Malaysian Biologist Farina Othman Wins Global Award For Work With Palm Oil Farmers
New Age Islam News Bureau
02 May 2025
· Malaysian Biologist Farina Othman Wins Global Award For Work With Palm Oil Farmers
· Punjab Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb Warns India Against Any Misadventure
· Ghena, 5, And Rama, 12 , Two Gazan Girls First To Arrive In UK For Medical Treatment
· Cricket Needs To Do More To Help Afghan Women, Says Malala Yousafzai
· The Turkish State Wants Children – But Turkish Women Don't
· With Hijab Warnings Via Text, Iran Expands Digital Surveillance On Women
· Sexist, Racist Abuse Of Women Candidates In Singapore GE2025 Draws Backlash From Gender Equality NGO
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/malaysian-biologist-global-award-palm/d/135405
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Malaysian Biologist Farina Othman Wins Global Award For Work With Palm Oil Farmers
02 May 2025
Malaysian biologist Farina Othman (right) accepting the Whitley Award from Princess Anne of the UK at the Royal Geographical Society in London on April 30, 2025. — The Borneo Times pic
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KOTA KINABALU, May 2 — UK charity, the Whitley Fund for Nature, recognised Malaysian Dr Farina Othman with a 2025 Whitley Award for her work to save the last 300 Bornean elephants in the east coast of Sabah amid shrinking habitat for the world’s smallest elephant.
The founder and director of nonprofit, SeratuAatai which means “solidarity,” Farina is addressing a rise in human-elephant conflict with palm oil stakeholders in Lower Kinabatangan.
The elephant biologist is supporting companies and smallholders in implementing an “elephant friendly” approach to promote coexistence with the goal of creating a protected corridor network.
Charity Patron, Princess Anne, presented the Whitley Award on April 30 at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The event was livestreamed to YouTube.
There are fewer than 1,000 Bornean elephants left in the wild in three population ranges across Sabah. A subspecies of the Asian elephant, they’ve lost 60 per cent of their forest habitat in the last 40 years, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, driven by logging and cultivation of palm oil.
The extensive fragmentation and connectivity loss has significantly restricted elephant movement. The IUCN listed them on its Red List as Endangered for the first time last year.
Farina is focused on a stronghold in the Lower Kinabatangan where much of the original forest has been altered for economic development. As elephants navigate this changing landscape, their presence can pose challenges for farmers working to protect their livelihoods.
The floodplain, shaped by the Kinabatangan River, includes large estates and small family farms that cut through a fragmented network of protected forests.
Eleven large palm oil companies own 40 per cent of the land in Lower Kinabatangan and there are about 150 independent palm oil smallholders.
“Human-wildlife conflict is often treated as a local issue, but it is a global challenge linked to habitat loss, climate change, and unsustainable development.”
Solutions that support both conservation and sustainable agriculture will be key to fostering coexistence: with the Whitley Award project, Farina and her team will focus on engaging independent palm oil smallholders – farmers with 100 acres or less – as well as large plantations. Their plan includes citizen science; addressing best practices around habitat connectivity, such as fencing; and contributing to an ongoing strategic conservation initiative, the proposed Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve.
SeratuAatai, which Farina created in 2018, is well known among local communities, and is the only conservation organisation in Sabah dedicated uniquely to the conservation of the Bornean elephant. Genetically distinct from all other elephant populations, males grow to four metres in height. Orangutans, Sunda clouded leopards, sun bears and leopard cats are among the species that will benefit from Farina’s project in the area, which is an ecotourist destination, known for its oxbow lakes and tropical forests.
Farina’s citizen science initiative will include plantation personnel in identifying and monitoring elephant movements on estates in the Lower Kinabatangan to foster a deeper understanding of their movements and behaviours. Stakeholders will be trained in how to identify individual elephants and assess herd dynamics.
Farina, who is also a senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, says the data will be made available to Sabah Wildlife Department and other government agencies.
The Whitley Award project will agree guidelines for best practices, and standard operating procedures for adoption by palm oil companies that align with conservation policies and legal frameworks. These will address habitat connectivity and include the establishment of corridors and fencing.
A monitoring plan will track the effectiveness of these interventions. Large plantations will offer training sessions to educate smallholders on sustainable farming practices, such as effective fertilisation and pest controls to minimize the impact on the local environment.
Under Sabah Wildlife Enactment 1997, individuals from local communities can become honorary wildlife wardens, empowered to implement the wildlife conservation laws.
Trained Honorary Wildlife Wardens will educate students at plantation schools on safe interactions with elephants and conflict mitigation strategies.
The Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) is a UK charity supporting grassroots conservation leaders in the Global South. Since its creation in 1993, it has channelled £24 million to 220 conservationists across 80 countries.
An early pioneer in the sector WFN was one of the first charities to channel funding directly to projects led by in-country nationals. Its rigorous application process identifies inspiring individuals who combine the latest science with community-based action. — The Borneo Post
Source: malaymail.com
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2025/05/02/malaysian-biologist-farina-othman-
wins-global-award-for-work-with-palm-oil-farmers-to-protect-last-300-bornean-elephants-in-sabah/175264
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Punjab Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb Warns India Against Any Misadventure
May 2, 2025
LAHORE: Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb has said any attempt to cross Pakistan’s borders will prove to be a historic blunder.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, she said the entire nation stood united like a rock with its brave armed forces and warned India against any miscalculation.
“If aggression is initiated [by India], it will be met with a fierce and fitting response,” she asserted.
The minister also expressed solidarity with the families of the Pahalgam terror attack victims, saying that Pakistan is advocating for justice for them, while the Indian government is politicising the blood of its own citizens.
She further said that not only Pakistan, but friendly nations and the international community also recognised that India was the greatest threat to peace and a known supporter of terrorism.
Reiterating Pakistan’s commitment to peace, Ms Aurangzeb said: “Pakistan is a peace-loving country and advocates for harmony, but if war is imposed, India will be responsible for the consequences. We are fully prepared to shatter the arrogance of our enemy.”
Source: dawn.com
https://www.dawn.com/news/1907906/marriyum-aurangzeb-warns-india-against-any-misadventure
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Ghena, 5, And Rama, 12 , Two Gazan Girls First To Arrive In UK For Medical Treatment
02 May 2025
Two Palestinian girls with serious health conditions have been brought to the UK for private medical treatment.
The Gazan children are the first to be granted temporary UK visas since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in October 2023.
Ghena, five, and Rama, 12 arrived in the UK from Egypt on Saturday to be treated for conditions which cannot be dealt with in war torn Gaza, Project Pure Hope (PPH) said.
Ghena's mother said she hoped other children "would get the chance" to benefit from the chance to receive medical care overseas.
Both suffer from pre-existing conditions which require specialist treatment not available in Gaza, where the healthcare system has come under huge pressure during the war between Hamas and Israel.
Rama - who has a lifelong bowel condition - described her life in Khan Younis, where her family home was destroyed, and spoke about her hopes for the future.
She told BBC News: "We were so scared. We were living in tents and shrapnel from airstrikes used to fall on us.
"Mum used to suffer so much going to hospitals while bombs were falling and would stand in long queues just to get me a strip of pills.
"Here I'll get treatment and get better and be just like any other girl."
Her mother Rana said: "I'm very happy for Rama because she'll get treatment here.
"As a mother, I felt so sorry in Gaza because I couldn't do anything to help her.
"To see your daughter dying in front of your eyes, day by day, watching her weaken and get sicker – it pained me."
Ghena has fluid pressing against her optic nerve, which could lead to her losing the sight in her left eye if she does not have an operation.
Her mother Haneen told the BBC: "Before the war, Ghena was having medical treatment in Gaza, in a specialised hospital.
"She was getting tests done every six months there and treatment was available."
But the hospital was destroyed a week after the war began, she said, and Ghena was no longer able to get the care she needed.
"She began complaining about the pain," Haneen continued. "She would wake up screaming in pain at night."
"I hope she gets better here," Haneen added.
"In Gaza there are thousands of injured and sick children who need medical treatment. I hope they get a chance like Ghena."
PHP and PCRF worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) to secure their temporary stay in the UK and private funding for their healthcare.
PCRF chairwoman Vivian Khalaf told the BBC: "We came across these cases through an ongoing list that is getting longer and longer of children who need urgent medical treatment outside of Gaza.
"The current physicians and hospitals that continue to be operating to whatever extent have determined that the treatment isn't available within Gaza."
Khalaf said 200 children had been relocated for medical treatment via the initiative, including to the US, Jordan and Qatar, as well as several European countries.
She was unable to say how many children in total had been identified as needing to be moved to the care of international health services in the future.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this month that conditions at Gaza's hospitals - several of which have been damaged during the fighting - are "beyond description".
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 50,980 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Source: bbc.com
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgpy75v0nxo
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Cricket needs to do more to help Afghan women, says Malala Yousafzai
01 May 2025
Malala Yousafzai believes there is more work to be done to help Afghanistan women and cricketers across the world, including those living in “gender apartheid” and banned from playing any sport under Taliban rule.
Since the Taliban took power in 2021, the Afghanistan women’s team have been disbanded, with members of the squad living in exile in Australia, while those in the country have had their rights stripped away to such an extent they cannot speak outside the home.
Speaking at the official launch of the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup at Lord’s on Thursday, the Pakistani women’s education rights activist was clear in what she wanted to use her platform for.
“I want to take this opportunity to talk about what’s happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. They currently have their cricket team in exile – for women – and the same is the case for their women’s soccer team as well,” Malala, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said.
“It’s the only country where girls are banned from learning and playing sports – along with every other opportunity they should have.
“They’re living under the Taliban in a system of gender apartheid, which is a systematic oppression and we need to share our support and solidarity with them.
“Because I believe when we are here in moments like these and we are celebrating the progress for women in all fields including sports, we cannot leave behind millions of women who do not have this right, right now, the right to play, the right to learn.
“I believe we’ll see true progress when we take everybody with us so it is a really critical moment that we stand with them and we hold our governments accountable for pressurising the Taliban and we find ways to support Afghan women and Afghan girls, who are in exile. I think sport is such a powerful way to show our support with them, help them play.
“And I am happy that recently the ICC and the ECB have made some good announcements, but I do believe there is a lot more that we could do.”
Last month, the International Cricket Council announced the formation of a taskforce to support displaced Afghan women’s cricketers, joining with the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, and Cricket Australia to co-ordinate funding, coaching and facilities for the displaced players.
The announcement followed the first match played by an Afghanistan XI in an exhibition match in Melbourne against Cricket Without Borders. In 2020, 25 players were given professional contracts by the Afghanistan Cricket Board, but they could no longer play safely after the return of the Taliban, with 20 members fleeing to Australia in the last four years.
Malala, who was shot by a member of the Pakistani Taliban when she was 15, has campaigned passionately for the right to education, and grew up playing cricket and badminton as a child with her brothers.
She has also previously spoken in support of Cricket Australia, which boycotted a match against the Afghanistan men’s team, because of the lack of women’s rights.
The Afghanistan Cricket Board is still receiving full funding from the ICC, despite not meeting the criteria for full membership, of which a part is to support women’s cricket.
Afghanistan are the only full ICC members not to have a women’s team.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/05/01/malala-yousafzai-help-afghan-women-cricketers/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first
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The Turkish state wants children – but Turkish women don't
May 2, 2025
The footballers take to the pitch with a message: «A natural birth is normal,» reads a banner held by the players of the Turkish team Sivasspor, and: «A cesarean section is unnatural unless it is medically necessary.» Below it is the logo of the Ministry of Health. Shortly afterward, the government banned scheduled cesarean sections in private clinics. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blames cesarean sections for the fact that women in Turkey are having fewer and fewer children. Turkey is heading for a nightmare, he's repeatedly said.
An aging population puts a strain on pension and health care systems because fewer and fewer people are paying in. This jeopardizes the sustainability of national economies. Falling birthrates are prevalent worldwide, from Switzerland to Germany, South Korea, Canada and Brazil. Erdoğan considers the declining birth rate «a far more serious threat than a war.» He has designated 2025 as the «Year of the Family.» Erdoğan advises women to have at least three children. In reality, Turkish women have an average of 1.5 children. To keep the population stable, an average of 2.1 would be necessary.
Children and a career are often mutually exclusive
GünayYildirim has decided not to have children of her own. The 32-year-old AI developer lives alone in the capital, Ankara. She does not want to read her real name in the newspaper for fear of professional repercussions. She always knew that she didn't want to be a mother, she says on the phone: «I love my freedom.» Her professional development is important to her, and having both a career and children is not possible. «Not here, in Turkey,» she says. The law discriminates against women. Paid maternity leave is 16 weeks: Eight weeks before, and eight weeks after the birth. Fathers receive 10 days paid leave in the public sector, and five days in the private sector.
GünayYildirim is single. She does date, but she has hardly ever had any serious relationships. «I don't want a man who thinks conservatively. But there are a lot of them,» she says. Even men who consider themselves modern often expect the woman to look after any children, says Yildirim. She explains: «They believe in a special bond between mother and child that the father doesn't have.» Women are therefore at a disadvantage in the workplace because they have to both work and look after children. On the other hand, no one expects men to take care of anything – except their career.
External child care for the youngest children is the exception
Trying to reconcile work and family life, which remains a theoretical consideration for Yildirim, is a daily reality for other women. Seyma, 29, returned to work when her son was nine months old. She recently described her experiences in the newspaper Hürriyet. When she and her husband are at work, her mother looks after the two-year-old.
According to OECD figures, less than 1% of under-threes in Turkey attend day care, while almost a third of four-year-olds are in external care. State facilities that are free of charge are the exception. As a rule, parents have to pay for meals, cleaning and materials themselves. Private day care centers charge even higher fees: In online forums, parents from Ankara and Istanbul report monthly fees of between the equivalent of 170 and 330 euros per month, in a country where the minimum wage is around 500 euros.
Seyma's day is tightly scheduled from morning to night. She wakes up at 6 a.m., tidies up, starts the laundry and prepares food for her son. While the little one gets up and her husband washes and dresses him, she gets ready and turns on the dryer. Shortly afterward, the boy's grandmother arrives. Seyma and her husband make sandwiches for themselves and leave the house, staying at their jobs until the evening. Seyma says in the article that it is not hard to work, but that it is hard to be a working mother. She is tired. Whether she wants to have another child remains open.
Incentives for more children
Erdoğan's government has come up with a number of ideas to encourage childless women like GünayYildirim and mothers like Seyma to have more children, including interest-free loans for married couples, baby bonuses, new regulations for maternity leave, and better child care. The aim is to support families, but the measures could also make it easier for women to enter the labor market. That would be good for the economy, and is therefore a declared goal of Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek.
Right now, only 36% of women over the age of 15 are employed. Simsek sees a problem in the fact that there are too few part-time opportunities. A long-term study published in the journal Demographic Research in 2018 revealed that working women in Turkey are less likely to have children or to decide not to have another child. And women with children are less likely to take up gainful employment. The authors speak of «role incompatibility.»
So does a better work-life balance lead to more children? A look at other countries suggests the opposite. Even in countries with longer parental leave, universal child care and less gender inequality, birth rates are low. In Sweden it’s just 1.45 children per woman, in Norway 1.41, in Denmark 1.47. Sociologist Alice Evans from King's College London sees another reason for globally falling birth rates: changing lifestyles. She writes in her Substack blog that the big change is not childless couples, but the increase in the number of singles.
The marriage rate in Turkey has fallen by 20% over the past two decades. «Imagine a young woman in conservative Konya whose Instagram feed is filled with globe-trotting influencers,» Evans writes, alluding to a city south of Ankara. Young women see alternatives to traditional role models and develop different ideas of freedom, partnership and the future than the men around them. And if they can't live out those ideas with any of the men they encounter, Evans says, then they would rather stay alone. Women like GünayYildirim are questioning the old patterns and increasingly coming into conflict with expectations from above.
Changing female lifestyles
Officially, the debate revolves around falling birth rates. But in reality, Turkey is dealing with something more fundamental: How much weight should be placed on individual freedom in a system that wants to politically reverse the change in female lifestyles and invokes the common good in the process.
Evans calls the decline in the birth rate «the greatest economic crisis of our time.» But so far it is mainly nationalist politicians who have claimed the issue as their own. These include Donald Trump in the U.S., Viktor Orban in Hungary, GiorgiaMeloni in Italy and Erdoğan in Turkey. They are accused of patronizing women with ideologically-motivated family policies and marginalizing queer lifestyles. She doesn't believe a word the government says when it talks about women, says GünayYildirim. «They're misogynists.»
In the past, Erdoğan has said that Islam expects women to be mothers, that abortion is murder, that equality is unnatural and that LGBTQ+ is a «perverted ideology.» The fact that he is now trying to dictate to women how they should give birth has been met with fierce criticism. Studies show that women become pregnant less often and later after a cesarean section. At 60%, the cesarean section rate in Turkey is higher than in other countries.
One of the Sivasspor footballers, the Albanian Rey Manaj, subsequently distanced himself from the banner he had carried. He didn't know what the Turkish lettering meant, he wrote on Instagram. «I apologize to all the women,» Manaj wrote. «Your body – your decision.»
Source: nzz.ch
https://www.nzz.ch/english/the-turkish-state-wants-children-but-turkish-women-dont-ld.1882246
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With hijab warnings via text, Iran expands digital surveillance on women
Maryam Sinaiee
MAY 1, 2025
Dozens of women in Tehran and Shiraz have reported receiving personalized text messages in recent days from Iran's Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warning them about hijab violations.
What began as a pilot surveillance project in the conservative city of Isfahan is now quietly extending its reach to the Iranian capital.
The emergence of these messages in Tehran and Shiraz has triggered widespread concern that Iran’s hardline factions are laying the groundwork for a high-tech nationwide surveillance system to enforce mandatory hijab laws.
“I was visiting my father’s grave in the early hours of the morning when I received the warning,” wrote one woman posting under the handle @jesuisminaaa on X. “I sat there, crying and crushed. Someone there had reported me. How can a person think only about my headscarf in a place filled with grief?”
The message she and others received is stark: remove your hijab in public, and you may face legal action.
From cars to the streets
Since 2023, Iran’s police have used traffic cameras to detect unveiled women in cars. Registered vehicle owners receive automated warnings. If three warnings are logged, the car is impounded for up to four weeks. Tens of thousands of cars have been seized under the measure.
Many male owners report that no women—veiled or unveiled—were in their cars on the dates cited in the warning messages. Some female drivers also say they were not using their vehicles at the time the alleged violations occurred.
But the new measure, first piloted in late March in Isfahan and now rolled out in Tehran and Shiraz, represents a dramatic shift from vehicle-based enforcement to the surveillance of pedestrians with a much more advanced technology.
According to multiple experts and reports on social media, the institution is now identifying individuals by cross-referencing surveillance footage with mobile phone geolocation data, smart card usage including subway and bank cards as well as government identity databases.
The result: personalized messages delivered to women’s phones within hours of their appearances in public spaces.
Legal and ethical questions
The scale and precision of the operation have provoked an outcry from legal experts, activists and ordinary citizens.
“Law experts, please answer this: does the Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice even have legal access to people’s personal data?” wrote AbdollahRamezanzadeh, a reformist former government spokesman and law professor on X. “Let the country be in peace!”
The head of the powerful, hardline institution is appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and appears to operate independently of the government.
Both the Minister of Telecommunications, Sattar Hashemi, and government spokesperson FatemehMohajerani have denied the administration’s involvement or authorization for the expanded surveillance.
“It has been proven that the use of force in the realms of culture and society leads to counterproductive results. In the field of education, police and judicial measures have not been effective and will not be,” the president’s deputy chief of staff for communications said in a post on X.
“Blaming the administration and the president for the costs of repeating failed experiences is both inaccurate and unethical,” Mehdi Tabatabai added.
But critics argue that even if the government, parliament and the judiciary have no direct control and are not formally endorsing the measures, they are doing little to intervene.
A nation under surveillance
In September 2024, the Supreme National Security Council quietly shelved a newly ratified stricter hijab law to avoid public backlash.
Yet the technological enforcement campaign has continued—and expanded—in a parallel track.
Some Iranians are choosing to push back.
“Most of my female passengers are unveiled,” wrote Mohammad Farahani, a disabled veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who now drives a cab in Tehran.
“I’ve received two hijab warnings," he wrote on X. "For the sake of the women of my country, I won’t care if I get a third."
Source: iranintl.com
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202505018922
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Sexist, racist abuse of women candidates in Singapore GE2025 draws backlash from gender equality NGO
By Malay Mail
02 May 2025
SINGAPORE, May 2 — As campaigning for the Singapore general election comes to a close, the spotlight on women candidates has taken an unsettling turn — with objectifying catcalls, sexist online remarks, and racist jibes overshadowing political debate and drawing sharp condemnation from the country’s leading gender advocacy group.
Yesterday, the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) took to Instagram to denounce the wave of sexist and racist commentary that has dogged several women candidates throughout the campaign.
Calling the behaviour “distasteful” and “dangerous”, Aware warned that it could deter future participation by capable women in politics.
“A woman on the ballot should not have to face being objectified, degraded and stereotyped,” the group said in a strongly worded post.
“It is insulting and humiliating.”
The group shared screenshots of derogatory remarks targeting female candidates, and flagged instances where the focus had shifted from policy positions to physical appearance.
Among the more glaring examples was the crowd behaviour at a Workers’ Party rally, where loud catcalls of “super chiobu” — a colloquial term for an attractive woman — were heard as Punggol GRC candidate Alexis Dang was delivering her speech.
Another candidate, Red Dot United’s LiyanaDhamirah, who is contesting Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC, revealed she had been subjected to “racist and sexist” abuse online, prompting her to file a police report.
Meanwhile, Aware also took aim at a YouTube series titled Chio Bu of GE2025, which singled out several women candidates, including the People’s Action Party’s Sun Xueling and Bernadette Giam, for their looks.
“Harassment and discrimination should not be the price of entry into politics for women,” the organisation stated, adding that such conduct reinforces “deeply entrenched gender and racial bias”.
In its post, Aware stressed that reducing women politicians to their looks “sends a loud message” that their leadership potential is not taken seriously.
It added: “This kind of behaviour perpetuates myths that women are less capable, less serious, and less competent to represent others.”
Calling on the public to act, Aware urged Singaporeans to reject discriminatory behaviour: “End sexism and racism against women in politics. Call it out when you see it.”
The Singapore general election takes place tomorrow.
Source: malaymail.com
https://www.malaymail.com/news/singapore/2025/05/02/sexist-racist-abuse-of-women-
candidates-in-singapore-ge2025-draws-backlash-from-gender-equality-ngo/175318
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/malaysian-biologist-global-award-palm/d/135405