Women Are Entitled To A Choice : Muslim Women Divided As Duelling Hijab And No Hijab Days Approach
30
January 2022
• Women Are Entitled To A Choice : Muslim Women
Divided As Duelling Hijab And No Hijab Days Approach
• Kansas Woman, Allison Fluke-Ekren, Charged With
Joining And Leading Islamic State Battalion
• Probe Launched Over Missing Female Activists:
Islamic Emirate
• Civil Society Joins Muttahida Qaumi
Movement-Pakistan’s Women-Only Protest Against Police Action
• Kenya Denies Pulling Women’s Team From AWCON,
Alleges Fraud
• Pregnant New Zealand Journalist Forced To Move To Afghanistan
• Pakistan Enforces New Law To Protect Women From
Workplace Harassment
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/muslim-women-duelling-no-hijab/d/126266
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Women Are Entitled To A Choice : Muslim Women Divided
As Duelling Hijab And No Hijab Days Approach
Pakistani women gather to
mark the World Hijab Day in Karachi Feb. 1, 2020. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via
Getty Images)
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Debbie Mohnblatt
01/30/2022
The first time Niloufar Momeni took her hijab off she
was in France, on a trip with her family. She describes how amazing the wind
going through her hair was, how for the first time she could style her hair,
and how free and happy she felt.
Far Avaz did it for the first time while visiting
Turkey. She, however, felt fear instead of happiness. She remembers looking
around for policemen who might imprison her for removing the head covering; she
felt persecuted as if she was still in her homeland.
Both women come from Iran, which forces women to wear
hijab whenever they’re outside of their homes. Other countries such as
Afghanistan do the same. Still, most Muslim countries’ governments do not
oblige women to don the hijab, but in many of these places, conservative
families impose it on their post-puberty females.
“Hijab” in Arabic means “barrier” or “partition.” It
is used to refer to the apparel that many Muslim women use to cover their heads
in public aiming to maintain modesty under Sharia, Islamic religious law.
There are, however, many variations of such apparel.
“Hijab” is used to refer to the concept of covering in general, and to a scarf
that covers a woman’s head and hair.
There are also the Niqab and the burqa, for example,
which additionally cover the woman’s face, with a narrow difference: A Niqab
has a slit for the eyes, while a burqa has a screen over that opening. These
are popular in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, respectively.
There are many other styles of such apparel, which can vary based on culture.
On February 1, the ninth annual World Hijab Day will
be marked. On this day, women across the globe, Muslim and non-Muslim, are
encouraged to wear a hijab. The day started as an initiative to fight
Islamophobia. Regardless, many Muslim women expressed discontent with the
campaign, saying the custom is imposed on many of them, and should not be
celebrated.
In Afghanistan, for example, women are protesting in
the streets against the Taliban government’s regulations restricting their
rights, including the obligatory wearing of the hijab. There have been mass
protests in which some women take off their burqas and burn them in public
places as a sign of resistance.
In recent weeks a wave of women’s rights
demonstrations has been taking place in Afghanistan. Attendance is estimated at
between 100 and 200 people, mostly women, a source tells The Media Line.
Asra Stanikzai, a defence lawyer living in Kabul, is
one of them. She has been an active participant in these protests even though
it could be dangerous for her, and for her loved ones.
Stanikzai explained to The Media Line that most of the
women taking part in these demonstrations are just like her. Educated women who
lost their jobs, and their positions in society, when the Taliban took over the
country last summer. “Most of these women are furious,” she added.
The hijab is part of Afghan culture, important for
both the religion and the culture, she said. That is why, she added, “I feel
comfortable wearing a hijab in Afghanistan. If I were in Europe or America, the
story would be different.”
The problem, Stanikzai said, is that the Taliban wants
women to wear the burqa. “We don’t want to cover our faces. The Taliban wants
to remove women from society, and this is the first step.”
The Taliban has indeed shown the intention to make the
burqa mandatory for all women in the country. The last time the radical Sunni
Islamists were in power, in the 1990s, the all-covering burqa was made
mandatory in the provinces but not in Kabul. This was possible due to the
conservative, tribal way of life of most people in those places. The practice
has endured there until now.
In Kabul, on the other hand, women only cover their
hair with a headscarf. Nevertheless, the Taliban has lately placed posters at
cafés and other public places with the slogan “According to Sharia, Muslim
women must wear hijab,” accompanied by the image of a woman with her face
covered by a burqa.
A spokesman for the Taliban government’s Ministry for
the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the state agency in
charge of implementing Islamic law, said it is just an encouragement for women
to follow Sharia. Despite this, plenty of women in Kabul have expressed
discontent and participated in the demonstrations.
Stanikzai said that since the Taliban took over, most
of the new laws are “against women” and imposed drastic changes on them. “For
now, all educated women like me are sitting at home. They can’t go to work;
they can’t be educated.”
A lot of these women feel that the Taliban is using
the burqa as a mechanism to isolate them from the social order, and that is why
some of them took off their burqas and burned them during the demonstrations,
she said.
Zaryab Paryani and Tamana Ibrahimi, two women who did
just that, were taken away from their homes in the middle of the night by the
Taliban, and their location is unknown, Stanikzai said.
She added that Taliban members followed many women to
their homes after the demonstrations, including her, and they are expecting
severe consequences. That is why many are in hiding.
“Many of our friends disappeared; we do not have any
contact with them,” she said. “Women are not taking part in demonstrations
anymore, because they fear for their loved ones. So the demonstrations are over
for now.”
The Islamists didn’t do anything big against the
participants during the actual protests, because there were a lot of women with
smartphones filming the scene, Stanikzai said. “The Taliban presents many
things to the international media that are not true in order to get accepted by
other countries. That is why they are so afraid of our cameras.
“We have many other matters that we should solve, such
as poverty and educated people leaving Afghanistan. We don’t have a secure
society, but they won’t pay attention to it. They just want to make everything
about women. Our hijab is not the important thing that they should worry
about,” she said. “Afghan women are careful about what they wear; we don’t need
them to guide us regarding Islamic law.
The Taliban tell women who complain: “If you don’t
like our laws, you can leave,” she said. But Stanikzai is not ready to give up.
“I don’t want to leave Afghanistan so fast; I want to try to stay and fight for
my and all Afghan women’s rights.”
Social media plays a vital role in this controversy.
It has seen activism for and against the use of the hijab, including extensive
debate about World Hijab Day and No Hijab Day, and the #LetUsTalk and the
#DressedNotOppressed campaigns.
Mohammed was raised in a Muslim family in British
Columbia and her parents divorced when she was young. Her mother remarried,
becoming the second wife to a very religious man who forced Mohammed to wear a
hijab from the age of 9. “Everything in my life changed when she let him into
our lives.”
“When I was 19, I was forced to marry a terrorist who
is now jailed in Egypt because he was a member of al-Qaida,” she said. Her
mother and stepfather described him as a “strong man” who would be able to
control her because she was “not submissive enough.”
Mohammed eventually married; she said her husband was
much more severe. “I went from wearing the hijab to wearing the niqab. He even
wanted me to cover my hands and ordered gloves from Saudi Arabia.”
Having a daughter changed Mohammed’s way of thinking. “It
gave me the courage to escape from that world. … I didn’t want her to grow up
in, or even remember, the world that I grew up in.”
She added that she wanted to change herself and become
a role model before her daughter was old enough to remember “what it looked
like to have a mother who was being beaten and then wearing niqab to cover her
bruises.”
In 2019, Mohammed decided to create “No Hijab Day,”
also on February 1 each year. On that day, she asks women to share pictures of
them with, and without, hijab together with their personal stories, the reasons
for their decisions and the price that they had to pay to put what they want on
their own bodies.
This, Mohammed explained, came after she saw the hijab
was being presented by what she calls Islamist propaganda as a symbol of
freedom. “They don’t even want to acknowledge the fact that women are thrown in
prison, getting their faces disfigured, losing their families, friends and
communities, and being threatened with death or actually being killed over hijab.”
Far Avaz is a singer from Iran, a country where her
profession is illegal for women. Four years ago, while on a trip to Germany,
she learned that an Iranian court had sentenced her to a year in jail for an
underground singing performance. Feeling she had no choice, she remained in
Germany with only the 22 pounds of belongings she had brought with her, and
applied for asylum, knowing she could never return to her homeland.
Avaz told The Media Line she took off the hijab as
soon as she could. It feels imprisoning, she explained. “It feels really bad;
it feels as if you don’t have control over your own body.”
In Iran, not wearing a hijab is a crime. “We are just
forced to wear it; there are police officers standing in the streets checking
women’s outfits.” Avaz added that for her, wearing a hijab means being a slave.
Iran was a secular country until 1979 when the Islamic
Revolution ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then, the Islamic Republic
has been ruled by a fundamentalist Shiite cleric, the “supreme leader.”
That changed everything for Iranians, especially for
Iranian women, whose lives were heavily affected by the Islamist regime’s new
laws and restrictions.
Niloufar Momeni lived in Iran for 16 years and now
resides in Canada where she works as a sports journalist, also told The Media
Line about being forced to wear a hijab during her childhood.
No woman in Iran is given a choice regarding the
hijab, she explained. “They’re forcing their ideology on you.” She added, “It’s
not right to force someone to do something for the rest of their life, not by
your father, not by your family, and certainly not by the government.”
While the Palestinian Authority government is secular
and does have a law mandating the hijab, many families take matters into their
own hands.
This Palestinian woman said she is compelled by family
members to wear a hijab. However, every time she leaves home and feels she is
far away enough, she takes it off, regardless of her parents’ wishes.
She said she doesn’t feel religious and enjoys going
without the head covering. “I don’t feel comfortable, nor confident [wearing
it], because I don’t feel as pretty.”
In addition, wearing it gives people the wrong
perception. “When I’m wearing a hijab, people see me as a religious person and expect
me to be more religiously observant,” she said.
Many of these women who took off the hijab have things
in common. All of them mentioned that the hijab is not comfortable, and it
makes them feel hot, or not pretty, or trapped.
“It is a sensory deprivation chamber; all of your
senses are blocked. You cannot see, smell, hear or eat properly.… You feel like
a ghost walking among people,” Mohammed added.
But it does not end there. Most of them think there is
something else behind the enforcement of the hijab in certain countries or
families. Momeni said the obligatory garment, along with other regulations such
as those restricting females’ family and travel rights, are tools of the
Iranian regime to demean women. “Having to wear hijab is a perfect rule to
demean women on a regular basis.”
Avaz thinks it is all about having domination over
women. “They want to have control over your mind and body, but they will never
manage to control our minds,” she said.
Likewise, these women characterized most of the
arguments made to them for wearing the hijab as absurd. They all mentioned the
“temptation” that seeing a woman’s hair can cause men.
Mohammed said, “When half of the population is forced
to cover themselves in order to not lead the other half into sin, you have a
real toxic ideology.”
As for women who wear the hijab by choice, Avaz
suggested they are “brainwashed” when they are children. “They are told: ‘It is
dangerous, you will go to hell, you’re a better woman by hiding yourself.’”
Mohammed agrees, saying “choice” is a tricky word.
“When you’re given the choice between wearing the hijab or burning in hell for
eternity, or your family will disown you.… This is not a free choice.”
Nonetheless, she said, “They are entitled to wear the hijab as much as I’m
entitled to tell my story.”
Several women who do wear the hijab shared their
positions. Sefat E. Kaniz, from Bangladesh, told The Media Line she wears her
hijab by choice and that it doesn’t keep women from doing what they like. “I’m
a cycler and a designer. Wearing my hijab and burqa can’t stop it.”
Mursal Farotan Khashy, founder and president of For
Afghan Women (FAW), fled Afghanistan because of family issues and lives in
Melbourne, Australia. She told The Media Line, “Hijab is not just a piece of
cloth for me.”
Albayaa told The Media Line she does so because it is
part of her people’s tradition and religion. “We need to cover the parts of our
body that may cause temptation.”
She added that the hijab helps to prevent many issues
that happen in her society. “In Egypt harassment [of women] is very common, so
hijab usually helps us to save our body from any look that we don’t want to see
in someone’s eyes or an expression that we don’t want to hear.”
Mariam Bint Salman Sayed is an entrepreneur and
weightlifter from Mumbai, India. Sayed explained to The Media Line why she
wears a hijab: “We rationally believe that the creator exists and by default,
we as his creation have to follow the creator’s instructions to the best of our
ability.” This includes wearing modest clothing, she added.
Khashy added, “If I choose not to wear my scarf, I
don’t want to be celebrated, and if I chose to wear it, I don’t want to be
judged for it.”
“We must stop imposing [rules] on women’s clothing,”
Khashy said. “Politicizing women’s clothing should not be a part of our
religion. That should be women’s choice.”
Albayaa said, “Hijab is something that you decide on
your own. In our religion, we are not supposed to force anyone to do
something.”
Sayed said governments and institutions that do not
allow women to wear the hijab are violating freedom of expression and “it is a
strong indicator of Islamophobia.” Forbidding women to wear clothing of their
choice constitutes “disregard of their intellect and ability to think,” she
said.
She added, “We should stop labelling women. Every
woman is perfect regardless of her age, skin colour, weight and choice of
clothing.”
For some, the hijab represents a living hell,
oppression, lack of freedom, and a tool used to degrade women. For others, it
is a way to express themselves, to serve the creator, and to be an ambassador
of their religion and culture. For some, it is suffocating, while for others,
it is liberating.
But all the women we spoke with agreed that every
woman is entitled to have a choice. For both sides, the power to choose whether
to wear the hijab is a symbol of women’s empowerment. “We are intelligent, so
let the women do whatever they want,” Stanikzai said.
Source: The Medialine
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Kansas Woman, Allison Fluke-Ekren, Charged With
Joining And Leading Islamic State Battalion
Allison Fluke-Ekren
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29 Jan 2022
A woman who once lived in Kansas before moving to
Egypt and Syria has been charged with joining the Islamic State (IS) terrorist
group and leading an all-female battalion of AK-47 wielding militants.
The US attorney in Alexandria, Virginia, announced on
Saturday that Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, had been arrested and charged with
providing material support to a terrorist organization.
The complaint was filed under seal in 2019 and made
public after Fluke-Ekren was brought back to the US. Her alleged participation
in IS was not publicly known before the Saturday announcement.
Prosecutors say Fluke-Ekren wanted to recruit
operatives to attack a college campus in the US and discussed a terrorist
attack on a shopping mall.
An affidavit from an FBI special agent also alleges
that Fluke-Ekren became leader of an IS unit called “Khatiba Nusaybah” in
Raqqa, a Syrian city, in late 2016. The all-female unit was trained in the use
of AK-47 rifles, grenades and suicide belts, the affidavit says.
A detention memo states that Fluke-Ekren trained
children how to use assault rifles, and that at least one witness saw one of
Fluke-Ekren’s children, approximately five or six years old, holding a machine
gun in the family’s home in Syria.
“Fluke-Ekren has been a fervent believer in the
radical terrorist ideology of Isis for many years, having traveled to Syria to
commit or support violent jihad,” the filing said.
“Fluke-Ekren translated her extremist beliefs into
action by serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an Isis military
battalion, directly training women and children in the use of AK-47 assault
rifles, grenades and suicide belts to support the Islamic State’s murderous
aims.”
According to court papers, Fluke-Ekren moved to Egypt
in 2008 and traveled between Egypt and the US over the next three years. She
has not been in the US since 2011.
Prosecutors believe she moved to Syria around 2012. In
early 2016, her husband was killed in the Syrian city of Tell Abyad while
trying to carry out a terrorist attack, prosecutors said. Later that year,
prosecutors say, she married a Bangladeshi Isis member who specialized in
drones, but he died in late 2016 or early 2017. Four months after that man’s
death, she married a prominent IS leader responsible for the defense of Raqqa.
Photos from a family blog called 4KansasKids show
Fluke-Ekren and her children in the years they traveled between Kansas and
Egypt, posing at the pyramids in Egypt and playing in snow in the US.
A 2004 article about homeschooling in the Lawrence
Journal-World featured Fluke-Ekren and her children. She told the paper she
pulled her children from public school because she was dissatisfied with how
they were performing. Homeschooling allowed her to teach them Arabic.
Court papers do not indicate how Fluke-Ekren was
captured, or how long she was in custody before being turned over to the FBI.
She is scheduled to appear in US district court in Alexandria on Monday.
Source: The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/29/kansas-woman-all-female-isis-battalion
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Probe Launched Over Missing Female Activists: Islamic
Emirate
By Banafsha Binesh
29-01-2022
The Islamic Emirate denied the arrest of Paryani and
Ibrahimkhel, saying that the issues are being investigated.
An investigation has begun into the case of two female
activists who went missing nearly two weeks ago, the Islamic Emirate said on
Saturday.
Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel are
two women’s rights activists who went missing.
Spokesman for the Islamic Emirate said there is no
information about the status of these two female activists at the moment.
The Junbish-e-Zanan Adalatkhwah, a women's rights
group, said that Paryani and Ibrahimkhel have been arrested by the Islamic
Emirate forces after they staged protests in support of women’s rights.
Khamosh in her speech (in Oslo) called on the
government to release all women detainees but there is no information about the
release of those women,” said Wida Omari, a member of the Junbesh-e-Zanan
Adalatkhah.
The Islamic Emirate denied the arrest of Paryani and
Ibrahimkhel, saying that the issues are being investigated.
“It is not clear whether they have gone somewhere
themselves or they have faced another problem. The security departments of the
Islamic Emirate are trying to inquire into the case,” said Inamullah Samangani,
deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.
This comes as the women’s rights activists said they
would prolong their protests to ensure justice for women.
“The women protesters are facing various threats that
also forced them to stage protests in their residences not on the streets,”
Monisa Mubariz, a women’s rights activist.
Monisa Mubariz is the founder of a women’s rights
organization called the Junbish-e-Zanan Muqtadir.
Earlier, the UN’s Secretary-General special envoy for
Afghanistan Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council designated for
Afghanistan that “we are extremely concerned” about the disappearance of two
female activists.
Source: Tolonews
https://tolonews.com/index.php/afghanistan-176508
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Civil Society Joins Muttahida Qaumi
Movement-Pakistan’s Women-Only Protest Against Police Action
Imran Ayub
January 30, 2022
KARACHI: A large number of women, including human
rights campaigners and members of civil society, participated in a
demonstration organised by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) at
Teen Talwar traffic intersection in Clifton on Saturday in protest over the
recent police action against women and children.
They condemned what they called the police brutality
on participants of Wednesday’s rally of the MQM-P against the controversial
local government law and the silence of Pakistan Peoples Party’s leadership at
the ongoing exploitation of urban Sindh.
MQM-P leaders and rights activists while addressing
the women-only demonstration questioned the “criminal silence” of PPP chairman
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari who despite being the chairman of the National Assembly’s
Standing Committee on Human Rights did not bother to utter a single word on the
recent attack of Karachi police on women and children.
They called it the “double standards” of the ruling
PPP, which on the one hand described itself as the “champion of human rights”
and on the other used “every tactic” to silence the voice of its opponents.
Apart from party leaders, the demonstration was also
attended by Mahnaz Rahman of Aurat Foundation, women’s rights activist Sheema
Kermani and other members of civil society.
Addressing the demonstration, MQM-P Senator Faisal
Subzwari said that the PPP chairman never took a second to issue a statement if
a violation of human rights was reported from any part of the country. “But
when it comes to Sindh and police brutality against our sisters and mothers, he
chooses to maintain silence.”
“This silence proves whatever police did against our
women and children, it was not their own decision. It proves that whatever
happened [the police action] got the blessings of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and
the Sindh government,” he said.
The demonstration also adopted a resolution rejecting
the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2021 and demanded action against
police officers involved in manhandling and attacking MQM-P workers.
Source: Dawn
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Kenya denies pulling women’s team from AWCON, alleges
fraud
AFP
January 29, 2022
NAIROBI: Kenya’s sports minister said Saturday that
“suspected fraud” was behind the national women’s football team being suddenly
withdrawn from the Africa Women Cup of Nations, and vowed to punish those
responsible.
The Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) said it
pulled the Harambee Starlets from the continent-wide competition at the request
of the sport’s governing body in Kenya, the FKF.
“We have learnt that there is a suspected fraudulent
letter that was purportedly written to CAF to withdraw our heroines, Harambee
Starlets, from the Africa Women Cup of Nations (AWCON) qualifier against
Uganda,” she said in a statement.
The minister said the Starlets were determined to
reach the finals in Morocco later this year and were training ahead of the
qualifier slated for February 17.
“The double-header between Kenya and Uganda initially
scheduled in February 2022 as part of the last qualifying round is therefore
canceled,” it said.
In November, Mohamed disbanded the FKF over corruption
allegations and appointed a caretaker committee to oversee the sport in Kenya
for a period of six months.
On Saturday the committee chairman, Justice Aaron
Ringera, told CAF that Kenya had not withdrawn and it was trying to resolve the
confusion “as a matter of urgency.”
“We would like to assure Kenyans, Ugandans and CAF
that all measures will be put in place to ensure the match goes on as planned,”
Ringera wrote.
Kenyan football has long been beset by financial woes
often stemming from poor management and corruption, while Kenya’s men’s
national team have failed to shine on the pitch.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2014351/offbeat
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Pregnant New Zealand journalist forced to move to
Afghanistan
29.01.2022
Seerat Chabba
New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis has said she
is stuck in Afghanistan after the New Zealand government rejected her emergency
application for return over coronavirus restrictions. Left without an option,
she was forced to seek refuge in Taliban-led Afghanistan as a "pregnant,
unmarried woman," Bellis said in an open letter published by The New
Zealand Herald on Friday.
Bellis formerly worked for Al-Jazeera, which is based
in Qatar. She had been covering the
fallout of last summer's Taliban takeover from Afghanistan before she returned
to Qatar in September. She said this was the time when she learned she was
pregnant. As extramarital sex is illegal in Qatar, Bellis attempted to get back
to New Zealand using a lottery-style system for returning citizens.
Unable to secure her return in that manner, she left
Qatar for Belgium, the home country of her partner, freelance photographer Jim
Huylebroek. With her New Zealand passport, however, she was only allowed to
spend a limited time in Belgium. The couple was eventually forced to relocate
to Afghanistan as they both had valid visas to stay there.
Bellis said she set up a meeting with her senior Taliban
contacts and asked if her pregnancy would be a problem. She was told it would
not.
Bellis, known for asking the Taliban about their
treatment of women, said she has now been forced to ask the New Zealand
government the same questions.
"I am writing this because I believe in
transparency and I believe that we as a country are better than this. [Prime
Minister] Jacinda Ardern is better than
this," Bellis wrote, explaining that she sent 59 documents to New Zealand
authorities before her application for an emergency return was rejected.
Bellis said she responded by contacting her lawyer, a
friend who deals in public relations and a New Zealand politician, with the
information about her case eventually reaching New Zealand's COVID-19 Response
Minister Chris Hipkins. Two days after her rejection, she received another
email stating that her application status has been changed from
"deactivated" to "reviewing application."
Bellis is due to give birth to a girl in May. She said
that giving birth in Afghanistan could be a death sentence, as the country
struggles with a poor state of maternity care and lack of surgical
capabilities.
"I wasn't triggered by the disappointment and
uncertainty, but by the breach of trust," Bellis wrote. "That in my
time of need, the New Zealand Government said you're not welcome here."
The government of New Zealand has been increasingly
questioned over its COVID policies that force even returning citizens to spend
10 days in quarantine hotels run by the military. The requirement has created a
backlog of thousands of people who want to return home.
In response to Bellis' letter in the Herald, COVID
response minister Hipkins said he had asked officials to check whether proper
procedures were followed in her case.
The joint head of New Zealand's Managed Isolation and
Quarantine (MIQ) system, Chris Bunny, said Bellis' application did not meet the
"travel within 14 days" requirement currently in play for emergency
entry. He said the MIQ team had reached out to Bellis to make another application
that fit the requirements.
But Bellis, on Twitter, said the "MIQ has and
does allow travel outside 14 days" and that the couple had outlined their
reason for doing so, primarily the lack of regular flights out of the Kabul
airport, in the cover letter of their application.
While Bellis' case appears to be moving forward, she
said she was compelled to write the column as her story was "unique in
context, but not in desperation."
Source: Dw.com
https://www.dw.com/en/pregnant-new-zealand-journalist-forced-to-move-to-afghanistan/a-60598541
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Pakistan enforces new law to protect women from
workplace harassment
29 Jan, 2022
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's Ministry of Human Rights
announced on Friday the amended Protection Against Harassment of Women at the
Workplace Act has officially become a law.
Pakistan's Human Rights Ministry had drafted the
Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Amendment) Act, 2022
to facilitate increased participation of women in the country's workforce.
The National Assembly had passed it after Senate
approved amendments to the legislation. The amendments increased the scope of
the law to include certain professions that were left out by the previous
legislation, and provided protection from harassment to those employed in the
informal sector as well.
“Our Protection against Harassment of Women at the
Workplace (Amendment) Act, 2022 was notified today & has officially become
law,” the ministry said on its official Twitter handle.
Critics of the previous law had raised concerns that
the earlier version of the act had not properly defined terms such as
"complainant," "employee" and "employer" due to
which many victims of harassment were denied relief under the law.
One of the act's significant amendments is the
definition of "complainant" as "any person," which means
that transgender people can also seek relief.
Another amendment makes it possible for employees who
left a workplace due to a hostile environment and harassment, to seek action
against the persons responsible for it. The definition of an employee has been
expanded to include former employees who were “removed or dismissed from
service or had resigned.”
The act also clearly defines who fits into the
description of an employee. These are now people who are “regular, contractual,
piece-rate, gig, temporary, part-time, freelance employees including students,
performers, artists, sports persons, interns, trainees, domestic workers,
home-based workers or apprentices.”
Source: Daily Pakistan
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/muslim-women-duelling-no-hijab/d/126266