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Islam, Women and Feminism ( 2 Aug 2020, NewAgeIslam.Com)
Saudi Education Minister Appoints First Women Cultural Attaches
•
Egypt Grapples with Women’s Freedoms Online As #Metoo Re-Emerges
•
Afghans Draw Strength from The Tale of a Teen Girl Battling the Taliban
•
Afghan Women Demand Right to Be Named on Children's Documents
•
For Iraqi Mothers-To-Be, Hospitals Are Pandemic No-Go Zones
•
30 Nigerian Women Stranded In Lebanon Beg To Return To Nigeria
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
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Saudi Education Minister Appoints First Women Cultural Attaches
August
02, 2020
The
appointments are part of a move to promote Saudi Arabia’s educational and
cultural presence internationally. (Photo: MOE/Twitter)
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RIYADH:
Three Saudi women have been appointed as cultural attaches, another first for
the Kingdom.
Education
Minister Dr. Hamad bin Mohammed Al-Asheikh appointed Dr. Amal bint Jameel
Fatani as cultural attache in the UK, Fahda bint Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh as
cultural attache in Ireland and Dr. Yusra bint Hussain Al-Jazairi as acting
cultural attache in Morocco. The three newly appointed women are all educators.
Other
appointments included Dr. Ahmad bin Abdullah Al-Furaih as cultural attache in
Egypt, Dr. Issa bin Fahd Al-Rumaih as cultural attache in Jordan and Dr. Saad
bin Mohammed Al-Shabana as cultural attache in Kuwait.
The
appointments are part of a move to promote the Kingdom’s educational and
cultural presence internationally, activate areas of joint cooperation, exchange
scientific and research experiences, coordinate scholarships for students
wishing to study in the Kingdom, supervise Saudi students studying abroad,
facilitate their educational journey and harness their capabilities and take
part in its future development.
Appointing
Saudi women as cultural attaches is a first in this important sector, which has
a pivotal role in building relations, coordinating efforts and promoting
cultural partnerships between countries.
This
highlights the leadership’s keenness to empower Saudi women, enabling them to
serve their country in all sectors and expresses its confidence in the
importance of their role throughout the Kingdom’s journey.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1713691/saudi-arabia
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Egypt
Grapples with Women’s Freedoms Online As #Metoo Re-Emerges
August
02, 2020
A
combination of file pictures shows a woman watching videos of (l-r) Hossam and
al-Adham on the video-sharing app TikTok in Egypt's capital Cairo.— AFP
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CAIRO:
Social media has become a new and dangerous battleground for women’s rights in
Egypt after young TikTok influencers were jailed while a resurgent #MeToo
movement decried male sexual violence.
Last
Monday, a court sentenced five female social media influencers, Haneen Hossam,
Mowada Al-Adham and three others, to two years in jail each on charges of
violating public morals over content posted to video-sharing app TikTok.
International
digital rights group Access Now described them as “all women, all young, all
exercising their right to freedom of expression online.”
Just
two days later, a court sentenced another young social media influencer, Manar
Samy, to three years in prison over TikTok videos, deeming the clips in which
she dances and lip-syncs to popular songs to be “inciting debauchery.”
Many
in the deeply conservative country have cheered on the arrests, as traditional
social values clash with online content seen as racy and sexually suggestive.
“The
Egyptian government is on a campaign to arrest and prosecute women influencers
on... TikTok for violating ‘the values of the Egyptian family’ and ‘inciting
debauchery and immorality,’” Access Now said in a statement.
The
Egyptian authorities “not only want to control what citizens say, but also how
they should dress, talk, and behave online,” said Marwa Fatafta, the group’s
Middle East and North Africa policy manager.
Egypt
has in recent years enforced strict Internet controls as it walks a tight line
between balancing the Islamic law that shapes its governance and adapting to a
rapidly shifting society with a penchant for social media content.
Stringent
laws were approved in 2018 allowing authorities to block websites seen as a
threat to national security and to monitor personal social media accounts with
over 5,000 followers.
“In
the past, the Egyptian regime tightened its stronghold on the Internet... Now,
the online repression extends to non-political activity too,” said Fatafta.
The
six jailed women combined have millions of followers.
Hossam
was arrested after posting a clip saying that girls could make money by working
with her, a message that was interpreted as a call for prostitution, while
Adham had posted satirical videos on TikTok and Instagram.
Aside
from being a virtual battleground of competing interpretations of morality,
social media has also empowered young Egyptian women to speak up about sexual
assault, sometimes with negative consequences.
In
May, a shocking video came to light of a young woman sobbing, her face battered
and bruised.
Menna
Abdel-Aziz, 17, posted an Instagram video in which she said she had been gang
raped by a group of young men.
The
authorities’ response was swift: the six alleged attackers were arrested — but
so was Abdel-Aziz. All were charged with “promoting debauchery.”
“She
committed crimes, she admitted to some of them,” the prosecutor-general said in
a statement. “She deserves to be punished.”
Since
Abdel-Aziz’s case surfaced, a revived #MeToo movement among Egyptian women,
mostly from affluent backgrounds, has sprung into action.
A
gang rape allegation made in late July stemming from a prominent social media
account has been one trigger.
Another
was young women posting testimonials about sexual misconduct that led to the
arrest earlier in the month of Ahmed Bassam Zaki, 22, a former student of some
of Egypt’s most elite schools and universities.
But
the movement faces an uphill battle.
Rights
groups say the government of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has been curtailing
freedoms since he took office in 2014.
Comedians,
academics, bloggers, journalists, political dissidents, lawyers and activists
are among those who have been jailed in recent years, and a music video
director has died in custody.
Imprisoning
social media influencers, the latest group to be targeted, “has nothing to do
with protecting social values. It’s about Internet policing and control,”
Access Now’s Fatafta said.
“With
the massive increase in content creators and influencers on TikTok in Egypt,
there is a high risk that more prosecutions targeting this community are yet to
come,” the organization added.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1713556/media
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Afghans
Draw Strength from The Tale of A Teen Girl Battling The Taliban
Aug.
2, 2020
The
tale of a teenage girl who allegedly shot Taliban militants to avenge the
murder of her parents has proved potent.
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In
a war-torn country hungry for heroes, the tale of a teenage girl who allegedly
shot Taliban militants to avenge the murder of her parents has proved potent.
In
mid-July, reports emerged about Qamar Gul, 15, who says she gunned down two
fighters with her father’s AK-47 weapon. Almost immediately, the story
electrified some in Afghanistan, a country buffeted by decades of war.
“When
I heard about her bravery, I just felt proud of her, that we have powerful
women like her,” Farhad Omer, 30, who is from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said.
“Afghanistan needs heroes like her.”
Ahmad
Turkmen, 25, said Qamar had given a “surge of power” and confidence to Afghan
women.
“Yesterday
it was Malalai, today it is Qamar Gul,” said Turkmen, a student of political
science, comparing her to the female folk hero Malalai of Maiwand, who is
remembered across the country for rallying fighters against the British during
the second Anglo-Afghan war in 1880.
Turkmen
was not the only one to evoke the ghost of Malalai.
“Malalai
has emerged in Qamar Gul,” Eima Sultani, 27, a homemaker from Kabul, said.
“Gul’s act reminds the entire world that Afghan women still have courage to
resist against violence.”
But
truth can be hard to come by in conflict, especially in remote Afghan provinces
like Ghor, which is contested by the Taliban and where the incident is said to
have unfolded, and NBC News was not able to independently verify her account.
"Ghor
has a complex and volatile security situation, with the Taliban, various
criminal groups and pro-government militias all vying for power and
control," said Ashley Jackson, a researcher at the Overseas Development
Institute, a London think tank.
Qamar
NBC News by phone that she gunned down the two Taliban fighters after they
broke into her house while her family was asleep and fatally shot her parents.
"I
was forced to pick up my father’s gun," she said. "I feel proud that
I killed the Taliban who killed my father and mother."
A
Kabul official and the police chief of Taywarah district backed up Qamar's
story, but offered no evidence for what they say had happened.
Habiburahman
Malikzade, the police chief, said the confrontation occurred when the Taliban
entered the pro-government village of Geriveh, where Qamar lives, in an effort
to occupy the area.
Meanwhile,
The New York Times reported that the confrontation was allegedly a family
dispute and that one of the attackers Qamar killed was her own husband.
This
version of events is disputed by the police chief who said the teen was not
married, as well as by a man who picked up the phone whichQamar had previously
answered and introduced himself as her half-brother.
The
Taliban, meanwhile, denied reports that the teenage girl had killed any of its
men. But it did say that two fighters had been injured when they stormed a camp
of government-linked militia in the province.
“The
puppet Afghan government has become frustrated and they now resort to making up
these types of baseless stories, which have nothing to do with reality,”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, offering no evidence to back up his
claims.
While
NBC News was not able to independently verify any of the accounts of what
happened in the village of Geriveh that night, Qamar's story appeared to take
on a life of its own.
A
photo of the 15-year-old looking stoic, wearing a long brown patterned dress
and black hijab while holding her father's gun circulated on social media. The
story was embellished as it spread, with some praising her for having killed 10
Taliban fighters after they tried to rape her.
Women
have long been marginalized in Afghanistan, but their mistreatment under the
Taliban, whose government was deposed by U.S.-backed forces in 2001, was
extreme.
While
the teen's apparent bravery may stand out, her alleged experience of violence
in the remote province offers a window into how 40 years of conflict have torn
apart the lives of countless Afghans.
The
conflict remains one of the deadliest in the world for civilians. In the first
six months of this year, 1,282 were killed and 2,176 injured, according to the
United Nations.
So
far, any hope for peace has failed the Afghan people.
In
February, a U.S.-Taliban pact on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in
exchange for Taliban security guarantees was followed by an increase in
violence.
Even
as a hero, it is unclear what the future holds for this Afghan teen. But she
says she is not afraid.
"Whatever
is going to happen, I don’t fear the Taliban," she said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/afghans-draw-strength-tale-teen-girl-battling-taliban-n1234601
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Afghan
women demand right to be named on children's documents
JULY
30, 2020
Bahaar
Joya
LONDON
(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Afghan women could win the legal right to have
their names on their children’s birth certificates and identity cards under a
proposal to be presented to parliament, one of the country’s few female
lawmakers has said.
Naheed
Farid, an independent lawmaker who chairs the parliamentary commission on
women’s affairs, said she and other MPs had drafted an amendment to the
population registration law that would be presented to the house after its
summer break.
Women’s
rights campaigners have for years pushed to be named on official documents
including their children’s birth certificates, which like Afghan identity
documents carry only the name of a person’s father.
But
they have faced opposition in the conservative and patriarchal Muslim country,
where some see even using a woman’s name as offensive.
A
woman’s name often does not appear on the invitation to her wedding - only
those of her father and husband-to-be - or even on her grave.
The
custom also has a practical impact. Wida Saghari, a Kabul-based women’s rights
activist and single mother, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation she had been
unable to obtain identity documents for her children in their father’s absence.
“My
son had to enrol in school late because I was divorced and authorities would
not issue the national ID for my son without his father’s presence,” she said.
The
legal amendment comes three years after a group of female rights advocates
launched the #Whereismyname campaign, seeking to end the taboo surrounding the
naming of women.
Since
the ultra-conservative Taliban was overthrown in 2001, Afghan women have
regained the right to go to school, to vote, and to work. But violence against
women in the home is widespread, and often goes unpunished.
The
campaign’s founder Laleh Osmany welcomed the proposed legal amendment, but said
deep-rooted social conservatism meant many women would still face difficulties
even if the law changed in their favour.
She
urged fellow activists to take their campaign to the streets to ensure the
amendment passed and said she was determined to continue the fight despite the
difficulties.
“In
the past three years, I faced many personal challenges from my family and my
relatives,” she said. “My sister told me I brought shame on them by going to
the streets and talking to men.”
Thousands
of Afghans including celebrities and journalists have supported her campaign.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-women-names-trfn/afghan-women-demand-right-to-be-named-on-childrens-documents-idUSKCN24U2Y9
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For
Iraqi mothers-to-be, hospitals are pandemic no-go zones
August
03, 2020
KUT,
Iraq: Iraqi midwife Umm Mariam used to help bring three babies into the world
per day. But with mothers-to-be avoiding pandemic-hit hospitals, she now
delivers twice that number in her makeshift home clinic.
Across
the country recovering from decades of war, health centers face shortages of
oxygen supplies and protective equipment even as coronavirus cases soar to
almost 130,000, with nearly 5,000 deaths.
Among
those infected in the economically battered country, according to official
figures, are 3,000 medical staff.
“That’s
why many women now prefer to deliver their children at my place,” says Umm
Mariam, speaking from the clinic she has set up at her home in Kut, southeast
of Baghdad.
The
dire situation is a far cry from the Iraq of the 1970s, which prided itself on
one of the best health care systems in the Middle East, by offering free
state-of-the-art care to its citizens.
But
back-to-back conflicts — from the war with Iran that started in 1980 to the
US-led military campaigns and the battle against the Daesh group — have sapped
funds used to maintain the system.
For
years international sanctions made it impossible to get new medical equipment
or even spare parts into the country.
The
government still allocates barely 2 percent of its annual budget, which is
funded almost entirely by oil sales, to the Health Ministry.
Even
before COVID-19 hit this year, Iraq’s hospitals were run down, with outdated or
broken equipment and staff often poorly trained and overworked.
Mais,
29, is expecting to give birth to her first child in a few weeks. Last year,
she could have gone to a public hospital and paid a small, symbolic fee for the
delivery.
“But
I was afraid of COVID-19, so my gynecologist advised me to go to a private
clinic,” she said.
Private
clinics are flourishing, but few can afford them — particularly as Iraq’s
poverty rate is set to double to 40 percent this year, according to a World
Bank prediction.
Mais
will have to shell out nearly $1,500, but she feels she has no choice. “All my
friends did the same thing because the obstetric services have been exposed to
patients infected with COVID-19,” she said.
One
of the nine public hospitals in Wasit province, where Kut is located, has been
transformed into a coronavirus treatment ward.
The
other eight are trying to operate as usual, referring all COVID-19 cases to the
specialized facility.
Still,
residents are so afraid they will be exposed to the virus that they have
largely stopped going to medical facilities altogether.
Mehdi
Al-Shuwayli, who heads the local branch of Iraq’s medical syndicate, said
patient intake has been slashed in half.
“In
the first three months of 2020, we carried out 400 surgeries. The next three
months, it was just 187,” added Qader Fadhel, a surgeon at the public Al-Karama
Hospital.
Instead
of heading to hospitals, Iraqis suffering from illness and injuries are
flocking somewhere else: pharmacies.
“Around
90 percent of my customers describe their symptoms to me so I can prescribe the
medication myself, and they can skip going to a hospital altogether,” one
pharmacist, who preferred to speak anonymously, said.
They
then treat themselves at home, skeptical they could even get an appointment in
a country with just 14 hospital beds for every 10,000 people, according to
World Health Organization data.
France,
by comparison, has 60 beds for every 10,000 people.
Hospitals
are also facing a shortage of oxygen tanks for those severely affected by
COVID-19’s attack on the lungs. A state-sponsored factory in Taji, north of
Baghdad, is struggling to fill the gap.
“Every
day, we produce 1,000 to 1,500 oxygen tanks for hospitals but we also prepare
around 100 for those bedridden at home,” says Ahmed Abdelmutlaq, the factory’s
deputy director.
Even
for those treating themselves at home, costs can add up.
Oxygen
tanks, Vitamin C or zinc tablets meant to boost immunity and even some face
masks have tripled or quadrupled in price, Iraqis trying out domestic remedies
said.
Still,
they insist, going it alone is a better choice than catching COVID-19 in a
dilapidated public hospital.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1713741/middle-east
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30
Nigerian Women Stranded In Lebanon Beg To Return To Nigeria
August
03, 2020
Some
30 Nigerian ladies trafficked to Lebanon are appealing to Nigerian Government
to rescue them as they are stranded in that country.
They
made the appeal in a statement by the President of Journalists International
Forum for Migration (JIFORM), Mr Ajibola Abayomi, and made available to the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.
Abayomi
said that the message was being relayed based on an encounter with the victims,
which necessitated the call for a speedy rescue action from government.
"JIFORM
has forwarded details of the human trafficking agents involved in this matter
to the relevant agencies and shall monitor it to the logical conclusion to
ensure proper investigation and prosecution of those involved."
He
said that the ladies were all camped in one room with faulty toilet and other
utilities, and were presently housed in a building at Dawra city in Lebanon.
Abayomi
said one of the victims, Miss Adebisi Comfort-Oluwatoyin with Passport No.
number A10597908, disclosed to JIFORM that they had to escape from the inhuman
treatment by their mistresses and hosts.
According
to him, the 23-year-old lady hails from Ondo State, graduated from the Edo
State Polytechnic, Ekpoma, and was a resident in Osun State before departing
Nigeria in December 2019.
"Help
us plead with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), National Agency for
Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and others to save us.
"The
Nigerian embassy in Lebanon have tried but we want to go back home.
"Our
belongings and international passports were seized with no payments for the
service we have been rendering for months. They loosen and cut our hairs with
razor blade.
"The
police and their immigration are always on their side. We are not getting
justice and our lives are in danger," Abayomi quoted the victim as saying.
Abayomi
said that the Executive Director, Rescue Africans In Slavery Organisation
(RAIS), Ms Omotola Fawunmi, who spoke from the United States of America, also
pleaded with government and other agencies to come to the victims aid.
Fawunmi
who claimed she has been responsible for the upkeep of the ladies stated that
the victims are seriously suffering.
"The
Nigerian government must act fast. Apart from this case, there are over 300 of
them trapped in Oman and thousands across other Asian countries, beyond
sustaining the ladies, we have facilitated evacuation of thousands of human
trafficking victims in the last few years," she said.
Also,
Clare Henshaw, the County Manager, the Migrant Project Nigeria, also called on
the NAPTIP and Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) for urgent action.
"First,
we want the ladies to be rescued as soon as possible. Their condition is very
critical because they don't have good shelter, food and they need urgent
medical attention.
"My
personal conversation with Comfort showed that they were really in a bad state
at the moment.
"After
rescuing the ladies, there must be thorough investigation and punishment for
the agents and other human traffickers involved in this," Henshaw pleaded.
https://www.pulse.ng/news/local/30-nigerian-women-stranded-in-lebanon-beg-to-return-to-nigeria/4mzh3br
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