Dr. Hanan Al-Ahmadi, Assistant President of the Shoura Council, Makes History As First Woman To Chair Shoura Session
New Age Islam News Bureau
03 December 2020
• Aisha Al Qahtaniis , Qatari Woman, Who Fled Country Still Fears For Her Life
• A Safe Space For Women And Girls In
Iraq
• Campaigners Press For Changes To Stop
The Killing Of Women In Iraqi Kurdistan
• Sudan Says It Will Stamp Out Child
Marriage And Enforce Ban On FGM
• Canadian Mental Health Association
Study on Muslim Women's Mental Health in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
• 'Love Jihad': Indian States Want To
Pass Laws To Prevent Interfaith Marriages. The Move Is Unconstitutional And
Misogynistic
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/dr-hanan-al-ahmadi-assistant/d/123653
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Dr. Hanan Al-Ahmadi, Assistant President of the Shoura Council, Makes History As First Woman To Chair Shoura Session
December 2, 2020
Fatimah Al-Debis
Assistant
President of the Shoura Council Dr. Hanan Al-Ahmadi made history on Wednesday
by becoming the first Saudi woman to chair a session of the Shoura Council.
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RIYADH — Assistant President of the
Shoura Council Dr. Hanan Al-Ahmadi made history on Wednesday by becoming the
first Saudi woman to chair a session of the Shoura Council.
She presided over the sixth regular
virtual session of the Council held on Wednesday in the absence of President Sheikh
Abdullah Al-Sheikh and Vice President Dr. Mishaal Al-Sulami. This is in
accordance with Article six of the Shoura Council Bylaw.
Member of the Shoura Council Dr. Faisal
Al-Fadel said that the chairing of the Council session by Dr. Hanan was
considered a historic event. He expressed happiness over the landmark event in
the history of Saudi women, saying that this comes as one of the fruits of the
Kingdom’s Vision 2030, and realization of one of its most important goals,
which includes empowering women and investing their capabilities.
Meanwhile, a number of Shoura members,
while taking part in deliberations, called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
to reduce the number of staff working on a contract basis at the Saudi
diplomatic missions abroad and convert the vacancies from the seventh rank and
above to diplomatic posts. They also urged the ministry to find its own
premises for diplomatic missions to replace the rented ones.
The Council approved the draft job
discipline law, which aims to ensure the smooth functioning of the public
offices and the good performance of employees. It also endorsed the proposal
asking the General Organization for Social Insurance to carry out a study about
various alternatives to facilitate the retirees having access to health
insurance.
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/600997/SAUDI-ARABIA/Dr-Hanan-makes-history-as-first-woman-to-chair-Shoura-session
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Aisha Al Qahtaniis , Qatari Woman, Who
Fled Country Still Fears For Her Life
December 3, 2020
Aisha
Al-Qahtani, 22, fled to London in December 2019 while on a trip to Kuwait.
(Twitter)
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Aisha says her homeland significantly
supresses women's rights.
Aisha Al Qahtaniis still watching her
back after she fled Qatar to London earlier this year. She says the country,
which promotes itself as a progressive on the world stage, is unsafe for women.
Aisha says her homeland significantly supresses women's rights.
The activist had planned her escape from
Qatar for years, but she knew she couldn't fly out of there, because laws
stipulate local women under 25 need a male guardian's permission to board a
flight.
So, her bid for freedom actually came on
a family holiday in Kuwait, where she snuck away to the airport on her own to
catch a 3am flight to London.
"It was just like I needed someone
to pinch me because I couldn't believe that I actually did this. I could have,
if I got caught in Kuwait, I would have been murdered," she told 60
Minutes.
Aisha was gambling with her life, even
trying drastic measures of dying her dark hair blonde to disguise herself from
her searching family.
"I either ran away to have a new
life or I stay and just basically emotionally and mentally die. If this blonde
works and I get to live, great. If it doesn't, then it was worth it. At least I
tried."
Not surprisingly, when she finally made
it to London, Aisha embraced a new western wardrobe that gave her a sense of
freedom that she was deprived from.
"I was telling myself if I was a
blonde girl with blue eyes my family would just tell me bon voyage and that's
it."
After landing in London, the 23-year-old
has had to change locations a number of times, after her family managed to
allegedly bribe officials to help track her down.
Now, she is always watching her back.
"It's just knowing that they're
always gonna carry on looking for me," she said.
Aisha told 60 Minutes she felt like she
was in a James Bond movie, having to hide in shadows.
"It's just intense to think about
it again. The whole escape plan and the things that women have to go through
just to have a normal life," she said.
"I was in Cardiff in the mall and I
could see my brother at the end of the path. I thought I was hallucinating. I
thought, how could my family find out I'm in Cardiff, there's no way… I've
taken all the safety precautions."
For now, Aisha is safe in a secret
hideout, but knows that continuing to paint a picture of what life's really
like in Qatar makes her a target.
Still, she believes she's lucky to have
escaped, and it's her duty to speak out on behalf of the women still there.
"I think it's very important for
the world to see the real image of women's situation in Qatar," she said.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/qatari-woman-who-fled-country-still-fears-for-her-life
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A safe space for women and girls in Iraq
3/12/2020
(LWI) - An open ear, support groups,
legal counseling, and skills to earn their own money: For many women and girls
in Iraq, these interventions mean the difference between continuing to live in
an abusive family or partnership or starting a new life without violence. The
Lutheran World Federation (LWF), together with the local Baghdad Women's Association
(BWA), offers this kind of support to survivors of sexual and gender-based
violence.
Millions of refugees and IDP
The Lutheran World Federation has worked
in Iraq since 2014, supporting internally displaced people (IDPs), host
communities, and Syrian refugees. As of September 2020, there are still close
to 6.5 million persons in need of humanitarian assistance in Iraq, including
1.35 million internally displaced people and 4.7 million returnees. The
political and security situation in Iraq remains precarious and has been
further exacerbated by COVID-19.
"The situation for women and
children is particularly dire. There is trafficking, child marriage, forced
marriage, honor killings, female genital mutilation, and the double
discrimination faced by survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Many of
these issues have become more frequent during the COVID-19 pandemic," says
Caroline Tveoy, LWF World Service Regional Program Coordinator for the Middle
East, and gender focal point.
LWF has focused its work on prevention
and response to gender based-violence. To target hard-to-reach communities and
individuals, LWF works with local partners, including the Baghdad Women
Association (BWA) https://www.bwa-iraq.org/.
With support from LWF and other partners, BWA provides psychosocial and
legal advice to women and girl survivors of gender-based violence through five
counseling centers in the Baghdad, Nineveh, and Dohuk governorates.
Violence already before displacement
For many women attending these centers,
abuse did not start with being displaced in 2014. "The women have been
living under difficult circumstances in their place of origin, and that keeps
affecting them after their displacement," says Huda Rafid, Social Worker
at the BWA center in Siji, Dohuk governorate.
The center in Siji offers women a safe
space. It provides psychosocial and legal support, but also economic
empowerment through small grants and cash-for-work. In the past months, the
center also conducted awareness-raising sessions on COVID-19.
Other centers also provide
awareness-raising sessions on reproductive health, referral pathway meetings
with service providers, and gender-based violence sessions for men. They have
been distributing hygiene kits to help vulnerable families protect themselves
from COVID-19.
"I have been coming for two years
now, to receive support," says Nora F., a home maker from the Dohuk
region. "It has been good for my mental health and my well-being."
Student Remonda has also benefitted from
vocational training and legal support. "It helped me to grow and develop
my abilities," she says.
Recently, the BWA activated a referral
pathway system. It enables them to refer survivors, with their consent, to
governmental health care and other services. The referral support includes an
ID, food supply and housing card, passport, humanitarian relief aid, and
monthly salaries for widows and orphans.
COVID-19 and domestic violence
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the BWA
work more complicated andeven more critical. With domestic violence cases
increasing, the Baghdad Women Association has provided psychosocial services to
women and girls remotely via Skype, WhatsApp, and Zoom. They also set up a
health awareness campaign on Facebook, featuring short videos about proper hygiene
and physical distancing. BWA has also produced brochures and information on
COVID-19 and how to protect against the virus.
The work, which LWF and the BWA do
together, is also supported by the English-speaking congregation of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Geneva (ELCG). "Our congregation holds a
Harvest Festival each year, where we raise funds for one or more projects
outside our congregation. It's a way to practice giving thanks and giving
back", says Rev. Andy Willis of the ELCG.
"We are all deeply concerned about
the rise in sexual and gender-based violence during the pandemic, and so it
means a lot to us to support the work of BWA and LWF. We are inspired by and
grateful for their work of preventing and responding to GBV in communities throughout
Iraq."
https://www.lutheranworld.org/news/safe-space-women-and-girls-iraq
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Campaigners press for changes to stop
the killing of women in Iraqi Kurdistan
NOVEMBER 30, 2020
PRESIDENT of the Slemani Court of
Justice Jasem Jazaa Jaafer agreed to work with those campaigning to stop the
killing of women in the Kurdistan region of Iraq following a demonstration
today.
Protesters gathered outside the court
building for a press conference this morning before presenting a list of key
demands to the court.
The number of women murdered in
so-called “honour killings” is showing a worrying rise, campaigners warned.
Those gathered stood in silence, wearing
scarves emblazoned with red hands, depicting the blood of the women that have
been killed in the region.
On International Day for the Elimination
of Violence Against Women in Slemani last week, spokeswoman for the Conscience
Group Sakar Ebdullah said that more than 20,000 women have been killed since
the 1991 uprising in the Kurdish region.
Violence against women is reaching
“alarming levels” she said, adding: “The existing laws are not favourable to
women.”
Today’s action was co-ordinated by the
Stop Killing Women coalition, a broad-based campaign spearheaded by the
Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq, but including local non-governmental
organisations with the backing of the United Nations. The coalition is pressing
for legislative changes.
Campaign spokesman Mohammed Sheeraz
Talibani outlined the main demands to the Morning Star. One of the key changes
is to a rule that allows parents, husbands, uncles or brothers to sign papers
forcing women’s shelters to release their daughters, wives or other female
relatives into their care.
“After they are taken from the refuge,
they kill them,” Mr Talibani explained.
“In Chamchamal there was a case where
two sisters were killed by their father. He started a new relationship, but
their stepmother didn’t like them and kicked them out of the house, saying they
were ‘bad girls.’
“They ended up in a shelter, but their
father signed the papers two months later and they were forced to leave. His
new wife told him that they had behaved ‘dishonourably’ in the refuge.
“He and two other men then shot the
girls — and they have escaped punishment as the father has been sheltered by
the community, moving from house to house.
“The authorities won’t make arrests of
the men as the father is a leading figure in the community — so they get away
with murder,” he said.
Mr Talabani said that the campaign’s
work is dangerous: workers have received death threats for supporting the
refuges and have been warned many times to stay away.
“There are many cases like this. And if
you help them, they kill you,” he said.
The Stop Killing Women coalition has a
project that aims to challenge the media narrative and is working with news
organisations to ensure that they report on the killing of women responsibly.
“After a woman is killed, the media and
television in Kurdistan spread propaganda making out that she deserved to die,
blaming the victim for her death.
“She cannot respond — but it also helps
men to escape justice,” he said.
Mr Talabani said today’s meeting was a
sign of progress but added that much more needed to be done to change the
situation.
“Hopefully we will meet with the
government to force parliament to listen to our demands and take action,” he
said.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/campaigners-press-changes-stop-killing-women-iraqi-kurdistan
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Sudan Says It Will Stamp Out Child
Marriage And Enforce Ban On FGM
27 Nov 2020
Sudanese authorities have announced they
will end child marriage and enforce the country’s ban on female genital
mutilation (FGM), in a major step forward for the rights of women and girls.
Police officers were told on Wednesday
they must inform local communities that FGM is illegal following new laws
passed in July that make it punishable by up to three years in jail.
“Police officers will have a major
responsibility to intervene and curb this crime against humanity,” said the
director general of police, Ezzeldin El Sheikh, adding that religious leaders
in the largely Muslim country would play a key role in ending the practice.
The move should go some way to allay
concerns the practice was so deeply entrenched in society the law could not be
enforced.
According to the UN, 87% of Sudanese
women have undergone FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the
female external genitalia for non-medical reasons. Girls are typically cut
between the ages of just five and 14.
The council of ministers also announced
this week it is to end child marriage and adopt all articles of the African
charter on the rights and welfare of the child, which came into force in 1999.
Previously Sudan had resisted moves to
ban marriage before the age of 18, despite supporting UN human rights council
resolutions to end child marriage.
About a third of girls in Sudan are
married before they turn 18.
Niki Kandirikirira, Equality Now’s
director of programmes, said: “The work [to end child marriage] now awaits the
government to implement the law through programmes addressing social norms and
through making it clearly punitive to breach the law.”
She added: “We welcome comments by
police chief Lt Gen Ezzeldin El Sheikh in highlighting that FGM is now
forbidden by law in Sudan and those involved can face arrest, and we hope that
his words will translate into action by the police force.”
Following the ousting of Omar al-Bashir
last year, Sudan’s civilian-led transition government has set about reforming
the country, departing from almost four decades of hardline Islamist policies.
As well as FGM and child marriage, the
government has ended prohibitions against religious conversion from Islam,
permitted non-Muslims to drink alcohol and stipulated that women will no longer
need permission from a male member of their family to travel with their
children.
World leaders have pledged to eliminate
FGM and end child marriage by 2030.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/nov/27/sudan-says-it-will-stamp-out-child-marriage-and-enforce-ban-on-fgm
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Canadian Mental Health Association Study
on Muslim Women's Mental Health in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
December 03, 2020
The community-based research project,
Muslim Women’s Mental Health, asked Muslim women in the Greater Toronto and
Hamilton Area (GTHA) to describe their first-hand experiences of mental health
and mental health services.
This kind of qualitative research is
based on the wisdom that if you want to know how – and if – services and
supports are working, you ask the service users and the service providers.
[This study was prepared by Ruby Latif, MA; Doctor of Social Science Candidate
(ABD), Royal Roads University; Research Associate, Diversity Institute, Ryerson
University; Sara Rodrigues, PhD, Centre of Excellence on PTSD; and Andrew
Galley, PhD, Canadian Mental Health Association, National.]
In Canada, Muslims are the targets of
significant hate crime, aggression and discrimination. Muslim women in
particular face discrimination and ill-treatment, even more so than Muslim men.
This may be because the practice of wearing the hijab is a visible expression
of Muslim women’s religion. It is not surprising that experiencing aggression
and discrimination can go hand and hand with mental health difficulties. This
study suggests that this is true for Muslim women in the GTHA.
The researchers in this study hosted
focus groups with 13 Muslim women and interviewed 10 mental health
professionals in order to understand how to improve mental health services and
supports for Muslim women. The study also looked at why Muslim women may not be
accessing services, and how to encourage them to seek support.
The women in the study revealed that
they faced stigma and discrimination – both within and outside the Muslim
community. There were cultural, religious or family stigmas about mental health
that prevented women from accessing much needed mental health care. The women
also faced service providers who didn’t understand their culture and faith, and
who judged them. They spoke about the importance of having service providers
who are sensitive to their life experiences and culture. This “cultural
competency” and an increase in the cultural diversity of service providers
would go a long way to improving the therapeutic experience for Muslim women.
The women in the study also mentioned
the high cost of treatment and a lack of services in their community as
obstacles to getting the mental health help they need.
CMHA is pleased to present this valuable
research, which offers a clear vision for mental health services that respect
and understand the specific needs of Muslim women. CMHA thanks the Women’s
College Hospital for the grant that made it possible.
https://muslimlink.ca/news/canadian-mental-health-association-study-on-muslim-women-s-mental-health-in-the-greater-toronto-and-hamilton-area
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'Love Jihad': Indian States Want To Pass
Laws To Prevent Interfaith Marriages. The Move Is Unconstitutional And
Misogynistic
December 2, 2020
(CNN)Daily, being a woman in India feels
like an achievement. If friends and relatives don't concern themselves with who
my significant other is, it seems the state does.
Currently, marriage laws between India's
majority Hindu population and minority Muslims are being drafted in five
states, all of which are led by the right-wing, Hindu nationalist, Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP).
All of them seek to ban something that
doesn't actually exist: "love jihad," an Islamophobic term referring
to a purported phenomenon in which Muslim men marry women of other faiths — especially
Hindu women — to convert them to Islam. Some right-wing Hindus claim that this
alleged "conversion" results in a threat to women's safety, citing
tragedies like the reported murder of a Hindu woman last month by a young
Muslim man as proof of "love jihad." (In addition to murder,
authorities have charged the young man with attempting to abduct the young
woman to seek to compel her to marry him, The Indian Express reported; they
noted he abducted her once before, in 2018.)
In Uttar Pradesh, authorities have just
brought charges under one of these laws for the first time, accusing a male
college student of threatening to kidnap a young woman and of trying to force
her to convert to Islam, The Times of India reports. Despite this case, as the
push for these new laws unfolded, the Hindu-nationalist BJP had admitted in
Parliament that no case of "love jihad" had ever been identified.
As troubling as it is that an
ethnonationalist conspiracy theory seems to have taken hold, the motivation
behind it also ignores women as individuals, painting them as naive and
incapable of thinking for themselves or making their own decisions.
Since its independence, India has seen
religious animosity between its Hindu and Muslim communities. Starting with its
partition from Pakistan, an Islamic republic, however, India has maintained,
constitutionally, that it is a secular democracy. The topic of "love
jihad" was revived in the national conversation on Oct. 9 after Tanishq, a
jewelry company, was accused of "glorifying" Hindu-Muslim marriages,
and subsequently "love jihad," in an ad. The ad was heavily trolled
on social media, with right-wing Hindu fundamentalists promising to
"boycott" the company. Eventually, the company pulled the ad, saying
it feared for the "well being" of its employees.
Since then, BJP state leaders have
chimed in, proposing laws that would ban the practice of "love
jihad," mandating government permission for recent religious converts to
marry.
The government will "work to curb
'love-jihad,'" said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Oct.
31, adding, "We'll make a law." BJP politicians in the states of
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam followed suit, pushing similar
proposals.
On Nov. 24, the Uttar Pradesh government
cleared an ordinance to check "unlawful conversions," saying that, in
"cases of forced mass conversions," it would enforce a jail term of
three to 10 years with a penalty of up to Rs. 50,000 ($675) for mass
conversions, The Hindu reported; where women converted just for the purpose of
marriage, marriages would be invalidated. "If a person wants to perform
marriage after converting into any other religion, they will need to take
permission from the district magistrate two months before marriage," said
state Cabinet Minister Siddharth Nath Singh.
I cannot help but see a double standard
at play here, given the real issues that surround marriage in India. Arranged
marriages, which still dominate, work to ensure that inter-caste unions are
prevented. Child marriage is illegal in India, with the marriageable age being
18, but the country has the highest total number of child brides globally,
according to the civil-society partnership Girls Not Brides. Nearly 27% of
women ages 20 to 24 reported having been married before their 18th birthday,
according to a 2015-16 survey by the Indian government.
And yet, "love jihad" laws are
being pushed by a government seen by some as striving toward a "Hindu
rashtra," or Hindu nation-state.
The right to marry is a part of the
right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, as
affirmed by India's Supreme Court in 2018. The right to marriage is also stated
under the United Nations' Universal Declaration on Human Rights, of which India
is a signatory and which calls for a "free and full choice" in
decisions on when and whom to marry.
It's 2020, and rather than shedding our
oppressive, archaic ideas about marriages based on caste, or progressing toward
giving everyone — including the LGBTQIA+ community — the right to marry, we're
degenerating as a nation. This is a country in which victim blaming is
prevalent in cases of sexual violence and assault, and in which one minister
now keen to pass laws on "love jihad" alleged that conspirators were
fomenting the riots that unfolded after the rape and murder in September of a
19-year-old Dalit woman.
In February this year, the BJP's own
junior home minister, G. Kishan Reddy, said in Parliament: "The term 'love
jihad' is not defined under law. Article 25 of the Constitution provides for
freedom to freely profess, practice and propagate religion subject to public
order, morality and health." And while Indians, and Indian women, can find
comfort in court rulings like the recent Allahabad High Court's quashing of a
formal complaint that accused a Muslim man of abducting and forcibly marrying a
Hindu woman after converting her to Islam (the ruling categorically stated that
"two adults are free to choose their partner"), this law, like
others, first and foremost serves those on a quest to build a Hindu
nation-state. It ignores India's constitution.
Violent crimes against women are
concerning. Yet, when we talk about "love jihad" laws, we're not
talking about women's safety — rather, we're talking about taking away a
woman's right to choose her spouse. We're talking about communalizing a
marriage, distilling it into the faiths of the respective parties, rather than
looking at two adults as individuals.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/opinions/india-love-jihad-laws-akanksha-singh/index.html
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