Fauzia Janjua, Pakistani-American Woman Mayor of Mount Laurel In New Jersey Makes History
New Age
Islam News Bureau
13 January 2024
· Fauzia Janjua, Pakistani-American Woman Mayor of Mount Laurel In New Jersey Makes History
·
Indian Television Actress Hina Khan Takes A Spiritual
Pilgrimage To Mecca
·
Women’s Healthcare Access Crisis Under Taliban-Ruled
Afghanistan
·
Scottish Leader's Wife Says Her Family Managed To
Leave Gaza With Help Of Türkiye
·
The Women of Gaza Are Fighting for Their Families’
Lives
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/fauzia-janjua-pakistani-american-woman-mayor/d/131514
------
Fauzia
Janjua, Pakistani-American Woman Mayor of Mount
Laurel In New Jersey Makes History
January 13, 2024
Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON: Fauzia Janjua, a
Pakistani-American, has made history by becoming the first Muslim and South
Asian woman to serve as the mayor of Mount Laurel in New Jersey.
At her swearing-in ceremony at the
Township Hall last week, Ms Janjua, accompanied by her family, proudly held a
copy of the Holy Quran, emphasising the cultural diversity of her heritage.
Assemblywoman Carol Murphy, a New Jersey
state representative, administered the oath of office to Ms Janjua, who
expressed deep pride in her Pakistani roots.
“I am honoured to be the first Pakistani
and Muslim woman mayor in the history of Mount Laurel. It’s a matter of pride
for myself and the entire Pakistani community,” she told reporters after the
ceremony.
Born in the US after her father’s
migration in the 1970s, Ms Janjua highlighted her commitment to community
service. Her dedication to improving lives led her to establish an NGO.
“My commitment to community service has
been a lifelong passion, focusing on teaching prisoners and underprivileged
children,” she said.
Janjua is first South Asian woman to
have been selected mayor of a US township; has served community, focusing on
teaching prisoners, underprivileged children
Ms Janjua said she established her NGO
with an aim to improve people’s lives.
“Reflecting on my political journey, it
all began at a state governor’s party where a woman recognised my potential for
leadership,” she added. “With that encouragement, I embarked on this path,
ultimately achieving the historic position of mayor.”
Beyond her political responsibilities,
Ms Janjua has actively worked to showcase positive aspects of Muslim culture to
the world. Leveraging her role as Deputy Mayor, she has promoted understanding
and appreciation, contributing to the diverse tapestry of Mount Laurel’s
community.
Her remarks at the swearing-in ceremony
emphasized the need to celebrate all cultural events together, showcasing the
rich heritage of Mount Laurel’s community.
“We have celebrated cultural events like
Juneteenth and the holiday tradition of the Menorah and Eid, showcasing the
rich tapestry of our community’s heritage,” she said.
Mayor Janjua expressed anticipation of
future achievements and praised the municipality’s diversity since she first
assumed a council seat in 2021.
Nikitas Moustakas, selected as the
municipality’s Deputy Mayor, also highlighted the positive efforts of the
community, including streamlined communications, investments for the whole
community, park and recreation improvements, and support for small businesses.
Both Ms Janjua and Mr Moustakas received
standing ovations and vocal support from the standing-room-only crowd at the
meeting.
Assemblywoman Carol Murphy, who
administered their oaths, said that the selection of Ms Janjua and Mr Moustakas
fulfilled a commitment to make Mount Laurel Township more diverse, stronger,
and community-friendly.
Councilman Stephen Steglik, Mount
Laurel’s immediate past mayor, encouraged Ms Janjua and Mr Moustakas,
expressing confidence in the community’s support during both ups and downs.
As Ms Janjua takes on the role of mayor,
her journey reflects not only personal achievement but also a commitment to
fostering inclusivity and diversity in Mount Laurel.
The New Jersey media, while commenting
on her success, pointed out that her story serves as an inspiration,
highlighting the power of an individual to make a positive impact on the
communities.
Ms Janjua’s historic role opens doors
for further representation and highlights the importance of embracing and
celebrating the diverse backgrounds that con-tribute to the vibrant fabric of
Mount Laurel.
Source: dawn.com
https://www.dawn.com/news/1805427
------
Indian Television Actress Hina Khan Takes A Spiritual Pilgrimage To Mecca
Indian television actress Hina Khan
-----
January 12, 2024
In a heartfelt journey of spirituality,
television actress Hina Khan recently embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi
Arabia, to offer prayers at the revered Makka Masjid-al-Haram. The actress took
to social media to share glimpses of her sacred pilgrimage, expressing profound
gratitude and emotions.
Sharing a series of captivating images
on her Instagram account, Khan conveyed the essence of her spiritual
experience. Accompanying the visuals, she wrote, “Jumma Mubarak. Blessed
Alhamdullilah. MAKE DUA.”
In a subsequent Instagram story, Khan
reflected on the intensity of her emotions, stating, “It was not my first time.
But the anxiety, nervousness, emotions are exactly like the first time. You
weep and weep and only weep like a little girl.” She went on to describe the
overwhelming sensation when beholding the majestic Kaaba, noting, “You feel
hypnotized, your lips freeze, you get chills.”
In another post, Khan shared a
captivating image of a ‘sea of people’ in safa-marwa from around the globe,
emphasizing the inclusive nature of the sacred place. Expressing her inner
tranquility, she captioned a picture of herself in a peaceful corner of
safa-marwa, stating, “A peaceful corner in safa-marwa and my zamzam that’s all
you need.”
Khan also shed light on the challenges
faced by worshippers, especially women, in finding a place in the Mataf area of
Haram Sharif to offer prayers. Undeterred by the bustling crowds, she expressed
gratitude for being able to offer all her salah’s in the first row in Mataf,
considering it a blessed experience.
Through her social media updates, Hina
Khan not only shared the visual tapestry of her pilgrimage but also provided an
intimate glimpse into the profound spiritual and emotional impact the journey
had on her. The actress radiated gratitude, reflecting on the peace and
calmness that Mecca brought to her soul. Her words and images echoed the
universal sentiments of reverence and humility experienced by millions during
their pilgrimage to this sacred Islamic site.
Source: thestatesman.com
https://www.thestatesman.com/entertainment/hina-khan-takes-a-spiritual-pilgrimage-to-mecca-1503258913.html
-----
Women’s healthcare access crisis under
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
Fidel Rahmati
January 12, 2024
A non-profit media organization led by
women called “PassBlue” has reported on the lack of access for women to
healthcare and its impact on increasing maternal mortality, stating that “In
Afghanistan, women are dying on their way to the hospital or inside it.”
The media outlet has released an image
of a hospital in Kabul in its report, where several patients share a common
bed.
Furthermore, the report states: “Today,
in Afghanistan, the use of shared beds for women, even in advanced medical
facilities [in Kabul], is not unusual. Worse still, more women lose their lives
on their way to hospitals due to pregnancy complications, as they have to
travel for hours or even days to receive healthcare.”
According to this report, “The Taliban’s
control of Afghanistan has increased maternal mortality rates.”
Even before the rise of the Taliban
regime in August 2021 – an event that triggered a new wave of economic and
social crises – Afghanistan was known as one of the most dangerous countries
for mothers, especially considering the severe shortage of midwives and female
nurses in the country’s clinics.
PassBlue, citing experts, reports that
the lack of medical equipment in hospitals and clinics is not the only threat
to Afghan mothers’ lives; a wide range of economic, social, and political
factors are also contributing to the crisis.
Moreover, the limited access of many
women to healthcare in remote Afghan villages has resulted in more women losing
their lives on their way to hospitals due to pregnancy complications, as they
need to travel for hours or even days to receive care.
It is worth noting that even before the
Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 – an event that triggered a new wave of
economic and social crises – Afghanistan had one of the highest maternal
mortality rates in the world. Over the past two decades, the training of
thousands of female healthcare workers and millions of dollars in foreign aid
have reduced the maternal mortality rate from 1346 per 100,000 births in 2000
to 620 cases in 2020.
The report also quotes human rights
watchdogs, who have described the reduced access to healthcare, limited family
planning choices, and the decline in the number of healthcare professionals in
Afghanistan as a complete disaster.
This women-led media outlet, citing
experts, reports that since the Taliban’s resurgence, pregnancies among women
in Afghanistan have increased. Doctors in Afghanistan and former health
activists and officials abroad claim that poverty and lack of opportunities for
women in the country are leading some families to marry off their daughters
earlier than before.
According to health observers,
pregnancies among teenage girls have increased, putting young women at a higher
risk of disease and maternal mortality.
Doctors working in Kabul’s hospitals
have told “PassBlue” that the number of 14 and 15-year-old girls wanting to
become pregnant or who are already pregnant has doubled in the past two years.
Afghanistan faces a shortage of various
types of medical professionals. According to the World Bank’s report, even
before many doctors fled the country in 2021, Afghanistan had the lowest number
of doctors per 1,000 people in Asia.
Source: khaama.com
https://www.khaama.com/womens-healthcare-access-crisis-under-taliban-ruled-afghanistan/
-----
Scottish leader's wife says her family
managed to leave Gaza with help of Türkiye
Aysu Bicer
13.01.2024
Nadia El-Nakla, wife of Scotland’s First
Minister Humza Yousaf, said her brother's spouse and the couple’s four
children. were rescued from the Gaza Strip with Türkiye’s help.
The family has been granted temporary
protection status in Türkiye.
Speaking exclusively to The Guardian,
El-Nakla urged the British government to implement a visa program akin to the
one extended to Ukrainians, facilitating the reunification of families torn
apart by the ongoing strife in the Middle East.
Drawing a parallel to successful rescue
efforts for Ukrainians, El-Nakla stressed the importance of providing similar
opportunities for Gazans with family in the UK.
"The Ukrainian resettlement
programme saved so many lives. Gazans should also have that opportunity,
especially those with family in Britain," she said.
Expressing gratitude for her family's
safety, El-Nakla emotionally stated, "My brother keeps thanking me for
saving his kids."
'I feel like a second-class citizen in
my own country'
But she voiced frustration at the lack
of resettlement options for her sister-in-law and children.
El-Nakla emphasized the sense of being a
"second-class citizen" in her country, lamenting the inability to
bring her brother to stay in her home.
"I feel like a second-class citizen
in my own country, because I don’t have the right to bring my own brother to
stay in my own home," she said.
"I can see people across the street
hosting Ukrainian families, and rightly so. But I can't host my own brother. To
me, that feels beyond upsetting. I was born here. I pay my taxes. I contribute
to society. And yet the government that's supposed to represent me is doing
such a poor job," she said.
El-Nakla expressed shock and dismay at
how little attention the conflict in Gaza has received in national news during
the festive season.
Describing the attacks on Gaza as a
"genocide," she emphasized that the situation has virtually
disappeared from public awareness. "It's not even on the radar," she
lamented. "It’s the first time we’re seeing a textbook genocide in real
time and it’s not even on the news."
With the UK in an election year,
El-Nakla believes voters should judge political parties based on their stance
on Gaza. She criticized the UK government's apparent indifference to the
Palestinian cause, stating it is merely echoing the foreign policy of the
United States.
Expressing confusion over the Labour
Party's position, led by human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, El-Nakla questioned
why it is not calling for a cease-fire. She urged political leaders to consider
the importance of standing on the right side of history.
While using her voice as a Palestinian
Scot with a platform, El-Nakla admitted that the psychological toll of pleading
for her family's safety and the end of violence had become increasingly challenging.
As her brother continues to work as an
emergency room doctor in Gaza amid escalating dangers, El-Nakla conveyed the
deep exhaustion and desperation felt by her family.
"There's nothing that I can say to
comfort him," she said, sharing a poignant exchange with him where she
reminded him of the line from the Qur'an: "With difficulty comes
ease."
Source: aa.com.tr
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/scottish-leaders-wife-says-her-family-managed-to-leave-gaza-with-help-of-turkiye/3107787
----
The Women of Gaza Are Fighting for Their
Families’ Lives
JAN 12, 2024
GAZA—As bombs rain down on Gaza, Maryam
Abu Akar has managed to escape death twice. But her loved ones have not.
Maryam’s 17-year-old daughter, Sarah, was killed when a bomb landed on their
two-story home on Oct. 17—ripping the teenager’s body in half.
In the wake of Sarah’s death, Maryam
relied on her husband, Salama, for support. “He helped me bear the loss of my
daughter. He told me that everything would be better and that our daughter went
to heaven,” the 40-year-old said in an interview in her husband’s family home
in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza.
Seven weeks later, Salama was chatting
with a neighbor when a bomb landed nearby, killing them both. In an instant,
Maryam became a widow—and the sole caregiver for their remaining four children.
She is far from alone. Thousands of women in Gaza have been widowed by the war
or left in charge of households, and aid experts fear that their worsening
plight is being overlooked in the humanitarian response.
“I do not know how I will face his
absence and raise the children without him,” Maryam said, tears streaming down
her pallid cheeks. “Sometimes, when the children make me angry, I tell them: ‘I
will call your father.’ And then I remember that he is not here.”
Maryam’s late daughter and husband are
among more than 23,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Israeli attacks on
Gaza since early October—with about 70 percent of the victims estimated to be
women and children—according to CARE International, a global humanitarian
organzation.
On Oct. 7, the Palestinian militant
group Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people—mainly
civilians—and taking more than 240 hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Growing evidence is emerging of widespread sexual violence by the Hamas
attackers against Israeli women and girls.
Israel responded to the attack with a
massive bombing campaign in Gaza that has resulted in the highest civilian
death toll in the long-running conflict since 2005. More than 2,780 women in
Gaza have been widowed, data from U.N. Women Arab States shows. With at least
85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced and food, fuel, medicine,
and water scarce, these newly female-headed households are struggling to cope,
several humanitarian organizations said.
These women not only have to contend
with a deeply rooted patriarchal society and systemic legal inequities, but
they are now increasingly vulnerable to gender-based violence, unable to
support themselves and their families, and lack access to organizations that
can help them—be it with food, safe shelter, or health care, several aid
experts said.
“Most of the burden will be on the
women,” said Lucy Talgieh, head of the women’s program at the Palestinian
Conflict Transformation Center, a civil society organization based in
Bethlehem. “They have to be strong—to live, and to help their children, and to
start a new life, maybe with an injured husband who has become disabled, or
maybe as a widow with four to five children to care for.”
LAWS IN GAZA PLACE WOMEN under the
protection and guardianship of men, and fail to protect female citizens against
honor killings, marital rape, and domestic violence, the United Nations said in
a 2018 report.
A woman can lose her right to spousal maintenance
if she chooses to leave her husband’s home, and in 2021, a Hamas-run Islamic
court ruled that women need the permission of men to travel in Gaza.
Although female literacy rates are high
in Gaza, only 17 percent of women were active in the workforce as of 2021,
compared with 69 percent of men, data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of
Statistics shows.
In 2017, Gaza had the world’s highest
unemployment rate at 44 percent, according to the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development. Most women in Gaza have never had a formal job, and now,
even if they could work, there are virtually no opportunities available because
of the war.
At least two-thirds of jobs in Gaza have
been lost since the war started—roughly 192,000 jobs—the International Labour
Organization said in late December, warning that women working in agriculture
could lose out if rising unemployment results in men taking their jobs.
Maryam married at 20 and never finished
university. She has been a housewife almost her entire adult life and was
financially dependent on her late husband, who earned about $9 a day selling
clothes in a market.
“I got used to relying on him to raise
my children. He was the only breadwinner for us,” Maryam said. “I am not
accustomed to bearing the responsibility alone. I do not know how I will
continue the path with my children.”
For Gaza’s widows, grief and the trauma
of war are compounded by the challenge of suddenly becoming the sole
breadwinner, aid workers said.
CARE International said some mothers are
only eating once a day because they are putting their children’s health first
amid World Food Programme warnings that cases of dehydration and malnutrition
are rising.
“There are heightened feelings of fear,
anxiety, grief, and anger, and in an emergency, this is associated with the
breakdown of social structures, family separation, and the disruption of
support networks,” said Nour Beydoun, the regional adviser on protection and
gender in emergencies for CARE.
As many women’s organizations in Gaza
struggle to remain operational, CARE is working with community leaders and
influencers to organize support networks and provide psychosocial support.
Such activities are a reminder of normal
life and crucial in helping to “preserve and protect the human soul,” said
Sanam Anderlini, the founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action
Network, a women, peace, and security organization.
“I think Palestinians have learned and
instinctively understood that to preserve normalcy is itself a form of resistance,”
she added.
For serious mental health issues, CARE
is attempting to tap into the existing health care infrastructure to get people
referred to psychiatrists and provided with medication.
However, Gaza’s only psychiatric
hospital stopped functioning in November after it was damaged in an attack. As
of mid-December, less than a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were still operating,
and only partially, according to the World Health Organization.
RESEARCH BY A RANGE OF ORGANIZATIONS
from the World Bank to the U.N. Human Rights Office has found that gender-based
violence, including sexual exploitation and trafficking, increases during war
and in post-conflict situations due to economic hardship, displacement, and the
breakdown of social structures.
“The first thing that happens is that
levels of poverty force women into risky work, like sex work, and forces
children into work early,” Anderlini said. “We also see a huge spike in early
marriage of girls.”
About 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza
are currently residing in U.N. shelters, and aid agencies have warned that
overcrowding in such spaces increases the risk of abuse against women and
girls.
Helping widows and female heads of
household to find work and make money to support their families is a key way to
prevent women and children from being forced to turn to high-risk work as their
only option, according to Anderlini and Talgieh.
“They will be working, even on a
small-scale level at home selling things, but they will find their way with the
help of the community, the [nongovernmental organizations],” Talgieh said.
“These women have to find ways to survive, and they will.”
One such woman, Widad Abu Jama, a mother
of six, recently lost her husband. The 45-year-old said Israeli soldiers shot
and killed him when he went to his farm to check on his livestock and look for
food for his family.
“I feel like I lost my life, not just my
husband,” Jama said, sitting in the crowded classroom of a school that is now
being used as a U.N. shelter. Her children were huddled around her, crying from
the hunger and the cold.
“I got married at the age of 15. I lived
with my husband for a very long time, and I grew up in his house. We worked
together on our agricultural land. We spent long hours taking care of the crop.
We built our lives together,” Jama explained.
“Now I will go to the land without him.
I will be alone among the crops.”
Source: slate.com
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/the-women-of-gaza-are-fighting-for-their-families-lives.html
----
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/fauzia-janjua-pakistani-american-woman-mayor/d/131514