Women under 45 Years Old Allowed To Make Umrah without ‘Mahram’
New Age Islam News Bureau
04 August 2022
• Muslim Women in India Allege Bias in Hiring For Jobs
• An Iraqi Woman Photographer, Samira Mazaal, Rises
From Obscurity to Fame
• Nigeria Police Dissociate Self from Message Inviting
Muslim Women to Send CV’s
• France Discriminated Against Hijab-Wearing
Vocational Trainee: UN Report
• Pair of Expat Women in UAE Inspires People to
Rediscover Love for Books
• Women in Afghanistan Gradually Disappearing From
Public Life
• Iraqi Woman Gets 3D-Printed Hip Implanted At Delhi
Hospital
• Miss Iraq 2022: TV Presenter Balsam Hussein Set For
World and Universe Stages
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/umrah-mahram-kaaba/d/127645
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Women under 45 Years Old Allowed To Make Umrah without
‘Mahram’
Representative Image
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August 4, 2022
The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia has
allowed women under 45 years old to perform Umrah without a Mahram (member of
one’s family with whom marriage is not allowed in Islam), Vice President of the
General Union of Egyptians in Saudi Arabia, Adel Hanafy, said.
The ministry allowed all visitors in the KSA, whether
for family, tourist, commercial or for work purposes, to perform Umrah rituals
and visit the Prophet’s Mosque.
Hanafy told “Al Youm” program broadcast on the dmc
satellite channel, on Wednesday that it is permissible for a woman under the
age of 45 to perform Umrah without a Mahram, and the female pilgrim may roam in
Riyadh and visit all governorates of Saudi Arabia.
He pointed out that the pilgrim has the right to
perform more than one Umrah during the “Tawakkalna” or “Eatmarna” applications,
adding that the duration of the visa is 90 days.
Source: Egypt Independent
https://egyptindependent.com/women-under-45-years-old-allowed-to-make-umrah-without-mahram/
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Muslim Women in India Allege Bias in Hiring For Jobs
Dentist Lubna Aamir says
she applied for jobs at nearly two dozen places but got no response [Ruhina
Khan/Al Jazeera]
-----
By Zubair Amin
3 Aug 2022
New Delhi, India – Lubna Aamir, 28, is a dentist by
training. But practising her profession remains a dream for her.
After studying dentistry and a few years of practice
at a government college in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, Aamir
wanted a better position.
In 2018, the Pune resident started applying for a job
at clinics across India through email. She even dropped resumes in person at
some clinics.
“I wanted to branch out to what we call the class
practice and have an experience beyond local circles,” Aamir told Al Jazeera.
She applied for jobs at nearly two dozen places but
there was no response “despite having very good credentials”.
“I had scored excellent grades and had an internship
from a government college which is much sought after in the dental industry. My
work profile was good. Still, I was not getting any response,” she told Al
Jazeera.
Muslims make up nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.35
billion population but do not have the same representation in government or
private sector jobs. Multiple government-appointed commissions have found the
community is at the bottom among India’s social groups in terms of education
and employment.
One of those commissions, headed by now retired
Justice Rajinder Sachar, found in 2006 that India’s Muslims were disadvantaged
in social, economic and educational terms. Less than 8 percent of them were
employed in the formal sector compared with the national average of 21 percent,
the commission said in its report.
According to the 2011 census, the last conducted by
the government since the 2021 exercise was disrupted by the coronavirus
pandemic, the participation of Muslim women in jobs was less than 15 percent,
whereas it was more than 27 percent for Hindu women. The corresponding figures
for Buddhist and Christian women were 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
The situation has worsened since 2014 when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came
into power, with the government pursuing policies targeting the Muslim minority
and their economic and religious rights.
Doubly marginalised
In a deeply-polarised society, Muslim women are doubly
marginalised. Experts say they stand at the intersection of gender and
religious differences which significantly increases their likelihood of
suffering prejudice by potential employers.
“The bias was always there but with the dominance of
the BJP and RSS, people have been now calling for the exclusion of Muslims from
all the economic areas,” Apoorvanand, an academic and activist based in capital
New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.
“Since this enjoys the protection and patronage often
by the state, it is now being done openly,” he added.
The RSS refers to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a
far-right paramilitary group founded in 1925 that mentors India’s Hindu
supremacist groups, including the ruling BJP. The organisation, which counts
Modi among millions of its lifetime members, aims to turn secular India into an
ethnic Hindu state.
Apoorvanand said the objective of the Hindu right is
to “cripple the Muslims economically, force them into a state of deprivation
and constant want so that they turn into a permanent subjugated population”.
“Politically Muslims have been disempowered. The idea
now is to disempower them in all areas of life,” he said.
For Muslim women, much of it is about the hijab.
After multiple rejections, dentist Aamir realised it
was her identity that was putting her at a disadvantage. Had she not been a
Muslim, she felt things would have been different.
During her interview at one of the branches of a large
Indian chain of dental clinics, she was asked about her personal life and
beliefs.
“I answered everything they asked. At the end of the
interview, I was asked about my hijab,” she said.
The interviewer asked Aamir upfront if she was willing
to take off her hijab if she worked at the clinic. She refused.
Aamir recalls a human resource executive telling her
later that they will not hire her.
“She took me aside and told me in private that she
doesn’t want to keep my hopes up for the job. She said, ‘I won’t be going ahead
with you,’” Aamir said.
Desperate for a job, Aamir switched from clinical to
the non-clinical field. She is now working as a senior medical data analyst in
a bioinformatics company that focuses on cancer research.
“I had to make tough decisions. The feeling of not
doing the patients was like I am not doing enough being a doctor. It initiates
a deep spiral within you,” she said.
Shaila Irfan, 32, was a teacher at one of New Delhi’s
largest chains of English-medium schools. Everything was going smoothly until
someone from the administration asked her if she really needed to wear the
hijab.
“They politely asked me to take off my hijab because
students and teachers are uncomfortable with it,” Irfan told Al Jazeera.
She left the job without arguing with the
administration and began looking for a new job. She cleared the interview at
another school but was told there would be “another round” of it.
“This time they asked if I will take off the hijab. I
was not hired because I refused to remove it,” said Irfan.
‘Hiring bias’
A study published in June by LedBy Foundation, a
leadership incubator that focuses on the professional development of Muslims,
has also revealed discrimination and bias against Muslim women in the hiring
process for entry-level jobs in various sectors.
The “Hiring Bias” study highlights excessive hiring
bias against Muslim women even in instances where they were equally qualified
for the job.
LedBy Foundation said it created two equally qualified
résumés. The only difference was in their names: Habiba Ali for the Muslim
profile and Priyanka Sharma for the Hindu.
Over 10 months, the foundation responded to 1,000 job
postings on the professional networking site LinkedIn by sending applications
in the names of the two women.
It found the net discrimination rate was 47.1 percent
as the Hindu woman received 208 positive responses, while the Muslim woman
received only 103.
This was evident across industries. Recruiters were
more cordial to the Hindu candidate. More than 41 percent of the recruiters
connected with Sharma over phone calls, while only 12.6 percent did the same
with Ali.
A similar study, “Being a Muslim at the Workplace” by
Mumbai-based feminist collective Parcham, found that even in metropolitan
cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, Muslims continue to face prejudice in the
formal sector.
The report noted that a scarcity of Muslim women in
the formal sector points out to a systematic and institutionalised push towards
an economic exclusion of Muslims.
“Our study notes the different ways in which
discrimination occurs to exclude Muslims from the workforce. Women were doubly marginalised.
Unchecked bullying, suspecting the nationalism of Muslims, and making
assumptions based on bigoted notions of Muslims were so common,” said the
report.
In 2018, Sabah Khan (first name changed), a
28-year-old from the city of Lucknow in north India’s Uttar Pradesh state,
applied for human resource positions at several companies around New Delhi
after gaining work experience of three years.
A leading Indian media company with a sprawling office
in Gurugram, a bustling New Delhi suburb and home to dozens of Fortune 500
companies, invited her for an interview with the HR manager.
“Her first question was about my name. I only write my
first name in my CV. So the HR manager inquired about my surname,” Khan told Al
Jazeera.
Khan, who does not wear a hijab, was then told she
does not look like a Muslim.
“When she said ‘you don’t look like a Muslim’, I was
taken aback, wondering what she meant. I thought she might have an idea about
how Muslim women should look,” said Khan.
Khan ignored the remarks and decided to focus on the
interview. The next stereotypical question was whether her family would allow
her to work.
“I was expecting her to talk about my job,” Khan said.
By then, she knew she would not be chosen for the job.
As she left, she was told to wait to hear back from the company. She never did.
Ruha Shadab, the founder and CEO of LedBy Foundation,
says conversations concerning the experiences of Muslim women from various
backgrounds entering the workplace revealed some anecdotal insights about “visible
and subtle discriminatory responses and tendencies” from the recruiters.
“This prompted us to wonder what was the quantifiable
evidence behind these experiences and how these anecdotes could be converted
into quantifiable evidence. We attempted to identify the barriers to Muslim
women’s labour-force participation in this study,” she said.
Their study, says Shadab, demonstrates that prejudice
in the hiring process is extremely common in India and can take two forms.
“One might be an explicit bias, where the individual
is conscious of and believes in their prejudice against Muslims and Muslim
women in particular. They are genuinely prejudiced against Muslims and are
extremely vocal about it. The second method of discrimination is the implicit
one, in which those who support the Hindu candidate may not be doing so with
full awareness. Due to implicit prejudices, they discriminate unintentionally,”
explained Shadab.
Dentist Aamir says she felt her identity, the one she
was always proud of, had turned into an obstacle.
“They have a problem with us being Muslims but they
have a bigger problem with us being visibly Muslims,” she told Al Jazeera.
Source: Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/3/muslim-women-in-india-allege-bias-in-hiring-for-jobs
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An Iraqi Woman Photographer, Samira Mazaal, Rises From
Obscurity to Fame
03/08/2022
AMARAH, Iraq -
She’s southern Iraq’s celebrity photographer, a former
political prisoner who has spent more than 60 years behind the lens documenting
people and places and defying convention.
Samira Mazaal is 77 and still going strong more than
half a century after turning to photography to feed her family — because she
had no choice.
“Peasants, intellectuals, I’ve photographed them all,”
says the mother of two, her black hijab framing a face lined by life.
“I have photographed Amarah in all its beauty — I went
deep into the marshes,” to the south of the city in the floodplain of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Everyone in the area turns to Studio Samira, be it for
a passport photograph or to have a couple’s portrait taken ahead of their
wedding.
She tells how she became the first female photographer
in Maysan province aged just 16, despite familial conventions that ruled in the
Iraq of the 1960s, and also how political activism led to imprisonment and
torture.
“My family has never known any other business — we’re
all photographers,” Samira says.
Framed photographs lining the walls bear witness to
her trade, in both black and white or in colours faded by time.
She has albums of images showing Iraq as it used to
be: black-clad women carrying huge bales balanced on their heads; a smiling
peasant woman in a flowery dress, her hair braided, standing near a cow; a
mother and child filling a pot with water from the river.
‘Society can be cruel’
Samira’s father was among the first to introduce
photography to the province.
“I asked him to initiate me into the craft, but he
said: ‘No, you’re too young. You can’t — society can be cruel’,” she recalls.
But soon circumstances would force him to change his
mind. He was rendered blind in a botched operation, and could no longer provide
for his family.
So Samira had to step in.
She started off using the daguerreotype method of the
1800s that uses silver-plated copper sheets, but then her father sold off some
land so she could buy more modern equipment.
“My studio became extraordinarily successful,” she
smiles. “Because I was a young woman, I could take pictures of families.”
Samira exploited the norms of a conservative society:
the male heads of households preferred that a woman photographer, not a man,
take the pictures of their wives and daughters.
Bassem al-Subaid is one satisfied client of Studio
Samira.
“There isn’t a single household in all of Maysan
province that doesn’t know Samira the photographer,” he said.
“My generation got to know Samira when we came to be
photographed by her,” adds the man in his forties. “It was the previous
generation that saw her political activism.”
In 1963, Iraq was being torn apart by revolutions and
bloody crackdowns, and the then adolescent had no idea that a communist tract
would put her behind bars.
A source of pride
After General Abdel Salam Aref took power in a Baath
party coup, three militants came to Samira’s studio and asked her to
mass-produce a poster denouncing the new regime.
She accepts that she had not yet completely formed her
own political opinions, and was swayed at the time by her brother’s sympathies.
“In all of Amarah, there wasn’t a single wall without
a pasted copy of the poster,” she boasts. “It wasn’t a crime — it’s a source of
pride.”
A picture of herself, which she still has today, made
her famous. It shows her lying on a hospital bed after being tortured in a
building in Amarah.
“I was screaming so hard I thought the whole town
would come and save me,” she recalls.
It was not to be: she spent the next four years, ill
and abused, in a Baghdad prison.
She was freed after an international campaign that led
to pardons for several political prisoners in Iraq.
In 1981, she was again jailed briefly under the rule
of then dictator Saddam Hussein. And then again 10 years later over a protest
in Amarah against the repercussions of the Gulf War over Kuwait.
Like several other women prisoners, she was granted a
pardon after just a few months.
Today the photographic studio is still welcoming clients,
and despite her age, the revolutionary flame still burns brightly in Samira.
She hails the October 2019 uprising, sparked by angry
young Iraqis seeking to bring those in power to account.
“The protesters should have transformed their movement
into a massive revolution to root out corruption and the corrupt,” Samira says.
Source: The Arab Weekly
https://thearabweekly.com/southern-iraq-woman-photographer-rises-obscurity-fame
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Nigeria Police Dissociate Self From Message Inviting
Muslim Women To Send CV’s
August 3, 2022
By Ochogwu Sunday
The Nigeria Police has dissociated itself from a text
message circulating on social media particularly on WhatsApp asking Muslim
women and other members of the public to forward their details.
Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi
in a statement on Wednesday, said the message did not emanate from the Nigeria
Police Force.
The spokesman described the message as the handiwork
of fraudsters intending to gain pecuniary advantages from innocent Nigerians.
The statement reads, “The attention of the Force has
been drawn to a message being circulated on WhatsApp and other social media
platforms inviting members of the public, particularly Muslim women, interested
in joining the police, to forward their curriculum vitae to phone numbers
08036250317 or 08036014324 via WhatsApp.
“The Force wishes to state unequivocally that the
message did not emanate from the Nigeria Police Force nor its content true.
“All communications regarding recruitment into the
Nigeria Police Force is published publicly on national dailies and the police
e-recruitment website.
“The message which is in a mix of Hausa and English,
as well as the phone numbers attached, have been forwarded to the relevant unit
for prompt investigation and further necessary action.
“The Force enjoins members of the public to
discountenance the message as it is clearly the handiwork of fraudsters
intending to gain pecuniary advantages from prospective victims of the scam
message”.
Source: Daily Post
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France discriminated against hijab-wearing vocational
trainee: UN report
03 August, 2022
A United Nations committee ruled that France discriminated
against a Muslim woman who was prevented from attending vocational training in
a public school while wearing her Islamic head scarf, according to a UN
document.
In 2010, Naima Mezhoud, now aged 45, was due to train
as a management assistant at a course held in a state high school, where
teenagers are prohibited by law from wearing the hijab. When she arrived, the
head teacher of the school in the northern outskirts of Paris barred her from
entering, according to the document which was seen by Reuters.
Six years earlier, in 2004, France had banned the
wearing of hijabs and other visible religious symbols in state schools by
school children. Mezhoud argued that as a higher-education student, she should
not have been targeted by the law.
"The committee concludes that the refusal to
allow (Mezhoud) to participate in the training while wearing her headscarf
constitutes a gender and religious-based act of discrimination," the UN
Human Rights Committee determined, according to the document.
A UN source confirmed the authenticity of the
document.
The interior ministry and foreign ministry did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
The possible ramifications of the UN's ruling were not
immediately clear. Freedom law expert Nicolas Hervieu of the Paris Institute of
Political Studies said that according to legal precedent, it was unlikely that
France would comply with the committee's decision.
France is home to one of Europe’s largest Muslim
minorities. For years, the country has implemented laws designed to protect its
strict form of secularism, known as “laicité,” which President Emmanuel Macron
has said is under threat from Islamism.
Some Muslim associations and human-rights groups
allege those laws have targeted Muslims and chipped away at democratic
protections and left them vulnerable to abuse.
Mezhoud approached the UN Human Rights Committee after
she lost a series of appeals in French courts.
The committee said France had breached articles 18 and
26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on religious
freedom.
Mezhoud's lawyer, Sefen Guez Guez, told Reuters the
decision showed that international human-rights institutions were critical of
France's policies regarding Islam.
"French institutions will have to comply with the
UN decision," he added.
In theory, following the UN committee's ruling, France
now has six months to financially compensate Mezhoud and offer the opportunity
to take the vocational course if she still wishes. The country also must take
steps to ensure similar violations of international law will not happen again.
Source: The New Arab
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/france-discriminated-against-hijab-wearing-trainee-un
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Pair of expat women in UAE inspires people to
rediscover love for books
July 30, 2022
Samihah Zaman
Abu Dhabi: They are both voracious readers, and having
found their love for books, two expat women in the UAE have made it their
mission to reignite the passion for reading.
Today, their largely online venture, Al Alami Book
Club, has 700 members, and is growing by the day. Speaking to Gulf News, Farah
Al Alami and Deema Al Alami, who both hail from Jordan and are distant cousins,
said it is heartening to see more and more people embrace the written word.
“I was always a reader, and never saw my aunts and
older female relatives without a book at hand. But in university, I got into a
reading slump and life took over afterwards. When my sons were born, I knew I
had to be an example for them if I wanted them to enjoy reading, and that is
when I found my way back to reading,” Farah, a 39-year-old senior public
relations executive, told Gulf News.
Challenging herself
Wanting to challenge herself, Farah read 16 books in
2018 alone, then increased it to 30 books in 2019. The following year, she was
able to get through 43 books.
“It isn’t about the number, but I found it exciting to
challenge myself,” Farah said.
At about the same time, she also converted her private
Instagram account to a Bookstagram to connect with other readers, and inspire
discussions on the book she was devouring. Within two years, the account
boasted about 15,000 followers.
Book club launch
When the pandemic hit, Farah suddenly had more time on
her hands. An online encounter with a distant cousin in Dubai, Deema, 38, then
inspired the two women to launch their book club. As an educational consultant
and co-author of two Arabic language books for children, Deema was already
sharing tips on helping young read through her own Instagram account.
“The pandemic made us all think about how we could
give back to the community, and a book club seemed like a natural choice for
us,” Farah said.
Thoughtful picks
Within a month, the club had 700 members, and
British-Cypriot author Alex Michaelides’ novel, ‘The Silent Patient’, was
chosen as the first read.
“Deema and I spend a long time deciding on what book
to read, especially as we want to pick something that people can easily get
their hands on, and will enjoy. We also try to explore different genres through
our picks,” Farah said.
Till date, the book club has gone through 10 books,
including bestsellers ‘The Vanishing Half’ by American author Brit Benett and
‘Wish You Were Here’ by Jodi Picoult. The founders want to ensure that no one
is pressured to read too quickly, and sets a two-month reading period for each
book. They also make sure that no book is longer than 400 pages. Once they are
done, members then join an online session on Zoom that Farah and Deema moderate
in order to discuss the book with one another.
Lively discussions
“It would be lovely to meet in person, but having the
discussions over Zoom certainly sees many more people joining in. In fact,
we’ve had people participate from Sri Lanka, Jordan, and even as far away as
Canada, just to discuss what they’ve liked or not liked about the book,” Farah
said.
The majority of club members are women, and Farah puts
it down to women simply being bigger readers.
“But we have people aged as young as 16 years old in
our club, and as much as 65 years old, and that is truly encouraging. What is
also interesting is that we also have at least one male participant in every
Zoom discussion,” Farah said.
The reads have also promoted a variety of heartfelt
discussions, including on topics like body positivity, domestic abuse and the
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rediscovering books
Farah and Deema said they are delighted at just being
able to help people rediscover the joy of books.
“I’ve always wanted to convert every family into a
‘reading family’, and our book club is a step towards that. After all, children
won’t enjoy reading unless they see their parents reading, and we are helping
mommies be an example for them,” Deema said.
She too always saw her mother and grandmother with a
book in hand, and stressed that the habit must be cultivated from a young age.
“With books, like with much else, you have to start
young. So, as I enjoy reading and discussing books on our book club, I continue
to share tips on how to encourage young readers,” said Deema, who harbours a
particular passion for historical fiction.
Adding to her read list
Farah, on the other hand, is continuing to add to the
list of books she has read. She has already finished 20 different works in
2022, and said she continues to read books other than just book club picks.
“I prefer to read fiction, like most members of our
book club. But apart from romances and novels in English, I also enjoy the
occasional memoir, as well as novels in Arabic,” she said.
Beating time constraints
Asked what deters people from reading more, Farah said
time constraints are the biggest complaint.
“Then again, this is not insurmountable. I recommend
people keep a book handy to whip out when waiting in a doctor’s lounge, for
instance, instead of scrolling through their phones. As for myself, I’ve
discovered that I enjoy reading while on the treadmill, so my workouts have a
positive effect on both my mind and body nowadays,” she quipped.
Farah and Deema’s recommended reads
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
• Verity by Colleen Hoover
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• The Other Women by Sandie Jones
• The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn
• The Mother In Law by Sally Hepworth
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Educated by Tara Westover
• Four Winters by
• Shantaram by Gregory David Robers
• Lean In by Nell Scovell and Sheryl Sandberg
How to read more, from Al Alami Book Club
• Encourage your kids to read so it grows with them as
a habit.
• Choose the genres you mostly enjoy. Don’t pressure
yourself with a genre that you don’t like. All genres are eye-openers and feeds
your soul and mind.
• Make it a mission to read at least 10 pages a day –
before bedtime ideally.
• Leave your gadgets and phone, and grab a book to
read instead.
• Take a book with you when you leave home – you can
read while waiting a doctor clinic, or in the car while waiting for your kids
at school pick up or at the hairdresser!
• Read while exercising on a treadmill or on a flight
or a road trip. However, this works only for those who do not suffer from
motion sickness.
• Make it a memorable and enjoyable trip/experience
for you and your family to visit a book store or book fair.
• Take your kids with you when you go for books
shopping.
• Visit libraries, especially when travelling.
• Finally, join a book club. This will motivate you to
finish books, and will make you excited to discuss it with others who read it.
Source: Gulf News
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Women in Afghanistan gradually disappearing from
public life
03/08/2022
Women in Afghanistan are slowly disappearing from
public life, a year after the Taliban retook control of the country and imposed
a rigorous version of Islamic Sharia law. FRANCE 24’s Shahzaib Wahlah and Sonia
Ghezali report from Kabul.
Deprived of education, forced to wear the full veil,
banned from politics and the media, women are gradually disappearing from
public life in Afghanistan. The Taliban
regime has put in place a rigorous version of Islamic Sharia law that leaves no
room for women, who make up more than half of the population.
A civil servant who spoke to FRANCE 24 on condition of
anonymity says she has become little more than a shadow. Her husband is
seriously ill and she was the sole breadwinner.
"I liked my work, I could offer a good education
to my children. But when they arrived I was forced to stay at home. And they
cut my salary. I believe that the Taliban are the same as they were before. It
is a dark regime."
Source: France24
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Iraqi woman gets 3D-printed hip implanted at Delhi
hospital
Aug 03, 2022
A 32-year-old Iraqi woman with a tumour in her left
hip had a successful implant of a customised hip which was designed and
3D-printed at a private hospital here, doctors at the facility said.
“This was a complex procedure as the patient had
undergone a prior surgery for removal of the tumour in the same place in
Turkey. As a result, her left pelvis had a lot of scar tissues which made it
difficult to re-explore. It took us 11 hours in total, four hours for tumour
removal and another seven to re-construct and put the titanium implant,” said
Dr Surender Dabas, senior director and head of Surgical Oncology and Robotic
Surgery, BLK-Max Super Speciality Hospital.
He said the use of 3D printing to reconstruct
customised ortho implants such as the left pelvis in this patient’s case “is a
leap in ortho-onco surgeries, including spino-pelvic tumours”. It is expected
that she will return to her near-normal unsupported gait around three to four
months later, the doctors said.
Source: Tribune India
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Miss Iraq 2022: TV presenter Balsam Hussein set for
World and Universe stages
Azhar Al-Rubaie
Erbil
Jul 29, 2022
Balsam Hussein, a 26-year-old TV presenter and former
hair-transplant specialist, has been crowned Miss Iraq 2022 at a beauty contest
held in Erbil, capital of the northern Kurdish region.
Ms Hussein was among 19 contestants from across the
country who were vying for the title and a chance to represent Iraq at the Miss
World and Miss Universe events.
“I am highly motivated to participate in Miss World
and Miss Universe pageants soon,” she said.
Ms Hussein's win raises her public profile even
higher, after starting work in April as host of a morning TV show for a private
channel in Baghdad.
Speaking to The National, she said she had been hesitant
to take part in the competition but decided to go ahead at the last minute
after full support from her family and close friends, as well as from her
followers on social media.
“My family have been happy and proud of me throughout
my life, but they became happier and prouder when they watched me on TV being
crowned Miss Iraq 2022," she said. "I felt sorry that they were not
able to come from Baghdad to Erbil as they were ill, but I never felt alone.”
Ms Hussein represented the Al Karakh district of
Baghdad, the Iraqi capital where she was born and raised. She worked there as a
hair-transplant specialist after training in Turkey before starting her TV job
— something she said she had always dreamt of doing.
“I have a dream to improve the media and journalism
field in Iraq, and of course, being a winner of Miss Iraq will help me to be
closer to achieving that dream,” she said.
For Iraqis faced with uncertainty and instability as
political groups squabble over forming a new government nearly 10 months after
elections, the Miss Iraq pageant offered a window of hope for the future.
Ayman Hussein, 26, a resident of the southern province
of Basra, said Ms Hussein's triumph was "a win for Iraq and Iraqis".
"It is a clear message that, in spite of political
chaos, Iraq is able to hold such events," he said. "Whenever there is
war, there is life — this is our interpretation of life."
Mr Hussein said he hoped to see Iraqi women take their
rightful place in society. "Iraqi women experience hardship their entire
life; it is the time to say 'I am here'."
Launched in 1947, the Miss Iraq contest was suspended
for more than four decades in 1973 because of political upheaval and wars, and
resumed only in 2015.
“From today, I represent all of Iraq," Ms Hussein
said. "I would like to send a message to all Iraqi women: do not give up,
fight to get your goals, be patient. You have faced wars and difficulties; do
not make the harsh conditions a rock in your path — destroy it and keep going
until all your dreams are met."
The judges declared Sarah Saad, from Baghdad's Al
Rusafa district, as the first runner-up, and Jihan Majid, representing Wasit,
as second runner-up. Hind Akram, representing the Baghdad Belt, was the third
runner-up, followed by Sarah Khaled from Mosul.
Kareem Rasheed, executive director of the Miss Iraq
organisation, said: “Iraq is thirsty for such events like Miss Iraq. Year after
year, we will do our best to develop it and make it reach people around the
Arab world.
“The contestants represent about 90 per cent of Iraq —
we covered the regions of south, middle Euphrates, west and north.
“This year, we decided to rate beauty at 50 per cent
and inner essence, such as culture, education and so on, also at 50 per cent,
while in years past we were focusing on beauty over essence.
"All women are beautiful and each one has a
unique trait that makes her different from others."
Source: The National News
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