Hindu Right-Wing Handles—Yet Again—Came Up With The Calls Of Rape And Sexual Violence Against Kashmiri Muslim Women
New Age Islam News Bureau
28 April 2025
· Hindu Right-Wing Handles—Yet Again—Came Up With The Calls Of Rape And Sexual Violence Against Kashmiri Muslim Women
· Adibah Anam, Rickshaw Driver’s Daughter, Becomes Maharashtra’s First Muslim Woman IAS Officer
· Muslim Women Getting Empowered: Munzarin Jailor Becomes the Judicial Magistrate in Maharashtra
· Rights Activist Jalila Haider Booked By FIA Under ‘Supporting Baloch Yakjehti Committee’
· Pregnant Woman Under Israel’s Blockade In Gaza’s Ruins Fears For Her Baby
· Muslim Women Targeted By Bill 94, Say Feminist Groups
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/kashmiri-muslim-women-sexual-violence/d/135345
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Hindu Right-Wing Handles—Yet Again—Came Up With The Calls Of Rape And Sexual Violence Against Kashmiri Muslim Women
April 27, 2025
Srinagar: Hindu right-wing handles—yet again—came up with the calls of rape and sexual violence against Kashmiri Muslim women after the Pahalgam attack, which killed 25 tourists and a local Kashmiri man.
A tweet from social media user Ben Dover, a user who appeared to be offering accommodation to any Kashmiri woman feeling threatened in Delhi, gained attention.
“Any Kashmiri girl feeling threatened in Delhi can come to my house at night. You will be safe and well hosted. A divided India will lose, A United India will win & thrive!” the tweet read, seemingly a gesture of goodwill. But it wasn’t long before his words took a turn into something far more sinister.
His tweets kept getting darker. The next thing he wrote was, “But I can’t guarantee if she will be alive after spending a night with me.”
“Hijabis are my priority,” he responded to one of the comments asking him if he would do the same for Kashmiri Hindu women.
The casual, unprovoked violence embedded in those words made it clear that this was not about safety.
Kashmiris staying outside the region have reported many incidents of harassment, assault, and threats since the incident occurred. Many of them returned home due to fear for their safety. But the hatred followed them online.
After Ben Dover tweeted, a series of tweets came up. Hindutva handles started copy-pasting his tweet, only adding their state names. Women social media users from fiffernt parts of India also engaged with their tweets, laughing and joking.
As many other users joined in, the vile remarks kept growing.
A user named Ashutosh Kunwar wrote, “For Noida, come to my house… DM for address.”
Another response to the tweet came from a user named Luc, who added, “Surprise sex on the menu boys.” In response, Ben Dover casually said, “We eatin’ well tonight.”
Another user asked, “Condom or without condom?” While one added, “Pajama utarkekalmapadaogekya?”
Kashmiri people started calling them out immediately after they caught their attention.
“A tragedy has stricken and instead of mourning or standing with the victims, the first instinct of these entitled parasites, always eager to tear women apart for their own pleasure and self gratification, is to twist it into vile, porn-sick fantasies…” wrote one of the users.
Another called for a police action, naming the person giving rape threats. “He is making rape threats against Kashmiri girls and making disgusting comment with sexual innuendos (night stay). Strict action must be taken! @JaipurPolice @JmuKmrPolice please look into this urgently.”
Many users called for police action, but nothing changed, and the hatred continued.
Besides online harassment and threats, there are reports of physical assault in different states of India.
In Punjab, two cases of harassment were reported — one in Kharar and another in Dera Bassi — where Kashmiri students were threatened.
At the Central University of Punjab in Bathinda, where around 85 Kashmiri students are studying, the staff is keeping a close watch, even though no major incident has happened on campus so far.
In Dehradun, Uttarakhand, a member from a Hindu right-wing outfit called Hindu Raksha Dal gave open threats, asking Kashmiri Muslims to leave the city.
This has caused fear among Kashmiris living there. In Jalandhar, Punjab, Kashmiris have also reported feeling unsafe.
Many Kashmiris studying or working outside reported that they are scared. Some students have even rushed to airports to return home quickly. Others have been forced to leave their rented rooms.
After the Pahalgam killings, anger and sadness have spread across the country. But these attacks and threats against Kashmiris have added to the fear.
In 2019 too, several Hindu right-wing leaders made controversial remarks following the abrogation of Article 370, which revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and divided into two union territories —JK and Ladakh.
One of them said that Hindu men should rejoice as they could now marry “fair-skinned Kashmiri women.”
The pattern has repeated itself once again, without any action against the perpetrators.
Source: freepresskashmir.news
https://freepresskashmir.news/2025/04/27/pajama-utar-ke-sexual-innuendos-against-kashmiri-women-surface-online-no-action-against-perpetrators-yet/
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Adibah Anam, Rickshaw Driver’s Daughter, Becomes Maharashtra’s First Muslim Woman IAS Officer
April 27, 2025
Adibah Anam, rickshaw driver’s daughter, becomes Maharashtra’s first Muslim woman IAS officer.
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Defying immense odds, Adibah Anam, daughter of a rickshaw driver from Yavatmal, Maharashtra, has achieved an extraordinary feat by securing All India Rank 142 in the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2024.
With this, she becomes the first Muslim woman from her state set to join the prestigious Indian Administrative Service (IAS), according to Clarion India.
Raised in a modest household, Adibah’s story is one of sheer determination and purpose. She began her education in a Zilla Parishad Urdu School, scoring an impressive 94% in SSC and 92.46% in HSC (Science).
Though she once dreamt of becoming a doctor, her maternal uncle, Jan Nizamuddin Sahib, guided her toward civil services, believing she could bring broader change. He supported her emotionally and financially, becoming a pillar in her journey.
Adibah completed her graduation in Mathematics from Abeda Inamdar College, Pune, with 85.20%. Despite clearing the NET exam, she chose not to enter academia and began preparing for the UPSC.
Her early attempts were marked by struggle, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her third attempt, from Mumbai’s Hajj House under Maqsood Khan Sahib’s mentorship, brought her closer, but she still missed the final list.
Refusing to give up, she joined the Residential Coaching Academy at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, where she finally succeeded. Choosing Urdu Literature as her optional subject despite a science background, she showcased her academic versatility and deep cultural roots.
Her parents remained her silent strength. “My father never asked me to stop. He only said, ‘May Allah make you successful,’” she shared.
Today, Adibah’s success is a beacon of hope for marginalized communities. “This victory belongs to every girl told to stay behind,” she says. “This is just the beginning.” — With Agencies Inputs
Source: muslimmirror.com
https://muslimmirror.com/adibah-anam-rickshaw-drivers-daughter-becomes-maharashtras-first-muslim-woman-ias-officer/
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Muslim Women Getting Empowered: Munzarin Jailor Becomes the Judicial Magistrate in Maharashtra
April 27, 2025
By Asma Anjum Khan
That tiny decorated hall at the far end of the city, was overflowing with people; women in particular. I got a chair due to the kindness of a woman. It was a difficult kind of kindness, for sure.
All the women were staring at her.
The celebrity Girl who was the centre of everyone’s attention.
She was Miss Munzarin Jailor.
No, it was not her marriage or betrothal ceremony. No it was not her Aneeqa even.
Because usually such crowds of women at the ripe night time of 9 pm are seen only for marriage etc.
So what was the occasion about?
I started listening to the speaker. A young girl around 28- 29, her words fell on my ears and I was stunned.
“My mother said, Shadiwaditohhotirahegi, baadmein, Tupehlepadh or aagebadh” (Marriages can happen later; first you study and go far ahead)
I was aghast. The women especially young girls appeared shocked yet eyed the speaker Miss. Munzarin Jailor admiringly. She had just cleared her Judicial Magistrate first class and civil (criminal) judge junior division, exams 2025. Her rank was 39th in Maharashtra. Their mothers in tow with them were as besotted with her words as their daughters. There was almost a pin drop silence in the hall if you disregarded an occasional humph or hrrumph from kids around.
This was a revolutionary moment, for our community, where a parent and more so a mother, a woman was asking her daughter not to think of marriage but to study and march ahead in her career.
This was revolution.
Tell me, my dear young women, how many of you get to hear such words from your parents?
I think, not much.
Here you turn eighteen [ or you are out of your HSC and there, faces of our parents start turning pale in the hope and wait of a more than perfect proposal for their beloved daughter. If they could have their way, they would get us married when we turn thirteen or fourteen, but with times, they too have turned a bit modern and marry their girls around 18! Perhaps due to the teachings of Mahatma Phule and his wife Savitribai who ran a revolution in education for the girls in Pune around 1848, we have started thinking that girl’s education is very important.
What was happening here? Which educational revolution was taking place in this small obscure hall in 2025?
At least women or girls are not supposed to hear such blasphemies s of delaying marriage and studying further.
I remember, when I cleared my SSC, like everyone I dreamed about building a grand career in engineering. In fact the engineering college had come home to invite me for admissions in their college. In those days engineering was ‘novel fresh’ on the horizon. But no, the mild Hitler cum Dostoevsky my father declared,” No, you can’t attend an engineering college. Never.”
I tried asking between my sobs, but why?
Despite being a bit dramatic I was still under control. I didn’t want him to flare up.
Girls are, no, not weak, a bit caring, perhaps; but I don’t know why most girls get scared at such critical junctures.
Coming back, I asked him , the pertinent question of why, why. His reply was ,
“How would you (a girl) sit in the class where every other student is a boy? How would you study in a class room full of boys?”
I wanted to shout with the strength of a massive elephant, I can, I can. I can study in a class room where every other student is a boy.”
But the woman in me could not.
Some Muslims have quite different norms for their daughters and sons despite our beloved Prophet PBUH having instructed us , not to discriminate among genders.
But we all religiously believe, Boys are boys! , and that most untruthful unsolved mystery that boys never listen? ( Implying boys will do what they like)
But I want to declare, Boys listen, if they are made to listen. If a proper training [tarbiyat ] is in place for them since childhood.
The world suppresses the weak faster quicker and with much more ease.
Hence girls are made to shut up as soon as they talk about dreams as they are presumed to be weaker sex.
But here in this hall on April 13, 2025, a different scenario was being created.
Fresh , novel, and pleasing. Perhaps, first among the firsts, in the time of my community.
I didn’t feel teary eyed. I didn’t want to jump and shout in excited tones.
I just sat there, absorbing the light emitting from those young eyes mixed with the happily proud tangled eyes of their adults. This contrast of attitudes was clearly marking a new horizon towards the progress of our community.
Changing attitudes towards female education is the first step towards our emancipation. As it is famously said, one educated woman makes her whole family educated, like wise one Munzarin Jailor can go miles ahead to create awareness among young girls and instilling a strong desire for higher education. More importantly, this success would go a long way; erasing that rotten Talibani mindset that claims girls are not fit for even basic education.
Let’s “ Reject Taliban “ and all learn to be like the mother of Munzarin Jailor who went on encouraging her daughter to not worry about marriage but focus on her dream of education ; of becoming a judge. That day this mother sat in the front rows and her eyes shone bright and this took me back to a past that was mine.
My grandfather (from mother’s side) was a school headmaster also a poet Mr. Hussain Sahab Josh in the early 1940s. More importantly he was a freedom fighter who wore a Gandhi cap and would never remove his revered Gandhi cap and would be beaten black and blue by the British Baton. Blows came and went but the noble Gandhi cap was never let to fall on the ground. That was our Freedom Fighter.
But the reason I mention this man Mr.HussainSahab Josh is because he had fought another Big Battle on the gender lines in Pre –independence Sholapur. Around early 40’s he was the first Muslim man to send his daughters to school!
This was unheard of in those times. Girls didn’t go to school. But he was determined that he would be sending all his four daughters to school, to study to start a career even. Muslims there didn’t react kindly to this Headmaster and the shenanigans of sending his young daughters to school. When their efforts failed to deter this father of four daughters, they began a social boycott of him and his family. No one would invite them for weddings. The zealots would come by their home, spit loudly at their door and leave.
Imagine a father of not one , two or three; but four young daughters ; had no fear of their future marriages? How was/is it possible? And to imagine this was happening more than 70 years ago.
My grandma like all women was more fond of her son Nazir Hussain. And this was hated by my Nana Josh and like his name he would declare to her,
Nay, no, I have four sons and one daughter!
I start imagining this domestic scene between my grandparents and laugh aloud and the chills of impending marriage of a daughter [the perennial nightmare of an Indian woman] start subsiding.
This is what I call revolution at its basics.
Fighting the British was easy compared to fighting these Talibani orthodox elements in our own society who deprive women even for a few fresh breaths.
My grandpa Hussain Sahab Josh duly rendered those Talibanis jobless. All his daughters reached great heights in educational fields. The first one Mrs.Fatima Anees was the Principal of Anjuman KhairulIslam school in Madanpura, Bombay. The second one Mrs.Zaibunnissa served as a Librarian in Maharashtra college, Mumbai. The third one Mrs. Hamida Aowte retired as a Principal of a school in Ratnagiri,Konkan. The fourth one my mother Mrs.Qamar Ayyub Khan also served as a teacher in a Mumbai school. Now those same Talibanis who spat on their faces and didn’t entertain their presence, would come to them begging for sundry works.
Sweet justice.
I was reminded of this personal history while watching my student Miss. Munzarin Jailor and her mother standing tall in the gathering of women , asking the women to think of studies first and possibly a career and more importantly delaying the bandwagon of marriage.
Being a glorified maid forever or having her own independent means of livelihood first ?
What is better?
I have been telling my girls, to get highly educated first, marriage can wait. And even when in these times of joblessness, let’s not worry too much about jobs but more about having a sound education. Getting trained , getting skilled is more important. And learning the language of English is surely one of the best Life Skills.
Before concluding let me talk a bit more about our Protagonist Munzarin Jailor.
I don’t remember a day in those three years of graduation when I had not scolded her. She was like that, chirpy bubbly always laughing yet studied well. Hence secretly she was my favorite student. Yet I never revealed it to her.
Her father was a chaiwala and mother a home maker. Coming from not such a privileged background she fought with hunger and lots other complications accompanying it. But God, did you see any shadow of her struggles on her face?
Nay, never ever.
Always smiling, always charming.
Her mother tells me, she would shut herself up in her room and study for fourteen to fifteen hours everyday. She didn’t even attend any weddings or sundry functions.
Her success also defies the notion of discrimination with our community. Adv. M.A. Inamdar ,a prominent senior lawyer from the city , explains that , it is the hard work dedication and strong belief in herself that has brought Munzarin this success.
Cheers to that!
Here is a good lesson to learn for our youngsters. For our women especially whose lives whirl around wedding functions and the next weddings and to the next function.
Let’s focus girls, let’s focus, drop dead or drop your phones and get set go!
Thank you, Munzarin Jailor, thanks for bringing us all here.
Now,let’s march ahead.
Educate ,Agitate, Organize!
Cheers to all the girls who will bring a glorious future for our community.
( Asma Anjum Khan teaches English , attempting and is tempted to write)
Source: muslimmirror.com
https://muslimmirror.com/when-jailor-becomes-the-judge-muslim-women-getting-empowered/
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Rights Activist Jalila Haider Booked By FIA Under ‘Supporting Baloch Yakjehti Committee’
April 28, 2025
QUETTA: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered a case against lawyer and human rights activist Jalila Haider under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.
The FIR registered on the complaint of an FIA officer, Anisur Rehman, said Ms Haider allegedly welcomed and supported the activities of Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) leader Dr Mahrang Baloch on her X account.
The FIR accused Ms Haider of attempting to “create anxiety in the society” and “weaken the state” through the spread of misinformation.
Ms Haider, while confirming the FIR, rejected the allegations levelled against her and said she has been facing harassment since 2018 for raising her voice for human rights.
Source: dawn.com
Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story
https://www.dawn.com/news/1907072/rights-activist-jalila-haider-booked-under-peca-for-supporting-byc
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Pregnant Woman Under Israel’s Blockade In Gaza’s Ruins Fears For Her Baby
April 28, 2025
KHAN YOUNIS: Nearly seven months pregnant, Yasmine Siam couldn’t sleep, living in a crowded tent camp in Gaza and shaken often by Israeli bombardment. She couldn’t find proper food and hadn’t eaten meat for more than a month. Weak and losing weight, she saw doctors every day. There was little they could do.
One night this month, pain shot through her. She worried labor was starting but was too terrified of gunfire to leave her tent. Siam waited till daybreak to walk to the nearest mobile clinic. The medics told her to go to Nasser Hospital, miles away.
She had to take a donkey cart, jolted by every bump in the bombed-out roads. Exhausted, the 24-year-old found a wall to lean on for the hourslong wait for a doctor.
An ultrasound showed her baby was fine. Siam had a urinary tract infection and was underweight: 57 kilos (125 pounds), down 6 kilos (13 pounds) from weeks earlier. The doctor prescribed medicine and told her what every other doctor did: Eat better.
“Where do I get the food?” Siam said, out of breath as she spoke to The Associated Press on April 9 after returning to her tent outside the southern city of Khan Younis.
“I am not worried about me. I am worried about my son,” she said. “It would be terrible if I lose him.”
With Gaza decimated, miscarriages rise
Siam’s troubled pregnancy has become the norm in Gaza. Israel’s 18-month-old military campaign decimating the territory has made pregnancy and childbirth more dangerous, even fatal, for Palestinian women and their babies.
It has become worse since March 2, when Israel cut off all food, medicine and supplies for Gaza’s more than 2 million people.
Meat, fresh fruits and vegetables are practically nonexistent. Clean water is difficult to find. Pregnant women are among the hundreds of thousands who trudge for miles to find new shelters after repeated Israeli evacuation orders. Many live in tents or overcrowded schools amid sewage and garbage.
Up to 20 percent of Gaza’s estimated 55,000 pregnant women are malnourished, and half face high-risk pregnancies, according to the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA. In February and March, at least 20 percent of newborns were born prematurely or suffering from complications or malnutrition.
With the population displaced and under bombardment, comprehensive miscarriage and stillbirth figures are impossible to obtain. Records at Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital show miscarriages in January and February were double the same period in 2023.
Dr. Yasmine Shnina, a Doctors Without Borders supervisor of midwives at Nasser Hospital, documented 40 miscarriages a week in recent weeks. She has recorded five women a month dying in childbirth, compared with around two a year before the war.
“We don’t need to wait for future impact. The risks are emerging now,” she said.
A love story in the tents
For Siam and her family, her pregnancy — after a whirlwind, wartime marriage — was a rare joy.
Driven from Gaza City, they had moved three times before settling in the tent city sprawling across the barren coastal region of Muwasi.
Late last summer, they shared a meal with neighbors. A young man from the tent across the way was smitten.
The next day, Hossam Siam asked for Yasmine’s hand in marriage.
She refused initially. “I didn’t expect marriage in war,” she said. “I wasn’t ready to meet someone.”
Hossam didn’t give up. He took her for a walk by the sea. They told each other about their lives. “I accepted,” she said.
On Sept. 15, the groom’s family decorated their tent. Her best friends from Gaza City, dispersed around the territory, watched the wedding online
Within a month, Yasmine Siam was pregnant.
Her family cherished the coming baby. Her mother had grandsons from her two sons but longed for a child from her daughters. Siam’s older sister had been trying for 15 years to conceive. Her mother and sister — now back in Gaza City — sent baby essentials.
From the start, Siam struggled to get proper nutrition, relying on canned food.
After a ceasefire began in January, she and Hossam moved to Rafah. On Feb, 28, she had a rare treat: a chicken, shared with her in-laws. It was her last time eating meat.
A week later, Hossam walked for miles searching for chicken. He returned empty-handed.
‘Even the basics are impossible’
Israel has leveled much of Gaza with its air and ground campaign and has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
In Gaza’s ruins, being pregnant is a formidable struggle.
It’s not just about quantity of food, said Rosalie Bollen, of UNICEF, “it’s also about nutritional diversity, the fact that they have been living in very dire, unsanitary conditions, sleeping on the ground, sleeping in the cold and just being stuck in this permanent state of very toxic stress.”
Nine of the 14 hospitals providing maternal health services before the war still function, though only partially, according to UNFPA.
Because many medical facilities are dislocated by Israeli military operations or must prioritize critical patients, women often can’t get screenings that catch problems early in pregnancy, said Katy Brown, of Doctors Without Borders-Spain.
That leads to complications. A quarter of the nearly 130 births a day in February and March required surgical deliveries, UNFPA says.
“Even the basics are impossible,” Brown said.
Under the blockade, over half the medicines for maternal and newborn care have run out, including ones that control bleeding and induce labor, the Health Ministry says. Diapers are scarce. Some women reuse them, turning them inside out, leading to severe skin infections, aid workers say.
Israel says the blockade aims to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. Rights groups call it a “starvation tactic” endangering the entire population and a potential war crime.
At Nasser Hospital’s maternity ward, Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra witnessed things go from bad to worse.
Israeli forces raided the hospital in early 2024, claiming it housed Hamas fighters. Incubators in a warehouse were wrecked. The maternity ward was rebuilt into Gaza’s largest and best equipped for emergencies.
Since Israel broke the two-month ceasefire on March 18, the hospital has been flooded with wounded.
Up to 15 premature babies at a time need respirators, but the hospital has only two CPAP machines to keep preemies breathing. Some are put on adult respirators, often leading to death, Al-Farra said.
Twenty CPAP machines languish outside Gaza, unable to enter because of the blockade, along with 54 ultrasounds, nine incubators and midwifery kits, according to the UN
A lack of cleaning supplies makes hygiene nearly impossible. After giving birth, women and newborns weakened by hunger frequently suffer infections causing long-term complications, or even death, said Al-Farra.
Yasmine Zakout was rushed to Nasser Hospital in early April after giving birth prematurely to twin girls. One girl died within days, and her sister died last week, both from sepsis.
Before the war, Al-Farra said he would maybe see one child a year with necrotizing pneumonia, a severe infection that kills lung tissue.
“In this war, I treated 50 cases,” Al-Farra said. He removed parts of the lungs in nearly half those babies. At least four died.
Pregnant women are regularly among the wounded.
Khaled Alserr, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital, told of treating a four months pregnant woman after an April 16 strike. Shrapnel had torn through her uterus. The fetus couldn’t be saved, he said, and pregnancy will be risky the rest of her life. Two of her children were among 10 children killed in the strike, he said.
The stress of the war
In her sixth month of pregnancy, Siam walked and rode a donkey cart for miles back to a tent in Muwasi after Israel ordered Rafah evacuated.
With food even scarcer, she turned to charity kitchens distributing meals of plain rice or pasta.
Weakened, she fell down a lot. Stress was mounting — the misery of tent life, the separation from her mother, the terror of airstrikes, the fruitless visits to clinics.
“I just wish a doctor would tell me, ‘Your weight is good.’ I’m always malnourished,” she told the AP, almost pleading.
Hours after her scare on April 9, Siam was still in pain. She made her fifth visit to the mobile clinic in two days. They told her to go to her tent and rest.
She started spotting. Her mother-in-law held her up as they walked to a field hospital in the dead of night.
At 3 a.m., the doctors said there was nothing she could do but wait. Her mother arrived from Gaza City.
Eight hours later, the fetus was stillborn. Her mother told her not to look at the baby. Her mother-in-law said he was beautiful.
Her husband took their boy to a grave.
Days later, she told the AP she breaks down when she sees photos of herself pregnant. She can’t bear to see anyone and refuses her husband’s suggestions to take walks by the sea, where they sealed their marriage.
She wishes she could turn back time, even for just a week.
“I would take him into my heart, hide him and hold on to him.”
She plans to try for another baby.
Source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2598712/middle-east
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Muslim women targeted by Bill 94, say feminist groups
April 27, 2025
By William Crooks
Local Journalism Initiative
A coalition of feminist and human rights groups is sounding the alarm over Quebec’s Bill 94, warning that the legislation would deepen the exclusion and discrimination faced by Muslim women in the province.
Audrey Gosselin Pellerin, a political feminist organizer with the Réseau des Tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec, said in an interview that the bill would have devastating consequences, particularly for Muslim women who wear religious coverings.
“This law, Bill 94, will broaden the scope of discriminatory measures that were already introduced in Bill 21,” Pellerin explained. “We have seen that Muslim women have had to give up their careers, rethink their career path, and live in more economic insecurity because of these laws.”
Bill 94, introduced by Education Minister Bernard Drainville, proposes extending the existing ban on religious symbols to cover not only public-school teachers and authority figures, as Bill 21 did, but also students, parents, all school staff, and anyone working under agreements with educational institutions. The proposed law is facing fierce opposition from over 20 organizations, including the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnesréfugiées et immigrantes.
In an open letter released this week, the groups argue that the government is invoking gender equality as a justification for the bill but is in fact harming the very women it claims to protect. “We reject it because we see it as a form of instrumentalization of feminism,” said Pellerin. “We cannot achieve equality by excluding certain women from the public sphere and the job market.”
She added that the effects of Bill 21, which the new legislation would expand, have been profound and deeply harmful for Muslim women, many of whom report increased isolation, harassment, and intimidation in their workplaces and public spaces. “Their participation in society has decreased because they constantly have to be hypervigilant,” Pellerin said.
A study by Metropolis cited in the open letter found that 64 per cent of Muslim women surveyed said their willingness to participate in Quebec’s social and political life diminished after Bill 21 came into effect in 2019. According to the feminist coalition, Bill 94 risks worsening that exclusion, contrary to the government’s stated goals of promoting harmony and equality.
“What we want, basically, is that women can have access to school and employment without religious conditions and within a framework that respects the rights of all,” Pellerin said.
She warned that Bill 94 would effectively override 38 articles of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, including those guaranteeing equality. “Everybody in Quebec should be worried,” she said. “It shows us that the government knows its bill is not respecting the rights, and it’s still moving forward.”
The open letter also criticizes the legislative process surrounding Bill 94. According to Pellerin, feminist groups critical of Bill 21 and the new bill were not invited to testify before the parliamentary committee studying the legislation. “We believe that’s unacceptable because it’s such a far-reaching decision and there should be a proper consultation,” she said.
The coalition is calling on Drainville to immediately withdraw Bill 94 and repeal Bill 21. They are also urging members of the public who oppose the bill to contact their Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) and submit comments to the parliamentary committee.
Pellerin emphasized that supporting Muslim women means respecting their autonomy to choose whether or not to wear religious symbols. “We support their autonomy and reject any imposition to wear or to remove the veil,” she said.
“Our feminism is one of autonomy, respect, and dignity,” she added.
Source: qcna.qc.ca
https://qcna.qc.ca/muslim-women-targeted-by-bill-94-say-feminist-groups/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/kashmiri-muslim-women-sexual-violence/d/135345