Swedish Woman Jailed For War Crimes over Son Becoming Child Soldier in Syria
New
Age Islam News Bureau
05
March 2022
• Saudi
Arabia to Hold ‘Women in Science’ Workshop
• Balochistan
Gets Women Police Station after 28 Years
• Afghan
Journalist Zahra Joya among Time’s Women of the Year
• Balochistan’s
Culture Does Not Discourage Girls Education, Research Finds
• Embassies
of Muslim Countries to Join NCSW in Promoting Women Empowerment
• More
Action Needed To Draw Women to Science, Say Middle East Female Achievers
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/swedish-woman-child-soldier-syria/d/126513
--------
Swedish
Woman Jailed For War Crimes over Son Becoming Child Soldier in Syria
A
file photo shows the entrance to the district court in Stockholm. (AFP)
-----
04
March, 2022
A
Swedish court found a Swedish woman guilty of war crimes for failing to prevent
her 12-year-old son from becoming a child soldier in Syria, where he was killed
in the civil war.
The
woman has denied the charges.
“The
district court sentences Lina Ishaq to six years in prison for grave violation
of international law and grave war crime,” the Stockholm district court said on
Friday.
“She,
in her capacity as protection guarantor, omitted to prevent her son Joan, 12-15
years, from being recruited by unknown accomplices and used as child soldier on
behalf of ISIS in the armed conflict in Syria,” it said in the verdict.
The
49-year-old woman, a Swede who returned from Syria in 2020, is the first person
known to have been charged in Sweden with aiding the recruitment of her own
minor son as a child soldier.
The
boy, born in 2001, died in 2017.
According
to the United Nations, recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as
soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law and recognized as a
war crime by the International Criminal Court.
Under
Swedish law, courts can try people for crimes against international law
committed abroad.
Source:
Al Arabiya
--------
Saudi
Arabia to Hold ‘Women in Science’ Workshop
Image
from Arab News
-------
March
4th, 2022
The
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will hold a workshop to
promote the role of women in science next month.
With
talks by industry experts about their personal journeys and struggles, the
two-day event, titled “Women in Science, Engineering and Research,” will take
place on March 8 to 9.
There
will also be presentations by experts in gender equality, as well as practical
sessions on management and leadership techniques, how to tackle gender issues
and how to succeed at interviews.
All
of the sessions will be held concurrently at the university’s campus and online
via Zoom.
With
a goal to become a recognized center for education and research in the fields
of science and technology, KAUST is well aware of the role women have to play
in the industry. Its aim is to inspire discoveries that not only build bridges
between people and cultures but also aid the betterment of humanity.
Ahead
of the 'WISER' workshop, the university is organizing a competition for people
to submit their short films on the subject of women in science, engineering and
research.
The
videos must be no longer than 60 seconds in length and should cover either
women’s success stories, whether there are too few women in the sector, or why
the industry needs more women.
The
competition is open to all, regardless of age, ethnicity or nationality, and
the videos will be judged on their originality, impact and creativity.
The
winners will receive a gift card worth $250 and the best entries will be shown
during the workshop and via social media.
The
deadline for submissions is March 1 and more information is available at
wiser.kaust.edu.sa.
Source:
Al Bawaba
--------
Balochistan
gets women police station after 28 years
March
5, 2022
QUETTA:
The first police station for women in Balochistan opened its doors on Friday.
The facility in the provincial capital was inaugurated by Inspector General
Police (IGP) Balochistan Mohsin Hassan Butt.
The
police station dedicated to serve women in Balochistan came into existence 28
years after the first such facility was set up in the country. Pakistan’s first
women police station was inaugurated by late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in
Islamabad on January 25, 1994.
Speaking
at the inaugural ceremony, IGP Balochistan said, “Keeping in mind the
traditional environment of the province, I have been striving to establish a
separate police station for women so that they can lodge their complaints with
confidence in a peaceful environment.”
“Women
should be able to share their issues and their FIRs would be registered at this
police station. All staff of the police station, including the officers, would
be women who would help in solving the problems of women under one roof,” said
Mr Butt.
The
first women police station will play an important role in the province, he
added.
IGP
Balochistan also appreciated the services of former DIG Quetta Abdul Razzaq
Cheema who ensured completion of construction and other phases of setting up
the first women police station in Balochistan during his deployment.
Source:
Dawn
https://www.dawn.com/news/1678342/balochistan-gets-women-police-station-after-28-years
--------
Afghan
journalist Zahra Joya among Time’s women of the year
Annie
Kelly
5
Mar 2022
The
Afghan journalist Zahra Joya has been named as one of Time’s women of the year
2022 for her reporting of women’s lives in Afghanistan through her news agency,
Rukhshana Media.
Now
living as a refugee in the UK, Joya continues to run Rukhshana Media from
exile, publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists across Afghanistan
on life for women under Taliban rule.
Rukhshana
Media partnered with the Guardian on the Women report Afghanistan series during
the Taliban takeover in August 2021, which told the stories of women fleeing
their homes as the Taliban advanced and the plight of divorced and single
mothers, attacks on women police officers and the crushing of protests. Joya
has continued to report for the Guardian since she was evacuated from Kabul to
London.
Joya
launched Rukhshana Media in December 2020 with her own money as Afghanistan’s
first feminist news agency, with the aim of becoming the first national news
source where an Afghan woman in any region could see her own life reflected in
the stories published every day.
Both
she and her journalists faced attacks and threats to their lives due to their
reporting on women’s rights and her team in Afghanistan continues to work in
secret.
“Although
it has never been easy to be a woman and a journalist in Afghanistan, now our
reporting has been almost eradicated,” says Joya.
“The
Taliban have forced female journalists to wear the hijab, banning them from
appearing on screen or in public, or from broadcasting their voices on radio in
some provinces, but this makes it even more important that our stories continue
to be told.”
Joya
was interviewed by Angelina Jolie for Time’s women of the year issue, which
also featured the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, the Olympian Allyson Felix
and the poet Amanda Gorman.
Source:
The Guardian
--------
Balochistan’s
Culture Does Not Discourage Girls Education, Research Finds
by
Salal Amin Baloch
March
3, 2022
A
frightening silence is maintained in the country on Balochistan. It is
described as an information black hole. However, a recently published research
paper, titled Girls’ education in Balochistan, Pakistan: exploring a
postcolonial Islamic governmentality’ offers some hope to the province.
Authored
by Javed Anwar, Peter Kelly and Emily Gray, and published in British Journal of
Sociology of Education, the paper is an effort to understand gender disparities
in rural schools of Balochistan.
Taking
advantage of substantive political theories like Michel Foucault’s theory of
governmentality, Mitchell Dean’s illiberal governmentalities, and Salehin’s
pious governmentality in Bangladesh, it develops a productive theoretical
approach of ‘post-colonial Islamic governmentality’ to broaden the discourse on
education governance in Pakistan and rest of the world. The authors examine the
ways in which the transnational organisations, colonial legacies and politics
and culture of particular version of religious practices in different ways
attempt to govern and shape girls’ access and participation in rural and remote
areas. They suggest that at the intersection of Islamic principles and
practices and modern education, the sustainable development goals can be
achieved in the rural locations.
This
qualitative study used data collected from 19 individuals and five focus groups
through semi-structured interviews. The interviewees selected for data
collection were involved in education policy and governance of Balochistan at
different hierarchical levels.
Contending
that the political rationalities mediate between Islamic and secular forms of
governance, the paper looks at the global influences of education policy with
regard to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), conceptions of
neoliberal globalisations along with the bearings of colonial legacies and
religion on framing national, provincial and district policy narratives.
Balochistan
has been chosen as a case study to investigate the problem of girls’ education
as it presents a bird’s eye view of governing challenges due to its rural and
urban and gender disparities in schools.
The
study recommends two key applications for the conceptual framework of
post-colonial Islamic governmentality: first, this framework might be useful in
realising the promise of long-term progress in girls’ education; second, it
declares that this innovative framework is an attempt to contribute to academic
debates in Foucault’s theoretical legacies.
Post-colonialism,
in the paper, is understood in two different ways: first, the period following
the departure of the British colonial rulers; second, as a theoretical lens it
unfolds the ways through which geography, politics, social, and cultural lives
are understood both within previously colonised as well as colonising nations.
Further,
the paper stresses on two key education policy influences and policy shifts
during the Cold War and the War on Terror. During the military regime of
General Ziaul Haq, the objective of Islamisation was achieved through the
development and implementation of the Education Policy of 1979. Pakistan
committed to the global agendas of Education For All (EFA) and Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in the following years, creating hope for improved
girls’ education and closing the gender gap.
Despite
these assurances, there has been inadequate improvement in the field of female
education due to Zia’s rigorous Islamisation policies. Conservative lobbies
gained disproportionate representation in the policy arena that led to gender
segregation and women/girls’ marginalisation across the country.
General
Pervez Musharraf pressed for moderate Islam and attempted to accord more space
to women/girls in the public sphere through multiple initiatives. This shift in
the education policy attracted the international donors and transnational
organisations to assist the girls’ education policy and practice. There was
also an emphasis on the decentralisation of governance through the initiatives
of Devolution of Powers Ordinance (2001), and later 18th constitutional
amendment (2010) which transferred the education policy governance
responsibilities to the provinces and districts. National Education Policy
2009, aided by tremendous technical and financial support of international
donors could not achieve education-related UN millennium development goals
(MGD) by a great margin. Pakistan recommitted to the UN sustainable development
goals (SDG) objectives in 2015 and also made it a part of its national
development strategy. Nonetheless, all gender inequalities across the
urban-rural split and socioeconomic class remain significant, and are expected
to worsen as a result of Covid 19.
The
paper argues that the ‘sparse rurality’ of Balochistan poses multiple
challenges. There are around 3,974 schools for girls and 9,700 for boys. Given
the scattered population of the province more funds are required to educate all
the children, including girls. The paper suggests for alternative solutions of
mobile schools or flexible schools in the rural areas.
Moreover,
in the absence of certified teachers, pesh imams of local mosques frequently
teach children. The local communities trust them due to their role in
spiritual, social and community activities. In such circumstances, the paper
advocates for imams to be mainstreamed, by training them in contemporary
education.
In
this case, two advantages of application of conceptual framework of post-colonial
Islamic governmentality are suggested: first, the participation of pesh imam
improves girls’ opportunities in rural areas to receive modern education as
well as religious instruction; and second, it brings local religious actors,
development organisations and public institutions closer, allowing for a
productive relationship between religious and secular-modern forces.
The
paper also discusses the challenges of lack of availability and low standard of
public schools, which results in a growing tendency of girls’ enrollment in
informal madrassahs. Around 3,200 of the province’s numerous madrassahs are
officially registered with the government. These madrassahs and/or mosques with
pesh imams — as teachers in locations where girls’ schools and female teachers
are not available — can become schools for girls up to levels primary level and
beyond.
It
highlights that social and gender relations in Balochistan are guided and
understood by the discourse and practice of Balochi riwaj (traditions) in the province,
whereby women/girls are thought to be honour and dignity of the family, clan
and tribe. Islamic norms and practices interplaying with riwaj and shape girls’
schooling. The paper also shows that the intersection of local cultures and
Islamic practices do not stop girls from going to school.
Balochistan’s
culture in fact facilitates and supports girls’ education. It accommodates
female teachers and their families in school premises to ensure girls get
education. The decisions are taken by village malik (elder), and governance of
girls’ schools strengthens his authority in the area.
This
paper also provokes many questions: for example, what will be the mechanism of
equating the qualification and skills of pesh imam to enable him to teach
Science, IT and other courses in addition to spiritual? Will pesh imams stay in
the same village if they are provided employment as teacher? How will malik
find space in the education policy making? How will girls in primary education
taught by imams pursue higher education? Girls may have to relocate to attend
colleges and universities. In this sense, postcolonial Islamic governmentality
as a theoretical approach can be applied at different junctures and locations
to analyse girls’ education in the country.
The
paper provides significant insights. It provides an academic understanding
about the problem of girls’ schooling. It merits a thorough reading by the
policymakers, scholars, academics, researchers, policy analysts and
stakeholders to understand policy problems with regard to girls’ education in
the country.
Source:
The Friday Times
--------
Embassies
of Muslim countries to join NCSW in promoting women empowerment
March
05, 2022
Islamabad
: The Embassies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and
Turkey collaborated with the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW)
to organise the first hybrid International Workshop session on ‘Muslim Women
Pioneers: Leading Economic Growth.’
The
event was a kick start of a series of discussions to share best practices of
women’s breakthrough leadership in socio-economic affairs, politics, and
policymaking in the Islamic world, says a press release.
The
opening session was attended by participating embassies, the diplomatic
community, Chairperson of the NCSW, Nilofar Bakhtiar, Chairperson of the
National Commission for Child Rights, Afshan Tehseen, Director-General United
Nations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Usman Iqbal Jadoon, and featuring
the Founder and Managing Director of Kashf Foundation, Roshanay Zafar and four
esteemed panelists who joined the event virtually from Jordan, Huda Ayesh, Dr.
Lana H. Bin Said of Saudi Arabia, Dr. Suryani S.F. Motik of Indonesia and 2015
Nobel Peace Laureate, Ouided Bouchamaoui of Tunisia.
Ambassador
Adam Tugio of Indonesia in his opening remarks underscored the importance of
Education and skill development of women to enhance their productivity and
betterment of the future generation. Ambassador Borhene El-Kamel of Tunisia
further added the importance of the progressive role of women and their
contribution to nation-building and shared to the audience the experience of
women empowerment in Tunisia. The chairperson of NCSW shed the light of the
idea behind the launching of international workshops and suggested making a
pool of new talented women entrepreneurs and connecting them with successful
global Muslim women entrepreneurs as the next step endeavor to facilitate
concrete implementation.
The
workshop focused on promoting the economic conditions of Muslim Women. The
esteemed panelists underscored that Muslim Women have made an outstanding
contribution to society and on some occasions served as outstanding leaders.
They shared their struggle to start a business and gain success at a later
stage, including Noble Peace Laureate, Ouided Bouchamaoui from Tunisia.
Chairperson
of the National Commission for Child Rights, Afshan Tehseen reminded that “If
you support a woman, you support an entire nation.” Ambassador Ibrahim Al
Madani of Jordan concluded the event by emphasizing that, “The inclusion of
Women’s economic empowerment should be incorporated as a priority in national
development plans.”
Source:
The News Pakistan
--------
More
action needed to draw women to science, say Middle East female achievers
March
05, 2022
DUBAI:
Despite recent advancements in the Middle East, women remain massively
under-represented in the fields of science and engineering across the region
and more must be done to change this, say experts.
According
to the 2021 UNESCO Science Report, only 33 percent of researchers worldwide are
women. While gender parity has almost been achieved in the Middle East and
North Africa region at the doctorate level and at the start of a scientific
career, there are still considerable disparities across disciplines and between
countries.
The
glass ceiling remains a reality for females involved in research, where the
proportion of women decreases as they advance in their careers, in all
likelihood because of obstacles and barriers. Although the Gulf region is
blazing a trail for women, there is still a long way to go given that they
constitute only 40 percent of the STEM workforce.
Nura
Adam Mohammed, from Qatar University, believes that changing this imbalance
requires collaboration among many groups, organizations and parts of society,
including families, schools, universities and governments.
“Empowering
women in science should start at the very early stages, as early as primary
schools, and by hosting public engagements and welcoming young girls to
research open days and later to volunteer in the research field,” she said.
Her
work involves the development of nonconventional therapeutic tools to prevent
diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, which could potentially help to solve one
of the region’s biggest health challenges.
Mohammed
was one of 14 Arab women honored last month at L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in
Science Middle East, a special event hosted by Expo 2020 Dubai in recognition
of the work of exceptional women in the fields of life sciences, physical
sciences, mathematics and computer science.
The
project is part of a global initiative that since its inception in 1998 has
recognized more than 3,900 researchers and 122 laureates from more than 110
countries and regions.
Another
of those recognized this year was Ghada Dushaq from New York University Abu
Dhabi, one of five women from the Gulf Cooperation Council area honored at the
event.
She
said she hopes to inspire a new generation of Arab women to take up science, a
sector in which they remain under-represented, and is specifically interested
in the fields of photonics and optics where the proportion is below average.
1.
Ghada Dushaq, a researcher at New York University Abu Dhabi
2.
Halima Al-Naqbi, an academic at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi
3.
Hend Al-Qaderi, a lecturer at Harvard School of Dental Medicine
4.
Nura Adam Mohammed, a researcher at Qatar University
5.
Arij Yehya, an instructor at Qatar University
“This
might hinder the full understanding of the complexity of our cultures and
individuals,” Yehya said. “Paving the way for younger generations will give us
a good chance to build on previous findings and learn more about our cultural
and individual identities.”
Halima
Alnaqbi, an academic at Khalifa University, comes from a small town in the UAE
where tribal marriage is considered a tradition. She told how she remembers
observing, as a curious child, that some people in her community suffered from
rare diseases that mostly resulted from genetics.
She
later learned that more rare diseases appear in communities with certain
cultural practices, such as consanguineous marriage, or marriage between close
blood relatives, that increase the prevalence of recessive disorders.
“As
I grew older and became a biomedical engineer,” Alnaqbi said. “I channeled my
intrinsic motivation to solve challenges that impacted my society and the
world.
“I
particularly devoted my knowledge and skills to studying the genes that govern
the immune system (immunogenetics) in the Arabian population, which play an
important role in the development of autoimmune diseases.”
Her
research into ways to enhance the organ transplantation system to better
include Arab ethnic groups is crucial for the region. Due to a dearth of genome
data about the Arabian population, healthcare systems in under-represented
nations face unique challenges that affect the region’s capacity to integrate
molecular genetic research findings into clinical applications.
“Unrelated
organ donors are identified from millions of volunteers via regional networks,”
Alnaqbi said. “However, there is no Arabian contribution to these international
registries. My research aims to address this gap and establish a preliminary
framework for organ and bone-marrow transplantation donor selection.”
With
women now accounting for half of all engineers in the UAE, she added that the
field of science is changing in the country, the barriers that once stood in
the way of women have been removed and the image of the sector as a
male-dominated domain is outdated.
“The
stereotype that working in science, and especially engineering, is only for men
is changing,” Alnaqbi said. “In science, research is done in teams, and gender
and specialization diversity in any team is particularly important since it
encourages innovation.
“Women
have previously demonstrated their ability in science topics, as more than half
of engineering graduates in the UAE are female.”
Hend
Alqaderi, who is from Kuwait and a lecturer at Harvard School of Dental
Medicine, also believes that it is crucial to engage more women in science and
said her personal experiences during the pandemic only helped to reinforce her
opinion.
“Having
more women in scientific research can bring diversity and make research more
effective and accurate, impacting both men and women,” she said.
Her
research is on the use of oral fluids as a non-invasive tool for the early
diagnosis and disease management of COVID-19 and other inflammatory diseases.
The work has very personal significance for her, as she was inspired to pursue
it after the sudden death of her father as a result of the coronavirus.
“After
the shock of losing my father, I became curious to understand how the immune
system works and why some people have no symptoms while others need hospital
care and some pass away,” Alqaderi said.
“I
have experience studying salivary biomarkers and I wanted to expand my
knowledge, so I decided to study the immune response in the oral cavity that
can lead to a new understanding of COVID-19 and might lead to developing new
preventative strategies. I hope my findings can help other families like mine
and prevent more deaths.”
Mohammed’s
work on therapeutic tools to prevent diabetes and cardiovascular diseases could
prove vital given that the number of people globally with diabetes is
approaching 425 million and expected to top 628 million by 2045.
She
is developing nano-pharmaceuticals capable not only of delivering drugs to
treat diabetes but also minimizing cardiovascular complications associated with
the disease, which is one of the most prevalent in the region.
“This
research is gaining both national and international attention, especially as
the world moves toward targeted drug delivery, personalized medicine and stem
cell technologies,” Mohammed said.
“I
hope to develop nano-carriers with protective properties that could enhance the
loaded drug’s efficacy, and to develop better in vitro cellular and tissue
models that better represent diabetes and the associated cardiovascular
complications through the use of stem cell technologies.”
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2036361/middle-east
--------
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/swedish-woman-child-soldier-syria/d/126513