP show the two were prolific killers -- adept not only at
setting the deadly "honeytrap" but also at brute murders -- including
of their own relatives.
Two
men from their family who worked as policemen died at the women's hands -- one
was poisoned and the other killed when they planted a "sticky bomb"
under the seat of his car.
Before
their 2016 arrest, the pair also worked with other people including Muzghan's
husband to carry out a deadly grenade and shooting raid on a Sufi shrine, and
another on a police station, their rap list adds.
"I
was arrested for murder, kidnapping and cooperating with the Haqqani
network," Muzghan said in a video authorities made prior to her release.
It
is vanishingly rare for women to take part in attacks for the Taliban,
notorious for banning school for girls, forcing women to wear burqas and
sometimes executing those accused of adultery.
Of
more than 5,000 Taliban prisoners released under a prisoner swap that the
insurgents made a precondition to peace talks with the Afghan government, only
five were women.
"To
allow them to take part in, or admit that they played a role in waging the war,
would go against core ideological tenets of the movement."
The
prisoner swap, which also saw the Taliban free about 1,000 Afghan security
forces, garnered international condemnation when it emerged insurgents who had
killed foreign troops were being released.
Though
the Taliban insisted on their freedom, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the
women were "ordinary members of Taliban families" arrested during US
operations.
"Of
course, women members of (insurgent) families cooperate... but women are not
included, recruited or ordered to take part in operations," he told AFP.
A
third woman prisoner released in the swap was Nargis, an Iranian national who
became an Afghan citizen and a police officer after marrying a local man.
She
was convicted of killing a US police trainer in Kabul in 2012, in what
officials say was the first insider attack by a woman.
Taliban
officials said two other women from insurgent families were among the released
prisoners and all have now returned to their homes.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/the-women-who-served-as-a-deadly-duo-for-the-taliban/articleshowprint/79350110.cms
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Women's
Bike Rally Held In Karachi To Provide Awareness Among The Women At Homes
In
The News
21
November 2020
The
women participating in the rally said that due to lack of transport, they do
not have better transport facilities.
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KARACHI
(Dunya News) - A women’s bike rally was held in Karachi in which more than 30
riders participated. The purpose of the rally was to provide awareness among
the women at homes.
Biking
is a difficult task and it becomes an even more difficult in Karachi. A women’s
bike rally was organized to get rid of the lack of public transport and rush.
More
than 30 riders were seen in action in the rally from Bilawal House to
Nishan-e-Pakistan at Sea View. In the rally, someone had a 70cc bike and
someone rode a 125 bike.
The
women participating in the rally said that due to lack of transport, they do
not have better transport facilities. Riding a bike has given them courage and
they also sent a message to other women that riding a bike is not a difficult
task.
Rally
participants urged women to dare to ride bikes beyond the "what will
people say" slogan, because riding a bike is neither a bad thing nor a
shame.
Certificates
were also distributed among the participants at the end of the rally.
https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/574454-Women-bike-rally-held-in-Karachi
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Stella
Dadzie: 'Women resisted slavery at every stage of the journey'
21
Nov 2020
anitasethi
Stella
Dadzie was born in London in 1952 and is best known for The Heart of the Race:
Black Women’s Lives in Britain, co-authored with Beverley Bryan and Suzanne
Scafe, which won the 1985 Martin Luther King Memorial prize and has been
republished as a feminist classic. Her new book, A Kick in the Belly, explores
how enslaved women in the West Indies found ways to fight back. She is a
founder member of Owaad (Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent), a
group that emerged in the late 1970s to campaign for black women’s rights.
The
slave owner Matthew “Monk” Lewis visited his plantations in Africa and kept a
detailed diary, including an entry about witnessing a black woman being kicked
in the belly. It’s a useful metaphor for the experience of black women under
slavery and the attack on the core of their being. I also wanted to emphasise
that they kicked back.
I
found evidence during my research of court records that black women caused a
serious discipline problem – everything from poisoning the food of their
masters to downing tools and refusing to work. I immersed myself in the task of
discovering more about those invisible women; they deserve to be more widely
known. One of the key findings is that women resisted at every stage of the
journey. That was my main aim – to show that they weren’t just passive victims.
One slave, Cubah, dubbed Queen of Kingston, was captured and deported to
another Caribbean island but managed to persuade the captain of the ship to
return her to Jamaica, where she rejoined the rebellion.
On
the whole, history has been told by men. History is an interesting word,
literally “his story”. Women have been hidden from history, and it’s only
thanks to the efforts of a new generation of historians that we’re beginning to
hear different stories emerge. When I was researching, I began to realise that
black people have been airbrushed out of history, and nowhere is this more
apparent than the story of enslaved black women. I certainly remember, as a
child, being puzzled that history was not about anyone like me, and wondering about
that.
I
was fostered in Wales at about 18 months and returned to my natural mother at
the age of four. I spent my early childhood with my white [birth] mum. We
experienced poverty, homelessness and racism – my mother was ostracised as she
had a black child and was a single parent. We moved around London a huge
amount, as we were constantly getting thrown out by racist landlords. There was
a lot of pain and suffering. My father was the first trained pilot in Ghana and
joined the RAF and flew as a navigator over Belgium in the second world war. I
got to know him when I was about 12 and joined him in countries like France and
Ghana. I gained a growing sense of self from visiting Ghana. That played a
strong role in shaping my identity.
I
grew up as an only child, and didn’t meet my siblings until I rejoined my
father in France aged 12. I spent a lot of time with my head in books.
When
I was in my 20s, issues we were engaged with included anti-apartheid. I
remember marching from Brixton to Trafalgar Square in ’79 or ’80 and seeing the
very first black police officer I’d set eyes on. I have another strong memory
of attending Greenham Common and being what appeared to be the only black woman
there that day.
I’m
nearly 70, so I didn’t take part in the BLM protests, but it was heartening to
see them around the world. I was heartened by the size and persistence and the
demography – there were more white faces. That suggests a shift in people’s
consciousness, and taking responsibility for that history and for a behaviour
that needs to be challenged. But I also had a sense of deja vu, given that I
lived through civil rights [movements] both in America and the UK and feel in
some ways we take two steps forward and one step back.
I’m
a prolific reader. I just finished My Sister, the Serial Killer, which was
excellent. I loved Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Khaled Hosseini’s And
the Mountains Echoed. I’ve been dipping into New Daughters of Africa, an
absolute treasure trove. I love Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa, which is about
partition told from a child’s perspective. I’m working on a novel from a
child’s perspective. I’ve been working on it for decades. As a single mother I
didn’t get much time to write.
I
was very lucky to be a reader for Virago, with a view to discussing whether
writers would resonate here, so I read Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Maya
Angelou and was very inspired by them. If I had to pick out someone who
inspired me the most it would be Zora Neale Hurston and her novel Their Eyes
Were Watching God.
I’m
looking at a mountain of books which are there for lockdown. I am going to be
reading Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann and rereading We Need New Names by
NoViolet Bulawayo. I also want to reread Marlon James’s The Book of Night
Women, which is one of the most powerful books about the enslavement of black
women I’ve read.
theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/21/stella-dadzie-women-resisted-slavery-at-every-stage-of-the-journey
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Express
report on drug addiction among Punjab women wins Laadli Award
By:
Express News Service
November
22, 2020
A
report published by The Indian Express has won the Laadli Media and Advertising
Award for Gender Sensitivity 2018-19 in investigative story (print) category.
Population First, a Mumbai-based NGO that works for women empowerment and
gender equality, announced the winners of the 10th edition of the awards during
a virtual event Saturday.
The
Indian Express’ Divya Goyal won the award for her report — ‘Punjab: The
Invisible Drug Addicts’ — which focused on drug addiction among women in
Punjab.
This
year, 75 mediapersons representing Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada,
Oriya, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, and English languages won the awards while
18 received jury citations.
Addressing
the virtual event, chief guest Rekha Sharma, the chairperson of the National
Commission for Women (NCW), hoped the media would create an environment that
will encourage women. “Media can help change the traditional mindset that
‘ladki parayee hai aur ladka apna hai’. All laws to help women are in place; we
need media’s help for a better implementation of the laws. That will only
happen when the mindsets change and media can help change mindsets through its
reporting and campaigns,” said Sharma.
Dr
AL Sharada, director, Population First said the Laadli Media Awards prove that
even in the worst situations and cynical times there is hope. “There is hope
because there are many who are being true to their profession in journalism,
showing great sensitivity and compassion, raising critical questions about
gender inequalities, discrimination and violence and showing mirror to our
politicians and all of us. They are role models for many aspiring journalists
and media persons. We honour them with pride,” he said.
Argentina
Matavel Piccin, representative for UNFPA in India and country director, Bhutan,
said, “UNFPA India is proud to work with Population First to challenge
stereotypes that perpetuate gender discrimination. We recognize the important
role of the media in altering public perceptions around valuing women and
girls, and being champions of change. We are therefore delighted to support the
10th edition of the Laadli Awards for gender sensitivity.”
Music
composer Pandita Anuradha Pal, who breached the gender barrier and entered the
male dominated field of Tabla playing, enthralled the audience with a unique
‘Jugalbandi with herself.’
The
jury, which included members of the media, academia and social activists,
selected the 93 winners from 1,100 plus entries received from across the
country.
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/express-report-on-drug-addiction-among-punjab-women-wins-laadli-award-7060684/
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Initiative
For Women Entrepreneurs In Pakistan To Thrive In Global Markets
November
22, 2020
Our
Correspondent
Islamabad
: Women-owned businesses in Pakistan that are ready to grow by becoming part of
global supply chains will now have access to world-class training, networks,
and information thanks to the launch of the Women’s Business Opportunity
Initiative, an effort led by non-profit WEConnect International in coordination
with Vital Voices Global Partnership and the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council.
The
initiative was announced at “Advancing Women’s Entrepreneurship and Supplier
Diversity,” a virtual event taking place during the Global Entrepreneurship
Week hosted by US Embassy here and the US-Pakistan Women’s Council, a unique
public-private partnership between the US government, Texas A&M University,
and private companies and organizations in the United States and Pakistan. The
Women’s Business Opportunity Initiative is designed to increase the
inclusiveness and competitiveness of supply chains globally and to help women
entrepreneurs in Pakistan access opportunities to grow their businesses and
thrive.
“Through
this initiative, there is great potential to strengthen women entrepreneurs’
foothold in Pakistan’s economy, as well as across borders with multinational
corporations. Boosting revenues of women-owned businesses benefits their
employees, families, and communities,” said US Embassy Islamabad Chargé
d’affaires Angela P. Aggeler.
According
to research presented during the event, approximately one-third of buyers in
Pakistan procure from women-owned businesses, and one in four have a policy
that encourages inclusive sourcing. While promising, there remains room for
improvement. The event also highlighted leaders in the business community and
growth-oriented women-owned businesses. Through their efforts, Pakistani women
will have more opportunities for meaningful labor force participation and
economic growth in the future. WEConnect International is a non-profit
organization that connects women-owned businesses with buyers outside of the
United States. It is a member of the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council, which includes
several leading organizations in Pakistan committed to women’s economic
empowerment.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/747281-initiative-for-women-entrepreneurs-to-thrive-in-global-markets
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