Want Girls to Get Education: Malala Yousafzai, the Youngest Nobel Laureate
New Age Islam News Bureau
9
Oct 2017
Faisal BaDughaish was teaching his wife how to drive in a private parking area. (Twitter)
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• Saudi Husband Justifies Posting Photo of Teaching Wife How To Drive
• Grooming Gangs 'Are Abusing Girls across the Country', Victims and Investigators Warn
• Women Must Save Their Country, Says Nurul Izzah
• Saudi Music Video on Woman Driving Goes Viral
• Pakistani Women Are Living In 'Entirely Different Society' And Are 'Shockingly Badly Integrated' In Britain Says Official Audit
• Iran: Women Stage Protests In Khorassan And Lorestan
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/want-girls-get-education-malala/d/112818
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Want Girls to Get Education: Malala Yousafzai, the Youngest Nobel Laureate
October 08, 2017
Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Laureate says that girls should get education.
In her recent interview with a representative of United Nations she shed light on her struggle to raise awareness about the importance of education for girls.
“I am grateful that I have such a beautiful family. Both my parents have supported me. Have always stood by me and for them I am just their daughter,” she said while explaining how her family supports her in the cause.
In September Malala started GulMakai fund and its goal is to empower local leaders and local activists. “We want to double our efforts by reaching out to local activists as they are the real change makers. It also includes improving education standards and adding e-learning methods to the education system.”
Malala shared one of her experiences while she was on her ‘Girl Power Trip’, In Iraq I met a girl called Najlaa and she was 14 years old when she was wearing her wedding dress. She took off her high heels and she escaped from her wedding. Later her village was attacked by ISIS. After everything she continued to gain education and speak up against the brutalities.”
http://nation.com.pk/national/08-Oct-2017/want-girls-to-get-education-malala
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Saudi husband justifies posting photo of teaching wife how to drive
8 October 2017
Faisal BaDughaish, the Saudi man who tweeted a photo of him in a car teaching his wife how to drive shortly after the ban on women’s driving was lifted, said those who insulted him and threatened him on Twitter have been approached by Saudi authorities.
BaDughaish thanked Saudi security forces for quickly addressing the matter and thanked everyone who shared his photo respectfully.
Speaking to Al-Arabiya.net, BaDughaish said his wife wanted to learn how to drive and the royal decree lifting the ban on women’s driving encouraged her to go ahead and start learning.
Asked why he published a photo, he said: “I published it to show the entire world that I, a Saudi citizen, support this decision.”
“Many objected to the fact that my wife appears in the photo. It’s a sensitive issue for me since my family is conservative but a photo is worth a thousand words. I don’t think the tweet would have been circulated worldwide if it were only words,” he added.
BaDughaish, who was teaching his wife how to drive in a private parking area, also called on women not to drive before rules and regulations are issued and advised them to learn how to drive in private, closed areas.
He added that he also shared the photo to encourage men to help their wives and teach them how to drive.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2017/10/08/Saudi-husband-justifies-posting-photo-of-teaching-wife-how-to-drive.html
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Grooming gangs 'are abusing girls across the country', victims and investigators warn
October 9, 2017
Grooming gangs across the country are repeating the horrific abuse exposed in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and most recently Newcastle, victims and investigators have warned.
There are mounting calls for nationwide action to combat sexual exploitation, with authorities accused of playing catch-up after ignoring victims “for decades and decades”.
Sammy Woodhouse, who was abused as a teenager by the Rotherham ringleader Arshid “Mad Ash” Hussain and has waived her right to anonymity, said abuse was underway “all over the country”.
“It’s an issue for every town and city, more people are being failed,” she told The Independent. “I’m hearing a lot of new complaints from survivors.
“Some are saying they have been to the police and didn’t get taken seriously, others are getting support.
“But I think the Government is still trying to play this down and make out it’s not a major issue – they are not doing enough.”
Her calls for action came as figures show that in Bradford 1,153 referrals were made to its child sexual exploitation team in 2016/17 – a 62 per cent increase on the year before.
Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s specialist hub launched interventions for 861 children – including many who were referred more than once. The vast majority of possible victims are girls.
Ms Woodhouse said she had also noted a growing number of grooming victims contacting her who were from the city.
Authorities behind an investigation that identified more than 700 women and girls as potential victims of sexual exploitation in North East England believe the abuse is happening far beyond areas where perpetrators have been caught.
Pat Ritchie, the chief executive of Newcastle City Council, said “any area that says it does not have a problem is simply not looking for it”, while chief constable Steve Ashman of Northumbria Police told The Independent: “I think there’s every likelihood that this is happening in every town and city across the country.”
Dame Vera Baird, chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), also fears grooming is taking place nationwide.
She told The Independent that investigators in Newcastle found that women and girls were being trafficked beyond the city, suggesting “there is a market” elsewhere.
Dame Vera, who is the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, said the race or religion of perpetrators did not “make the slightest bit of difference” to investigators.
“I think an important point to make is some of the victims were Asian as well,” she added.
“This is about misogyny, and young women are in vulnerable situations whatever their race or anything related to that.”
Ms Woodhouse said her abusers and all those reported to her by other victims were from Muslim backgrounds.
“Nobody is saying that all Muslims commit abuse, but by saying it’s not an issue you’re silencing the victims,” she added.
Ms Woodhouse, who is now 32, said she knew one girl who was “read statements from the Quran” while being raped and said she was made to eat halal, while Mad Ash wanted to make her his second wife under Sharia law.
The proportion of white British victims of sexual exploitation prompted intense national debate in August, where the former director of public prosecution Lord McDonald called grooming a “profoundly racist crime”, despite a judge later finding victims in Newcastle were not targeted by race.
Men from a wide range of nationalities, races and religions have been prosecuted as part of grooming gangs but the prevalence of abusers from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds has been a point of controversy.
Ms Woodhouse was outraged by the sacking of Rotherham MP Sarah Champion from the Shadow Cabinet over a newspaper article in her name that claimed “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”.
She warned that if British society does not have “open and honest conversations” on the factors and attitudes driving grooming, the far-right will be able to control the debate.
“There’s more than the religion factor involved,” Ms Woodhouse added. “Abusers see girls and women are there to have sex, like we’re their property.
“There’s so much controversy but we need to talk about it.”
Lawyers defending alleged abusers in court have stated that several perpetrators were in forced marriages or under cultural restrictions that made them unable to have normal or varied relationships.
Dipu Ahad, a councillor in Newcastle, said grooming was not just an issue for South Asian communities, adding “the only box they fit into is of abusers”.
“In the biggest cases we’ve seen recently, we can’t deny they’re Asian men,” he told The Independent.
“This is an opportunity to look at how we use our communities, our culture, our religion to combat these issues.”
Mr Ahad said the grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and Newcastle were “not followers of Islam but were from Muslim communities”.
He called for ethnic minority groups to be given the tools to debate views on women and relationships without making them feel targeted, adding: “Discussions need to happen now because God forbid there might be another city or another town.”
In Bradford, white children were over-represented in the latest figures among those affected compared to the general population, making up 70 per cent of open cases, compared to 16 per cent Asian and 7 per cent mixed.
The council is running a number of safeguarding initiatives and is training teachers, taxi drivers, shopkeepers and bar owners to spot suspicious behaviour, while running education programmes in schools.
Local groups have also started a project running sessions with men and boys from Pakistani backgrounds, including imams and Islamic schools.
Meanwhile, West Yorkshire Police is running a dedicated investigation, Operation Dalesway, with 66 suspects arrested so far, 10 charged and eight ongoing investigations.
Assistant chief constable Catherine Hankinson said child sexual exploitation was a “top priority” and proactive work was ongoing to identify those at risk.
“All reports alleging child abuse in West Yorkshire are investigated by specially trained officers to identify offences and those suspected of committing them,” she added.
“Safeguarding children is everyone’s responsibility and I would urge anyone with concerns over a vulnerable child to contact the police so swift action can be taken to address the issue.”
Ms Woodhouse said police have drastically improved training on grooming, which aims to eradicate the kind of treatment that saw her arrested after being found in bed with her much older abuser, as he walked free.
She is working with the Department of Education on relationship advice and helps authorities conduct specialist training, and is also proposing a law to pardon victims for crimes committed under duress.
Ms Woodhouse said “victim blaming” needed to be combated and urged the criminal justice system to implement measures making it less distressing for girls to come forward, adding: “The response is getting a lot better but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This Government has done more than any other to tackle child sexual exploitation, declaring it a national threat and investing millions of pounds to enable officers to actively seek out and bring offenders to justice. This has led to a huge increase in police activity and a marked rise in prosecutions and convictions.
“We are continuing the urgent work of overhauling how our police, social services and other agencies work together to protect vulnerable children, especially from the kind of organised grooming and sexual exploitation that has come to light in towns and cities across the UK.
“The Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report, published in February 2017, details our delivery of the ambitious programme of work we set out in the original 2015 report, and signals a step change in our national response to sexual violence against children and young people.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/grooming-gangs-asian-muslim-across-country-uk-girls-children-women-bradford-rotherham-newcastle-a7987381.html
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Women must save their country, says Nurul Izzah
Sheith Khidhir Bin Abu Bakar
October 9, 2017
KLANG: PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar has urged women to come forward to “save their country” and for Pakatan Harapan (PH) to pay more attention to the needs of women in the country.
She said it was especially important for women to take up the struggle to change the administration of the country as they made up more than 51% of the voters in the country.
This call was similar to what International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) lecturer Maszlee Malik said in July when he advised PH to focus on women voters if it wants any chance of securing a victory come the 14th general election (GE14).
At a forum on PH and Barisan Nasional (BN) at Kumpulan Media Karangkraf, Maszlee had said more than half of those who turned up to vote in the last general election (GE13) comprised women and the majority of these women voted for Barisan Nasional (BN).
“Looking at GE13, we see that 52% of those who voted were women and out of these women, 70% voted for BN. The tsunami that PH needs is a women’s tsunami.”
Speaking at a ceramah at the Pandamaran Sports Complex here yesterday, Nurul Izzah claimed that one of the reasons women should vote for PH in GE14 was because under Prime Minister Najib Razak and the BN administration, the education system had suffered.
“The 2012 Pisa (Programme for International Students Assessment) results showed that our 11-year-old children did worse than children in Vietnam,” she said.
“BN has brought our education system down the drain. So how can we allow it to keep ruling?”
According to previous reports, Malaysia was ranked 52 out of 65 countries in the 2012 Pisa, performing the second worst in Southeast Asia and well below Vietnam’s 12th and Thailand’s 47th positions. PPBM president Muhyiddin Yassin was the education minister at the time.
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2017/10/09/women-must-save-their-country-says-nurul-izzah/
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Saudi music video on woman driving goes viral
October 8, 2017
Jeddah: The Jeddah-based Saudi band Most of Us recently released the song Saudi Girls Will Drive in support of the new law that allows women to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Being touted as a rock anthem, the song, which encourages women to become independent has garnered more than 90,000 hits on the first day of its release.
Speaking to Gulf News, the band said they were shocked but happy about the rapid success of the song.
The video starts with band members two band members—Sharani and Hawari—sitting in the back of a SUV as a Saudi woman drives them to the studio where they start recording for the song.
As Hawari and Sharani take their places on the drums and guitar respectively, Hatrash lends his melodious voice to the meaningful lyrics, “No more driver, Uber or taxis to take you any place. Like a true Arabian girl, you were born to shine like a pearl. Now it’s time to drive, drive me around. Saudi girls will drive, Sister you will drive ... Instead of riding in the backseat, come on over and take the wheel.”
“We tried to make it as fun as possible while highlighting the endless possibilities the decision brings for women,” said Hatrash, who came up with the idea for the song.
http://gulfnews.com/life-style/music/saudi-music-video-on-woman-driving-goes-viral-1.2102557
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Pakistani women are living in 'entirely different society' and are 'shockingly badly integrated' in Britain says official audit
8 October 2017
Pakistani women living in the UK are 'shockingly badly integrated', a Cabinet Office survey is set to reveal.
The findings of the UK's first disparity audit, published in full on Tuesday, hope to shed better light on how people from different backgrounds are treated in regards to their access to healthcare, education, employment and the criminal justice system.
For women of Pakistani origin, the audit has revealed a particularly 'shocking' situation.
A source close to the Cabinet Office told The Sunday Times: 'Other communities have integrated very well, but the audit shows that Pakistani women who don't speak English or go out to work are living in an entirely different society and are shockingly badly integrated.'
The findings coincide with an independent report from the Women's Budget Group and the Runnymede Trust, also due to be published this week, which will reveal those hardest hit by cuts to benefits and public services are likely from Asian families.
Asian households will be £11,678 worse off overall by 2020, compared with a fall of £6,199 across the decade for white families.
The audit was launched last August by Theresa May on the back of a pledge to address injustices in UK society.
At the time she said: 'This audit will reveal difficult truths, but we should not be apologetic about shining a light on injustices as never before.
'It is only by doing so we can make this country work for everyone, not just a privileged few.'
Earlier this week, the findings of a review on employment showed significant divisions between white Britons and black and ethnic minority people.
The results, to be released on a new website, Ethnicity Facts and Figures, revealed white Britons are more likely to own their home and have a job than minorities but less likely to go to university if they attend state school.
The 'unprecedented' audit of the record of schools, hospital, employers and courts and other services also showed nine in 10 headteachers are white British.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people is nearly double that of white British adults, 8 per cent compared to 4.6 per cent.
While two in three white adults own their home, only two in five of householders from any other ethnic group do.
The latest survey findings follow in the wake of Dame Louise Casey's major review on community integration, published in December 2016.
Dame Louise, the Government's integration tsar, said Britain needed to be ‘less shy’ in setting out rules and expectations for immigrants and called for introducing an oath of allegiance.
She added that it would be ‘no bad thing’ to accompany it with lessons in the ‘British way of life’, as well as helping migrants to develop their English language skills.
Speaking to MPs earlier this year, she likened integration to a ‘bloody big motorway’ with a ‘slip road of people coming in from the outside’.
‘People in the middle have got to accommodate and be gentle and be kind to people coming in the outside lane but we are all heading in the same direction... of course they have to adjust a little bit but the majority moves in the same direction,’ she said.
Dame Louise also criticised the Government’s approach to integration, saying there had been too much of a ‘saris, samosas and steel drums’ policy, rather than real leadership.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4960188/Pakistani-women-UK-shockingly-badly-integrated.html
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Iran: Women stage protests in Khorassan and Lorestan
08 October 2017
Women staged protests across from the Governor’s Office in Khorassan, northeast Iran, and the Headquarters of the Medical Sciences University of Lorestan, western Iran, on Saturday morning, October 7, 2017.
In Khorassan Province, protesting women and stock owners of the Padideh Shandiz financial institute, wore white shrouds and staged a protest outside the Governor’s Office in Mashhad. They said after three years, the problems of stockowners of Padideh Shandiz Company has not yet been resolved.
In Lorestan, Nurse’s aides held a protest gathering outside the HQ of the Medical Sciences University in this province. The Ministry of Health has received 3.699.000 toumans ($113) tuition fee from the nurse’s aides, promising to recruit and employ them. The nurse’s aides, however, have not been employed and their situation is left in limbo.
http://www.women.ncr-iran.org/iran-women-news/4367-iran-women-stage-protests-in-khorassan-and-lorestan
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