For Malala, Anoyara Khatun the Indian Teenager Is a True Hero
New Age Islam News Bureau
17
Oct 2014
Sikh and Muslim Women Overcome Cultural Barriers to Take Part in Great Birmingham Run
• Dubai
Court Grants Man Right to Divorce ‘Djinn-Possessed’ Wife
• Right-Wingers
in Italy Protest Muslim Women’s Swimming Course
• Great
Birmingham Run: Sikh and Muslim Women Overcome Cultural Barriers to Take Part
• British
Muslim Women as Likely To Become Jihadists as Men
• Women
Allowed on Nour Party’s Electoral List, 'On Condition of Wearing Hijab'
• Malala
Yousafzai through the Eyes of Two Women of the Middle East
• ISIS Is
Actively Recruiting Female Fighters to Brutalize Other Women
• Facebook,
Apple Finance Female Employees’ ‘Egg Freezing’
• Syrian
Sisters’ Singing, Poetry on Mideast Crises Goes Viral
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/for-malala,-anoyara-khatun-indian/d/99576
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For
Malala, Anoyara Khatun the Indian Teenager Is a True Hero
SHIV
SAHAY SINGH
Oct 17,
2014
As the
world celebrates Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai winning the Nobel Peace
Prize, Malala herself is celebrating the courage of a little known young girl
from West Bengal’s Sandeshkhali area who has been quietly working against the
trafficking of young girls from the region.
Anoyara
Khatun, 18, from North 24 Parganas, has, with the support of other children and
non-governmental organisations, built a strong network to resist trafficking of
young girls and prevent child marriages in the region.
“Malala
and the Malala Fund celebrate Anoyara’s exemplary courage and leadership. She
has helped reunite more than 180 trafficked children with their families,
prevented 35 child marriages, rescued 85 children from the clutches of child
labour and registered 200 out-of-schools (drop-outs) into schools,” says a
Facebook post by the Malalafund, an initiative by Malala.
The post
made on October 13, International Day of the Girl, only a few days after Ms.
Malala was awarded the Nobel Prize, has described Anoyara as “a true girl
hero.”
When The
Hindu met Anoyara at Sandeshkhali on Wednesday, she was aware of the Facebook
post and could not stop talking about Malala. The first year student of a local
college has also collected a number of vernacular newspapers that published
news of Ms. Malala’s award and shared it with her friends.
“Though
I have not met Malala, I did meet her father Ziauddin Yousafzai at Brussels in
June 2012,” she said. She made the trip to Belgium when she was nominated for
The International Children’s Peace Prize.
“Trafficking
of young girls and child marriages were rampant in the villages here. Poverty
and lack of awareness and education provided the ideal conditions for
traffickers to operate here,” Ms. Anoyara said.
In 2008,
Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation working for
child rights, helped establish a number of multi activity centres in the
Sandeshkhali area. These centres help create awareness among the children of
the region about the dangers of trafficking and similar crimes. Anoyara recalls
stories of how she and others chased away traffickers who came offering jobs
and marriage to young girls in the region.
Jatin
Mondar, the State Programme Manager of Save the Children, West Bengal said that
through these centres, the organisation had managed to put in place a
“committee-based child protection model” in Sandeshkhali since 2004.
“Now, if
someone approaches the villagers with the proposal to take a girl to Delhi or
anywhere else for work, that person is sure to be handed over to the police by
us,” Anoyara said.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/for-malala-this-west-bengal-teenager-is-a-true-hero/article6504432.ece
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Dubai
court grants man right to divorce ‘djinn-possessed’ wife
Oct 17,
2014
A UAE
court has granted a man the right to divorce his wife after he discovered she
was possessed by a djinn, supernatural creatures in Islamic mythology and
pre-Islamic Arabian tradition, a local daily said.
The Arab
man filed for divorce after his wife repeatedly declined to have sex with him,
Gulf News reported.
The
woman had apparently declined her husband’s several attempts for some time
until she asked him to discuss the matter with her family. The relatives,
however, informed him that religious scholars had failed to exorcise the djinn.
The
Dubai Sharia Court awarded him the divorce and asked him to pay his wife about
$11,000. However, the court’s alimony money decision was later cancelled
because she was not honest about the djinn issue.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2014/10/15/Dubai-court-grants-man-right-to-divorce-djinn-possessed-wife-.html
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Right-Wingers
in Italy Protest Muslim Women’s Swimming Course
Oct 17,
2014
A
swimming pool in northern Italy has supported an initiative by the local
Islamic centre and announced courses, specially designed for Muslim women. The
effort, planned as way of social integration, is not welcomed by Italian
right-wingers.
The
project, launched in Sesto San Giovanni in the suburbs of Milan, is in its
second year, Italian Corriere della Sera reported. The organizers of the
swimming course for Muslim women say it’s designed not only as a sporting
activity, but also as a way to socialize.
No full
swimming suit (a Burkini) is needed, but the women are required to wear a
wetsuit with sleeves and knee-length shorts, as well as a swimming cap. Female
instructors are another strict rule.
The
course, scheduled to start in January next year, is open to Muslim women of all
nationalities, and welcomes non-Muslims too. Hosted by the largest sports
association in Sesto, it aims to help locals overcome religious and social
prejudices, and is "an important movement of integration."
The idea's
opponents argue the swimming course is "a classic example of reverse
discrimination," comparing it to "outdated traditions," such as
separate bathing areas for men and women, long abandoned in Italy.
When
conducted out "of respect for the observance of Islamic rules, everything
is permitted," Viviana Beccalossi, head of the right-wing Brothers of
Italy National Alliance party said, as quoted by Corriere della Sera.
"Otherwise we are accused of racism. After asking us to remove crucifixes
from public places, to remove the nativity scene from schools... it is now the
pool. Who knows what will come next," she said.
In May,
members of another Italian right-wing party had already protested against
swimming pools for Muslims. Supporters of the Forza Nuova (New Force) far-right
group staged a demonstration in Venice, where a special women-only time slot
was organized to allow Muslim women to swim.
http://rt.com/news/196528-muslim-swimming-protest-italy/
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Great
Birmingham Run: Sikh and Muslim women overcome cultural barriers to take part
Oct 17,
2014
A group
of women are out to smash the myths and stereotypes surrounding their cultures
and religions when they take part in the Bupa Great Birmingham Run on Sunday.
The 17
women come from a range of cultural backgrounds, including Sikhs and Muslims,
as well as having a range of health conditions.
But what
the Saheli Women’s Group from Balsall Heath have in common is that none of them
have ever run before.
The
group started running last November when they all joined Birmingham City
Council’s Active Parks/Coca Cola ParkLives beginners’ running session at
Handsworth Park every Sunday morning.
The 17
who will line up at the start line for the half marathon include a mother and
daughter and women, as well as women with physical issues such as a very high
BMI (Body Mass Index), high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and
diabetes.
A
spokeswoman for the group said: “Walking to the bus stop was a beyond some of
them - in fact one of the ladies was wheelchair-bound before embarking on her
journey to the start line.”
Over the
weeks they stepped up their training during their weekly runs and progressed
from walking one kilometre to running 10k races.
As well
as the physical challenge of attempting a half marathon, the Sikhs and Muslims
amongst the group had to decide what suitable clothes to wear which fitted with
their cultural codes.
The
women, led by Naseem Akthar, have also created an Adventure Hub gym facility
with funding through Sport England’s Active England.
A
spokeswoman said: “The fact these women are attempting the 13.1 mile distance
is an amazing story.
"Many
of these ladies had not exercised in years, with in some cases the cultural
backdrop a barrier to them being seen exercising in public.”
The
Saheli group was set up in the late 1980s and gives women physical
opportunities not normally available to them.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/great-birmingham-run-sikh-muslim-7938207
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British
Muslim Women As Likely To Become Jihadists As Men
Oct 17,
2014
British
Muslim females are just as likely to become radicalised to flee the country and
fight jihad as their male counterparts, according to a new study from Queen
Mary University of London which also found that those whose families had lived
in the UK for generations were more vulnerable than migrants. VoR's Tim
Walklate reports.
The new
study by Kamaldeep Bhui, professor of cultural psychology and epidemiology at
Queen Mary University in London, found that gender made no difference when it
came to young Britons being radicalised to fight jihad. Professor Bhui
interviewed more than 600 Moslems between the ages of 18 to 45 from Bangladeshi
and Pakistani communities in Bradford and London. He asked them various
questions about their lives, upbringing and views on terrorism; in order to
find out what drives people from Britain to go out and fight in foreign
countries like Syria and Iraq.
Professor
Bhui says that women are just as susceptible to radicalisation as their male
counterparts: “We found that women were as likely as men to have sympathies for
violence and terrorism, and in fact, if you look just the exact point estimates
they were slightly more likely to but it wasn’t statistically significant. The
main point is that they’re no less likely and the popular view is that it was
mostly men who were vulnerable. These are people who are ordinary citizens
living in the community and they have sympathies; and they may not go on to
commit and act. But in our models of understanding this they are the ones who
are vulnerable, should they come into contact with certain radicalising
influences.”
Professor
Bhui discovered that people who sympathised with jihadi or terrorist ideologies
were sometimes well-educated, middle class and with a household income of more
than £75 000. He also suggests that parents who are concerned about their
children should look out for any signs of depression or social isolation. And -
intriguingly, it’s migrants that are less likely to become radicalised than
those whose families had grown up in Britain for generations.
His
study comes at a time when stories of young British jihadis fleeing their
homeland to fight for Islamic State in the Middle East are filling Fleet Street
newspapers. MI5 estimates that as many as 500 British people are fighting in
Syria; while academics suggest that as many as sixty of these could be female.
There have been numerous high-profile reports of women joining the global
jihad. Twin sisters Zahra and Salma Halane, aged 16, left their home in greater
Manchester back in July to follow in their brother’s footsteps and fight in
Syria. In August, a mother of two from London named Amal El-Wahabi, who was
married to another jihadi, became the first Briton to be convicted under terror
laws of funding jihadi fighters in Syria.
Moreover,
there is a deep history of female fighters joining the global jihad. Samantha
Lewthwaite, better known as the White Widow, is the former wife of the 7/7
London terrorist bomber, Germaine Lindsay. For more than three years she has
been on the run from the British, American and Kenyan authorities, charged with
conspiracy to cause explosions. She is also suspected of masterminding the
Nairobi mall attacks in Kenya.
Elizabeth
Pearson is a PHD researcher in gender and radicalisation at the department for
defence studies, King’s College London. She suggests that although women and
girls will support extremist causes, they’re less likely to fight: “They’re
looking to recruit men and women, but what they are doing is differentiating in
the roles that they’re giving men and women. So if we’re talking about violent,
Islamist groups, it’s men that have the fighting role…women do have a role –
they have a really important role in supporting, fostering marriages, of
propagating those stories…Women want to go off to Iraq and Syria to presumably
support those goals – they want to be part of this fledgling state.”
As the
number of girls and women heading to the Middle East increases as each month
goes by, inevitably media attention on this will also grow; and Britain will
need to understand why these people are so attracted to the global jihad.
http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_10_16/British-Muslim-women-as-likely-to-become-jihadists-as-men-3065/
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Women
Allowed On Nour Party’s Electoral List, 'On Condition Of Wearing Hijab'
Oct 17,
2014
The head
of the Salafist Nour Party said the party's electoral list for the upcoming
parliamentary elections will include women on "condition of good morals
and wearing hijab (the Muslim head veil)."
Youness
Makhioun told Al-Ahram Arabic news website the party will field female
candidates for the elections and a priority will be set for competent figures.
"We
have put conditions for the candidacy of women on the lists of Al-Nour Party,
like having good manners and reputation, wearing hijab, having experience and
qualifications," Makhioun said.
The
Salafist Nour Party is the only prominent Islamist party that joined other
political forces in the roadmap set forth after the ouster of former president
Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Parliamentary
elections are expected by the end of the year.
The Nour
Party won 20 percent of seats in the 2011 parliamentary elections, when
Islamists led the political scene after the 2011 uprising. No women candidates
made it to the parliament convened in 2012.
During
the election campaign of 2011, the Nour Party put pictures of roses instead of
the faces of their female candidates. The election law in force mandated
placing a quota of female candidates on party lists, but Nour Party female
candidates had only a slight chance of winning, mostly being placed at the end
of a proportional list.
The
Salafist interpretation of Islamic Sharia Law mandates that the faces of Muslim
woman should not be shown or featured.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/113169/Egypt/Politics-/Women-allowed-on-Egypts-Islamist-Nour-Party-electo.aspx
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Malala
Yousafzai through the eyes of two women of the Middle East
Oct 17,
2014
Malala
Yousafzai, the 17-year-old Pakistani activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize on
Friday, made two memorable visits to the United States last year. In July 2013,
on her 16th birthday, she addressed the
United Nations, calling on world leaders to join her fight for the right of
girls to get an education. It was less than a year after she was shot in the
head as she sat on a school bus, an attack by the Taliban that was intended to
silence her and her efforts.
As the
young activist was finding her voice and coming into her own, two She The
People contributors who are daughters of the Middle East wrote about the effect
of Malala’s rising star on the West and, more importantly, on their home
region.
Umema
Aimen, a native of Pakistan who last year was a student at Mount Holyoke
College in Massachusetts, wrote about how Malala’s courage and activism were
not appreciated in her home country.
You’d
think that being shot by the Taliban for speaking out for the right of all
girls to go to school would make her as celebrated here as in New York, where
on her 16th birthday last week, she spoke at the U.N. Youth Assembly. “Malala
Day,” they called it.
But
there are no such days here, and it is so disheartening to see this girl who
has so much passion for Pakistan being treated so harshly in the country she
loves. Over and over, we hear speeches that begin, “I support Malala and the
right to education for all, but…”
This but
disgusts me.
Malala
was thought to have been a favorite to win the Nobel Prize last year. When she
didn’t win the prize last October, there was an outpouring of disappointment
from commentators to activists to regular people who admired her story. At the
time, the young activist happened to be back in the United States for a
publicity tour that included a visit to the White House for a photo op with President
Obama and his family and numerous other media appearances. She the People
contributor Nora Boustany took note of one of those interviews: “Comedy Central’s ‘Daily Show’ host, Jon
Stewart, blurted out that he wanted to adopt her.”
Boustany,
a former Washington Post staff writer who now lives in Lebanon, wrote about her
hope that Malala would continue to remain “true to herself.”
The
swirl of attention and multiple agendas risk alienating Malala from her beloved
home in the Swat Valley, a place of lush green fields, gurgling streams and
Urdu songs.
Her
survival has been a gift. Her use of the global stage to declare the imperative
of education for girls will ring across the Muslim world from Casablanca to
Kabul. To be most effective and to remain relevant, she has to stay close to
her Pakistani experience. She has to be able to find her way back to her own
cultural frames of reference and not get too detached from them. She might find
a model in Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian judge and Nobel peace laureate who was
able to wrestle the freedom of human rights activists in her country by using
the principles of Islamic jurisprudence, outfoxing the mullahs at their own
game.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/10/10/malala-yousafzai-through-the-eyes-of-two-women-of-the-middle-east/
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ISIS Is
Actively Recruiting Female Fighters To Brutalize Other Women
Oct 17,
2014
Kurdish
forces and the US-backed coalition aren't the only forces with female soldiers
fighting in Syria and Iraq. The militant group The Islamic State (ISIS) is
recruiting women, too.
Since
February, ISIS has controlled at least two all-female battalions, recruiting
single women between 18 and 25 and paying a monthly salary of roughly $150.
Al
Arabiya reports the groups were initially formed to "expose male activists
who disguise in women's clothing to avoid detention when stopping at the ISIS
checkpoints."
The
battalions are also used to enforce ISIS's strict laws of individual conduct on
women - sometimes violently. Abu Ahmad, an ISIS official in Syria, told Syria
Deeply, "We have established the brigade to raise awareness of our
religion among women, and to punish women who do not abide by the law."
Thomas
Hegghammer, an expert on violent Islamism, told The Atlantic that it appeared
the female battalions were restricted to the ISIS-controlled Syrian city of
Raqqa.
"There
is a process of female emancipation taking place in the jihadi movement, albeit
a very limited and morbid one," Hegghammer said. "Many of them are
eager to portray themselves as strong women and often make fun of the Western
stereotype of 'the oppressed Muslim woman.'"
But the
battalions aren't evidence that ISIS is embracing female empowerment. It's the
just the opposite.
"ISIS
created it to terrorize women," Raqqa-based activist Abu al-Hamza told
Syria Deeply, telling of a raid the group conducted at a girls school.
"After arresting those women and girls they took them to ISIS prisons and
locked them in for six hours and punished some of them with 30 whips
each."
The
girls and women were accused or wearing veils which were two thin, or exposed
too much of their faces.
Un
Muayad, a Ramadi woman, joins tribal forces in a firefight against ISIS. It
seems all sides are using women to fight for their cause.
Zainab,
a teenager in Raqqa, told Syria Deeply she was arrested by the group.
"I
was walking down the street when a car suddenly stopped and a group of armed
women got out," she reportedly said. "They insulted me and yelled at
me. They took me to one of their centers and kept me locked in a room. Nobody
talked to me or told me the reason for my detention. One of the women in the
brigade came over, pointing her firearm at me. She then tested my knowledge of
prayer, fasting and hijab."
According
to Syria Deeply, the fighter told Zainab she was arrested because she had been
in public without an escort and her hijab was not being worn properly.
"You
should be punished for taking your religion lightly," the female fighter
said, threatening Zainab with a harsher punishment if she was caught again,
according to Syria Deeply.
The
all-female battalions may be just another way that ISIS inflicts rampant
gender-based violence on its captive population. The Islamic State has been
disastrous for women living under its control, who are reportedly subject to
rape, beatings, and arbitrary arrest and are ordered to wear coverings more
extreme than the vast majority of Islamic societies. Women must also be
accompanied by male guardians in public.
http://www.businessinsider.in/ISIS-Is-Actively-Recruiting-Female-Fighters-To-Brutalize-Other-Women/articleshow/44818060.cms
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Facebook,
Apple finance female employees’ ‘egg freezing’
Oct 17,
2014
Silicon
Valley tech giants Facebook and Apple will start paying for their female employees’
egg freezing in 2015, U.S. network NBC News reported.
Should
the female employees in one of the companies wish to freeze their eggs, the new
policy will cover the costs, which can reach as high as $10,000 per round in
addition to an annual $500 for storage.
Egg
freezing puts a woman’s fertility on hiatus until she makes the decision to
bear children.
“Having
a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do,” Brigitte
Adams, an egg-freezing advocate and founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com
told NBC News.
Adams
said the policy is an effort to invest in female talent, allowing women to plan
the lives they seek.
The
coverage will offer a “payback” to the women who have put off childbearing
during their careers, a commitment the policy would reward, Philip Chenette, a
fertility specialist in San Francisco, said.
Facebook,
where the benefit falls under their surrogacy coverage, had already started
paying for its employees’ egg freezing.
Apple is
scheduled to begin in January and the scheme will fall under its fertility
benefit. Both companies are allocating up to $20,000 for the procedure.
Before a
fairly short procedure, women who plan on freezing their eggs undergo 10 days
of fertility drug injections.
Following
the outpatient procedure, the patient is good to go and can “get back to work
the next day,” Lynn Westphal, associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
at Stanford University Medical Center, was quoted by NBC News as saying.
The eggs
are then frozen and used whenever their owners wish.
Women
who know they want children can “go on with their lives and know that they've
done everything that they can,” Chenette said.
While
the technique does not guarantee a pregnancy, a survey has shown that many
women who have frozen their eggs reported feeling “empowered.”
“The
attitude toward egg freezing is very different,” Christy Jones, founder of
Extend Fertility, said, explaining that attitudes are now more positive than a
few years ago.
Women
are freezing their eggs a form of empowerment rather than a last resort to have
children, Jones said, whose company offers and promotes egg freezing in the
United States.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2014/10/17/Anger-sparked-as-Berlin-s-cheap-pudding-lures-Israelis-.html
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Syrian
sisters’ singing, poetry on Mideast crises goes viral
Oct 17,
2014
A
cherub-like, powerful voice emanating from Syrian Faiayo coupled with poetry
recited by her sister Rihan about the conflict in the Middle East has become a
hit on social media.
“Syria…three
years and more, of crazy, selfish and illogical war. Three years in which
souls, hearts and minds have been destroyed,” read the English subtitles of a
YouTube video uploaded on Oct. 11, which garnered 10,140 views as of Wednesday.
Sweden-based
Rihan’s lyrics then remind viewers of children and women who “were sold in the
slave markets.”
Then,
the singing sister performs a song by the famous Lebanese diva Fairuz, titled
“Damascus, you are the glory,” seemingly in nostalgia for the past.
After Syria,
Rihan tackles neighboring Iraq, addressing “oppression” and “tyranny” in the
country.
Once
Rihan’s relentless reproach of Iraqi politics ends, Faiayo sings yet another
pan-Arab song by Fairuz for Baghdad and its celebrated past.
While
the singing continues for Lebanon and Palestine, Faiayo ends the video by
singing the famous “Mawtini” or “My country.”
Mawtini
was composed by a Lebanese musician and written by a Palestinian in 1934. The
song is currently Iraq’s national anthem.
The
video has proved popular on Facebook with a post on the “Iraqis in Sweden” page
being viewed 18,703 times and being shared 654 times as of Wednesday.
“So
touching. I wish there were more than one like to hit. A smooth message by
gorgeous faces, voices and more important patriotism. By the way the two
sisters are from Syria living in Sweden,” said one Iraqi Facebook user.
Other
commentators also relished the video: “Long lives freedom... if we can still
remember what does it mean... Love to our brothers and sisters in the Arab
world!”
One
YouTube user said: “Every word is true very sad.” Meanwhile one Twitter user
expressed: “An influential video for two Syrian women who are expressing
artistically what politics have failed to do.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/2014/10/15/Syrian-sisters-singing-poetry-on-Mideast-crises-goes-viral-.html
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/for-malala,-anoyara-khatun-indian/d/99576