Saudi Ballerina Samira Al-Khamis Stars In Estee Lauder Ramazan Campaign
New Age Islam News Bureau
14 April 2022
• 36-Year-Old Fajila May Become First British
Politician To Wear ‘Niqab’
• Muslim Women In Latin America Becoming Online
Influencers
• Video of Man Assaulting Woman With Hijab Stirs Anger
in France
• Turkish Women’s Group Targeted As Erdogan Fans
Flames Of ‘Culture War’
• Hindu Sindh Foundation Inc Presents Programme For
Saving Hindu Girls in Pakistan From Forcible Conversion to Islam
• Turkish, Greek Cypriot Leaders Launch UN-Led Plan To
Boost Women's Role
• Will Egypt’s New Law Prohibiting Underage Marriage
See The Light Of Day?
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/saudi-ballerina-samira-khamis-ramazan/d/126795
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Saudi Ballerina Samira Al-Khamis Stars In Estee Lauder
Ramazan Campaign
Samira Al-Khamis stars in
Estee Lauder Ramadan campaign 2022. Instagram
-----
April 13, 2022
DUBAI: Estee Lauder is celebrating women during Ramazan
with their newest campaign titled “Reach for the Stars,” featuring three
boundary-breaking Arab women at the center of a promotional video.
The campaign stars Samira Al-Khamis, one of Saudi
Arabia’s first ballerinas, alongside Amna Al-Qubaisi, the first Emirati female
race driver, and Nayla Al-Khaja, a film director and producer from the UAE.
Each of the inspiring women in the short film pushed
the envelope by dreaming big, working hard and paving the way for women in the
region.
Al-Khamis, who earned recognition as a dancer and was
featured on the official poster of the first Red Sea International Film
Festival, developed an interest in ballet at a young age. She grew up around
dancers, including her older sisters, who she watched perform on stage when she
began her journey.
“Watching them gave me a powerful sense of inspiration
and it stuck with me; it gave me a unique sense of fulfillment that I couldn’t
find anywhere. Now it’s my responsibility to give back to my community and the
new generations by passing on the passion and knowledge of dance,” she told
Mille World.
The 25-year-old recently opened her own studio in the
Kingdom, Pulse Personal Training, as a way to help nurture the growing local
dance community.
Pulse Personal Training is among a growing number of
dance studios cropping up in the Kingdom’s major cities, such as Jeddah and
Riyadh, in recent years.
One mother decided to establish a dance center for
women and girls after her four-year-old daughter showed a passion and talent
for the classical art. An instructor at the school said she had been inspired
to teach dance to children after following the career of Al-Khamis.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2062461/lifestyle
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36-Year-Old Fajila May Become First British Politician
To Wear ‘Niqab’
Fajila Patel
-----
14th April 2022
London: While Indian women continue to struggle with
the Hijab controversy, a Muslim mother is contesting for a political office in
Britain and may become the first British politician to wear a Niqab.
Thirty-six-year-old Fajila Patel, the wife of Tory
Councillor, Tiger Patel, is from the Conservative Party and is standing for the
Councillor post in the industrial town of Blackburn, Lancashire. She will stand
for Councillor in the Bastwell and Daisyfield ward of Blackburn which is going
for elections on May 5. Nearly 84 per cent of her electorate are Muslims.
She says she is comfortable with a Niqab and would
like to continue to wear it.
Though Hijab, Niqab, and burqa are different kinds of
coverings worn by Muslim women all over the world, there are slight
distinctions like hijab describes the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These
scarves come in many styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the
west covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.
The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area
around the eyes clear. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf.
Headscarves are seen as a sign of modesty by people
who wear them, and a symbol of religious faith, but not everyone agrees with
them and in some European countries there’s a ban on wearing garments that
cover the face in public.
Fajila Patel would like to be an inspiration for other
women including Muslim women to contest for political posts. In a
male-dominated society, she wanted Muslim women to break down barriers and
participate actively in politics as there were few women in local-level
politics.
She is unfazed by Boris Jonson’s comments comparing
burqa-clad women to “letterboxes” and has said that she did not “agree with
everything a Conservative Party politician says or does”.
She feels that there are misconceptions about women
who wear the full veils in the UK.
Even though Islamophobia is a problem in her own
political party, as it was her personal choice to wear the Niqab which is her
right, the Conservative leadership there is defending it.
They are accepting that it is the right of the
individual to show their religious beliefs in the way they are comfortable with
and in case any Muslim woman would not want to wear any religious insignia,
they would accept that too.
Source: Siasat Daily
If successful, Patel is believed to be the first Tory
councillor to wear the niqab.
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Muslim women in Latin America becoming online
influencers
April 13, 2022
SAO PAULO: With millions of views, videos in which
Latin American Muslim women talk about their faith and show their personal
lives have become more and more common on social media over the past few years.
In a region where Christianity is still seen as the
norm, Islamic influencers face great challenges to succeed in the digital
sphere.
Some of them are managing to do it, with creativity,
charisma and humor. One such influencer is Mariam Chami, a 31-year-old
nutritionist from the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.
The daughter of a Lebanese father and a Brazilian
mother who converted to Islam, Chami was educated in a Muslim school and only
felt the weight of wearing a hijab in a Catholic-majority country in adulthood.
“In the beginning, I made videos for Muslim girls who
didn’t have much knowledge about religion,” she told Arab News.
“But then I started to produce content with the goal
of explaining Islam and reducing the prejudices that Brazilians have against
Muslims.”
On TikTok, where she is followed by 1.1 million
people, Chami discusses controversial topics for a very liberal country like
Brazil such as burkinis — the clip where she wore one had more than 900,000
views — or why her sister-in-law, who is also Muslim, does not wear a hijab.
Chami does all that with humor.
“I’ve been supported by my community and by religious
leaders,” she said. “Given that I reach many people, I am — along with other
Muslim influencers — combating religious intolerance with my work, and making
more people admire our religion.”
One of Chami’s concerns is to show that Muslim women
are not the oppressed victims of men, something that comes to mind among many
Latin Americans when they see a woman wearing a hijab. Feminist movements in
Brazil still cultivate that kind of prejudice, she said.
“I believe feminism is selective: It struggles for a
woman’s right to be whatever she wants, but if she decides to be Muslim and
wears her (Islamic) garments, she’s put aside and oppressed by those (feminist)
women,” she added.
Colombian lawyer and digital influencer Amira Ubaida
Sanchez also tries in her videos to deal with the most common misconceptions
about Muslim women in her country.
“Me and my sister studied law together. Seeing us with
a hijab, people in the university would frequently ask us, with an expression
of surprise, if we as Muslim women are allowed to study,” she told Arab News.
In her work as an attorney, the 24-year-old usually
represents Christian Colombian women who have been abandoned by their partners
with their children and no money.
The daughter of a Colombian man who converted to Islam
40 years ago and became a Muslim leader in Bogota, she received a religious
education that she now uses to convey complex messages in two-minute clips.
On TikTok, her account @conelvelo — “with the
headscarf” in Spanish — has 43,600 followers.
Her father, Imam Carlos Sanchez, said: “I’ve never
told any of my daughters to do this or that. Amira decided for herself to talk
about Islam, which she does with great competence. I couldn’t be prouder.”
Making Islam known in Latin America is not an easy
task, he added. Until the end of the 20th century, Catholicism was the official
religion in countries such as Colombia.
Cultural differences also complicate Latin Americans’
understanding of Islamic concepts.
That is why Amira always uses straightforward language
and includes funny elements in her videos.
“Many people want to disseminate Islam in Latin
America, but they talk about ‘sunnah’ and ‘hadith,’ and nobody knows what those
words mean here,” she said.
Nallely Khan, a 30-year-old Mexican who lives with her
Muslim husband in India, said it is not easy to deal with Islamic issues on the
internet for a Latin American audience.
“My goal isn’t so much to discuss Islam, but to show
the way of living that we have, our daily life. At times I have to explain
religious matters, and Latin Americans may disagree,” she told Arab News. “Some
people don’t like Islam.”
Khan was born in a Catholic family but converted to
Islam as a teenager. She said it was difficult to find materials about it in
Mexico, but “now we have many organizations working on the dissemination of
Islam in the country.”
Her YouTube channel Nana India Vlogs has 147,000 subscribers.
She mainly portrays her life in India with her family, with a focus on the
cultural differences with Mexico. But the Islamic dimension can be seen in many
of her videos.
Her biggest hit until now has been the series “India
and my love story,” in which she describes how she converted to Islam, how she
met her husband, and how she discovered that he had a first wife only after
their marriage (the woman ended up divorcing him). The three videos have had
more than 2.5 million views.
“I don’t consider myself to be an influencer because I
know I’m not a perfect person. I always try to become a better Muslim,” she
said.
“I just hope to keep showing my life, my family, and
the fact that Muslims lead normal lives.”
According to Arely Medina, a professor of social
sciences specializing in Islam in Latin America at the University of
Guadalajara in Mexico, the emergence of Muslim women as digital influencers in
the region is part of a “strategy of presence in the public space.”
She told Arab News: “Over time, women developed
different ways of making themselves visible on the street. This way, people
would know them and see that they aren’t repressed women only because of their
religion.” The same dynamic is happening now online.
“Of course the audience can stigmatize them, but I
think most viewers look for such videos with curiosity and the wish to learn,”
she added.
Medina said the internet has been a fundamental tool
for young people interested in Islam in Mexico and other Latin American
countries that until recently did not have large Muslim communities.
“Twenty years ago, many young people who wished to
learn about Islam were only able to do so by chatting with Muslims from other
countries and searching for online content about it,” she added.
Some would even convert to Islam this way, with the
help of Muslims by phone or online chats — a process Medina calls “autonomous
conversion.”
Now, she said, “women who discovered Islam with the
help of the internet are using it to talk about Islam to large audiences.”
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2062451/media
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Video of Man Assaulting Woman With Hijab Stirs Anger
in France
Safaa Kasraoui
Apr. 13, 2022
Muslims and non-Muslims across the world expressed
anger and frustration on social media after a video showing a man attacking two women, including one who
was wearing the Muslim hijab in Montpelier in France.
The video shows a man wearing a red jacket pulling the
hair of one of the women. Both women were crying for help, while the man
deliberately attacked them publicly.
Police said they have opened an investigation to
identify the attacker, as well as the other circumstances surrounding the case.
“We strongly condemn this attack which will result in
the necessary legal consequences. Respect for others is the cornerstone of our
democratic society,” the Herault prefecture wrote on Twitter.
Social network users have been heavily sharing the
video online, calling for a police intervention to arrest the suspect.
Other internet users have condemned the lack of news
reports on the attack, describing it as “Islamophobic.”
“Wondering why news channels have not reported on the
filmed attack of the women wearing hijab,” a Twitter user said.
Another Twitter user condemned the attack against the
two young women assaulted by the man,
denouncing the lack of media reports and reactions from politicians.
“Apparently, the fact that two underage Muslim girls are assaulted by an
Islamophobic coward doesn't even deserve a 1 minute on the news and
condemnation from politicians…” the tweet reads.
This is not the first time Muslim women have
experienced Islamophobic attacks in France.
In 2020, a video of a man and a woman beating two
siblings from Jordan went viral online. The video sparked outrage among social
network users, who condemned mounting racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia in
the European country.
The French population is estimated to be 65.10 million
in 2019. The Muslim community in France represents 8% of the population or six
million.
NGOs and the Muslim community have been concerned
about inaction to tackle Islamophobia in the country.
In 2020, the Organization against Islamophobia in France
(CCIF) said that Islamophobic attacks increased by 52% in 2018 compared with 2017.
Muslims are more concerned with the issue at present,
particularly amid the ongoing elections as several candidates were promoting
anti-Islam rhetoric during their campaigns.
Last week, French far-right presidential candidate
Marine Le Pen vowed to issue fines against Muslims who wear the hijab in
public.
"People will be given a fine in the same way that
it is illegal to not wear your seat belt. It seems to me that the police are
very much able to enforce this measure," she said.
Source: Morocco World News
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Turkish Women’s Group Targeted As Erdogan Fans Flames
Of ‘Culture War’
14 Apr 2022
Turkish public prosecutors have sparked outrage among
feminists by demanding the closure of the country’s largest women’s rights
group accusing it of being “against morality”.
We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) has been issued with a
letter demanding the group is dissolved on public security grounds and
organisers now face a lengthy court battle to stay open. The prosecutors claim
the group broke the law and acted with immorality by “disintegrating the family
structure by ignoring the concept of the family under the guise of defending
women’s rights”.
Fidan Ataselim, general secretary of WWSF, said: “We
don’t see this as just an attack on us. For us, this is an attack on all women
in Turkey, on all social movements, on the entire democratic public opinion.”
It was a grotesque action, said Emma Sinclair-Webb,
Turkey director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s very provocative,” she said. “The
authorities know perfectly well that this is a highly successful and very
visible campaign.
“It’s grotesque to go after this group, it’s
completely disproportionate – and what are you going after? Everyone knows it’s
ridiculous.”
It is the latest salvo against civil society, already
riled by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to withdraw Turkey from the
Istanbul convention on violence against women last year. The move sparked large
protests, many organised by WWSF, which brought a harsh police response.
Erdoğan and his Justice and Development party (AKP)
have defended the decision, saying existing laws are enough to protect women.
The move to shutter WWSF is regarded as an effort to marginalise feminist
campaigners and divide them from more conservative women seen as more
sympathetic to the government. A general election is expected this year, and
Erdoğan faces growing opposition at the polls.
“They withdrew from the Istanbul convention, and
society reacted very strongly. Now they are trying to polarise society. They
are trying to marginalise our movement but they won’t be able to do it, because
we are an organisation that draws its power from society,” said Ataselim.
“Ultimately, this is a divisive act intended to pit women
against each other,” said Webb. “It’s sowing further social division going
forth as a way to go into an election cycle as well – Erdoğan is pitting women
against women in an attempt to shore up support of religious, pious,
conservative women against these women who they can say are immoral,” she said.
“They’re trying to make a culture war out of this.”
WWSF, with 750 active members, was founded in 2010 in
response to the murder of a 17-year-old student by her partner. It has a
nationwide network providing legal support to survivors of domestic violence,
as well as collecting data on femicide, monitoring trials and organising
rallies.
It comes amid a rise in femicides in Turkey. WWSF
estimates that 416 women were killed because of their gender last year, and a
further 72 murdered from January to March 2022.
Şükran Eroğlu, from the Istanbul Bar Association’s
women’s rights centre, said she had anticipated the authorities’ attack on WWSF
after changes to the law earlier this year limiting freedom of association. “We
knew that this would have consequences,” she said. “So this would definitely
start with women’s associations, because the women’s movement is on the rise in
Turkey.”
Gülsüm Kav, who founded WWSF, vowed to fight the
closure.
“This is an attack on women’s right to life. So we
will never give up our rights, our struggle. We will fight together with the
public so that this unlawful step can be reversed,” she said.
Source: The Guardian
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Hindu Sindh Foundation Inc Presents Programme For
Saving Hindu Girls in Pakistan From Forcible Conversion to Islam
April 13, 2022
New Delhi: Hindu Sindh Foundation Inc. (HSF) is
presenting a comprehensive programme for saving the Hindu girls in Pakistan, to
potential patrons, guardians and supporters in the diaspora. The programme
envisages relief and assistance both short and long term.Also Read -
US-Pakistan Have ‘Shared Interests’, Enjoy ‘Healthy Military’ Relationship:
Pentagon Spokesman
Women and minor girls belonging to Hindu, Sikh and
Christian faiths in Pakistan are routinely abducted and forcibly converted to
Islam, as per various human rights groups. It is estimated that at least a
thousand such girls were forcibly converted to Islam and this number is the
highest from Sindh. Also Read - I'm Going To Disturb Him: Pakistan Pacer Hasan
Ali Intends To Be In England Stalwart's Pocket During Lancashire County Stint
The latest case is that of Pooja Kumari, age 18, who
was killed recently after she resisted abduction for forced marriage and
conversion.
HSF said Hindus of Sindh are living in mortal fear,
especially those who are rearing young daughters. Immediate relief and
assistance is required to alleviate the suffering of Hindus of Sindh.
Hindu Sindh Foundation Inc. (HSF) comprehensive
programme envisages relief and assistance, including legal and other assistance
to affected families where daughters have been abducted, forcibly converted and
forcibly married to Muslims.
It also includes assistance for rehabilitation of
survivors who had been abducted, forcibly converted and forcibly married to
Muslims, but now have escaped and are trying to settle down back to normal
life.
It includes rescue of girls who have been threatened
by the Muslim men and in all probability it would be a matter of time before
they are abducted, forcibly converted and married off, HSF said.
The rescue programme includes but is not limited to by
facilitating guardianship and patronship in the US, Canada, UK, Europe and
Australia, as well as in India and Nepal, where the girls would emigrate for
further studies.
The rescue programme also includes possible adoption
of young girls after consent of birth parents and proper scrutiny of adopters
and their meeting the eligibility criteria as provisioned by law in their home
countries, option for “limited adoption” (supervised guardianship without full
adoption) would also be available.
Source: India
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Turkish, Greek Cypriot leaders launch UN-led plan to
boost women's role
APR 13, 2022
The Turkish and Greek leaders of the divided island of
Cyprus met Wednesday to launch an inclusive action plan to boost the role of
women in future peace processes led by the United Nations.
The meeting, which was held at a U.N. compound off the
defunct airport near Lefkoşa (Nicosia), was attended by Colin Stewart, the U.N.
Peacekeeping Mission chief and special representative of Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres to Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot President Ersin Tatar, Greek
Cypriot administration leader Nicos Anastasiades, negotiators from both parties
and members of the Technical Committee on Gender Equality that drafted the
action plan.
A U.N. statement said that the Cypriot leaders
"attended the official launch of an action plan on ways to ensure women's
full, equal and meaningful participation in the settlement process in
Cyprus."
The plan was developed in response to a U.N. Security
Council request to encourage the sides to ensure the needs and perspectives of
women are addressed in a future settlement.
"The technical committee on gender equality
expressed their intention to conduct further outreach to civil society
organizations" to solicit their views on "how to include a gender
perspective in the settlement process," the U.N. said.
There have only been a handful of informal meetings
between Tatar and Anastasiades since the former was elected to the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) presidency in 2020.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey used its
guarantor rights to militarily intervene in 1974 in response to a
Greek-engineered far-right coup aiming to annex the island.
There have been no official U.N.-sponsored settlement
negotiations since talks in Switzerland collapsed in July 2017. Guterres said
he wants to restart talks between the two sides.
Voters in the TRNC elected right-wing Tatar, an
advocate of a two-state solution, at a time of heightened tensions in the
Eastern Mediterranean over exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.
Source: Daily Sabah
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Will
Egypt’s new law prohibiting underage marriage see the light of day?
Nehal
Samir
Underage
marriage is a crime rooted in the norms of Egyptian society, especially in
rural communities and Upper Egypt. It violates several rights of girls, damages
their childhood, and causes severe health and psychological problems.
During
the last period, Egypt`s government was trying to tighten the penalties on the
underage marriage, but unfortunately the numbers are still high and the
government is still unable to end this phenomenon completely.
As
for the numbers and statistics, the Human Development Report for the year 2021
revealed that there are 111,000 females in Egypt who were married before the
legal age, and that 11% of females aged 15 to 19 years are married, in addition
to that there are about 5,472 girls under 18 years old are married.
According
to a study prepared by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and
Statistics, there are 117,000 children in the age group from 10 to 17 years who
are married, while the National Council for Women announced in August 2019 that
the percentage of underage marriages in the age group from 15 to 19 years
reached 14.4%.
Another
report issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics
issued in 2018 revealed that there are about 139,760 women who documented their
customary marriage contracts out of a total of 887,300 marriages during this
year.
Notably,
families resort to what is known as (Sunnah marriage), which is an unregistered
customary marriage that takes place at the hands of the authorized person or a
senior sheikh in the village/area, where the conditions for publicity are met.
In
many cases, the authorized person like mazoun (marriage officiant) obtains
checks or promissory notes from the guardian of the girl and the husband,
threatening them as not to think to report later. The guardian also obtains
checks or promissory notes from the husband, which the latter retrieves as soon
as the contract is officially registered.
There
is another way, which is to circumvent the law by issuing birth certificates to
girls under the pretense of “ageing,” and giving them an age of more than
eighteen.
There
are conflicting reports that identify the governorates with the highest rate of
child marriage, sometimes placing Upper Egypt at the top of the list, and at
other times specifying governorates such as Beheira, Fayoum, Daqahleya, Giza,
and Sharqeya, which indicates the lack of accurate statistics on the rates of
underage marriage in Egypt.
Trying
to control this phenomenon on Tuesday, during its weekly meeting, the Egyptian
cabinet approved on Tuesday a draft law prohibiting underage marriage.
The
draft law aims to criminalise underage marriage due to children’s lack of
health and mental ability to bear the consequences of marriage.
In
a statement, the cabinet asserted that children are not qualified
psychologically, culturally, mentally, and physically to be responsible for a
family and raising children, explaining that underage marriage is an attack on
childhood, which prompted legislators to intervene to prevent these harmful
practices.
Deep
look into the law
The
draft law stipulates that a marriage contract for a person who has not reached
18 years old may not be authenticated. It also allowed those concerned to
submit a request in a petition to the President of the Family Court as a judge
of temporary matters to authorise the documentation of a marriage contract for
a person under 18 years old in the crimes stipulated in Articles No (267),
(268), and (269) of the Law Penalties, after a final guilty verdict is issued.
The
draft law requires the mazoun to notify the Public Prosecution of any incident
of a customary marriage in which one of the parties is a child under 18 years
old at the time of marriage.
A
penalty of imprisonment of no less than one year and a fine between EGP 50,000
and EGP 200,000 shall be inflicted on anyone who marries a male or female,
neither of whom has reached 18 years of age at the time of marriage.
Parents
who participate in marrying their daughter or son who is under 18 years of age
would be deprived of the authority of guardianship over the child.
Whoever
instigates this crime shall be punished with the same penalty. The child shall
not be held criminally or civilly liable for this crime.
The
law also punishes mazoun with no less than six months of imprisonment, a fine
between EGP 20,000 and EGP 50,000, and being removed from their post, in the
event they do not notify the Public Prosecution of the incident of underage
marriage.
Attempts
to pass a law criminalizing the marriage of minors during the period
(2017-2021)
Nagwa
Ramazan, Executive Director of Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality
Nagwa, praised this step that will help a lot in prohibiting the child marriage
rates in Egypt.
Ramdan
explained to Daily News Egypt that she is optimistic about this draft law,
explaining that this step means that the cabinet approves the law to enter the
parliament and this is considered the tenth draft law to be presented to the
parliament. So it is the first step in a long process but we are optimistic.
As
Ramdan mentioned that there are a number of legislative proposals submitted by
MPs or the government to criminalize the marriage of minors. They have been
submitted in legislative chapters since 2017, but they have not been passed.
Daily
News Egypt dug further to present these trails.
Ramazan
pointed to that on 21 March 2021 during the Mother’s Day celebration, President
Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi expressed in his speech his strong dissatisfaction with
the spread of the phenomenon of minors’ marriage in Egypt and directed the
House of Representatives to quickly take measures to issue a law prohibiting
the marriage of underage girls, which brought back the importance of having
separate legislation for this crime -temporarily- to the fore, It is not clear
the reasons that stand before the Egyptian House of Representatives to approve
this law, despite the repeated entry into discussions more than once in the
sessions and legislative chapters with different formation and parliamentary
composition.
Ramazan
mentioned that Edraak published a study that traced the path of the draft laws
that were submitted to the parliament during the period (2017-2021).
According
to Edraak`s “Ink on paper” study that on child marriage the sequence or the
stations were:-
In
2017: Representative Abla Al-Hawari submitted a draft law criminalizing the
marriage of underage girls, the most prominent of which is the withdrawal of
guardianship from the father if he forces his daughter to marry before she
reaches the age of 18, and the imposition of penalties on the notary of the
marriage, and the Council did not pass the law.
In
2018: Representative Mohamed al-Akkad submitted another draft law that would
increase the penalties for those involved in a minor marriage to imprisonment
from 5 to 10 years, or to pay a fine of between EGP 10,000 and EGP 100,000, or
both penalties, but the Council did not pass the law.
The
Ministry of Justice also submitted a draft law punishing imprisonment for more
than 7 years in addition to approving a fine for those involved in the marriage
of a minor, and it was referred to the Prime Minister, which referred it to the
House of Representatives, and the Council did not pass the law.
In
2019: The National Council for Women submitted a law entitled (Combating
Underage Marriage) to the cabinet and the House of Representatives, but the
Council did not pass the law.
In
2019: The Council postponed in December 2019 the discussion of the Prime
Minister’s decision to amend Law No. 143 of 1994 on Civil Status, known as the
Law (Preventing Child Marriage).
In
2020: The Council postponed, in January 2021, the Prime Minister’s discussion
of the draft amendment to Law No. 143 of 1994 on Civil Status, known as the Law
(Preventing Child Marriage), to solicit Al-Azhar’s opinion.
In
2021: Representative Ahmed Bilal Al-Berlusi submitted a draft law consisting of
(11) in addition to an explanatory note that includes the legislative and
constitutional pillars that justify the necessities of working to issue the
draft law and show the positive societal impact of its issuance (2 October
20121).
In
2021: Representative Enas Abdel Halim submitted a draft law prohibiting a
marriage contract from being documented for someone under the age of 18, and
increasing the penalty if the crime was accompanied by forgery in official
documents, and the draft was not discussed until (11 October, 2021).
In
2022: Representative Amira El Adly submitted a draft law that stipulates the
child marriage as human trafficking, and punishes perpetrators by 5 years in
prison at least.
What
distinguishes the new draft law?
After
presenting all the previous stations, the question that is raised is what
distinguishes this new draft law. Ramazan explained to Daily News Egypt that
she is optimistic about this new draft law as the articles of the law are very
good.
“The
first point that impressed me in this law that it stipulates that whoever
instigates or helped in this crime shall be punished including the mazoun, as
we used to witness some concerns on imposing penalties on the mazoun while they
are one of the most important pillars that facilitate this crime,” according to
Ramazan
Ramdan
continued that the second point that impressed her was that the crime does not
expire by passing time, so the girl can report any age and time.
Will
this law be deterrent law in combating child marriage?
For
her part, Sakina Fouad, adviser to former interim president Adly Mansour for
women’s affairs, told Daily News Egypt that child marriages are a violation of
childhood and should be considered child trafficking.
She
explained that the rise in the number of child marriages in Egypt is a result
of the economic conditions and lack of girls’ awareness about their rights and
is also due to parents’ exploitation of some girls’ weakness and their lack of
awareness of their rights.
Fouad
also noted that the bad practice had already existed, but what helped it return
at high rates in 2013 was when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in the
country. At the time, the Brotherhood-dominated parliament proposed a law to
drop the minimum age for female marriage to 16 years old, but luckily, she
said, that parliament was dissolved before the law was approved.
She
continued that the crime exists, yet trafficking in the name of religion and
using it as a cover for backwardness and extremism is at the core of the
matter, which is a violation of the values of the girl and the rights of women.
Thus,
she asserted that there is a demand to increase religious awareness and
knowledge of true religion, as that will stand in the face of the bad practice.
Fouad
said that no doubt that the last years witnessed a strong change in the society
but still not the change that we hope for.
In
addition, she said that awareness must be spread on the problems arising from
child marriage
Moreover,
Fouad commented that it is not easy to reap the fruits of the proposed law at
the moment, since it will take time to combat traditions and wrong Islamic
views, which will not be easily eradicated.
“We
have many laws but on the other side we also have a lot of ways to manipulate
them,” Fouad said.
Fouad
explained that the most important point is how to protect the application of
this law from all forms of manipulation and deception, such as obtaining birth
certificates older than the age of the girl in order to make her marry.
“The
law must be supplemented with guarantees to ensure the accuracy of law
enforcement, for example, so far we do not have a clear mechanism for age
estimation,” she said.
Ramazan
concluded by stressing that the penalties stipulated in the draft law are
enough, but agrees with Fouad that the problem lies in its implementation.
Source:
Daily News Egypt
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/saudi-ballerina-samira-khamis-ramazan/d/126795