Pakistani Climate Defender Ayesha Siddiqa Named Among Women Of The Year 2023
New Age Islam News Bureau
03 March 2023
• Selangor Appoints, Noor Inayah Yaa’kub, As First
Female Mosque Administrator
• UAE Tops Mena In The World Bank’s Women, Business
And The Law Report
• Pakistani Climate Defender Ayisha Siddiqa Named
Among Women Of The Year 2023
• The Syria-Turkey Earthquake Has Worsened An
Invisible Crisis For Women
• AMAN Centre Of Qatar Holds Activities To Mark
International Women’s Day
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/pakistani-climate-ayisha-siddiqa/d/129240
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Pakistani Climate Defender Ayesha Siddiqa Named Among Women Of The Year 2023
Pakistani
climate defender Ayesha Siddiqa
----
Mar
03 2023
American
magazine Time issued on Friday a list of women of the year in which Pakistan's
climate defender Aiysha Siddiqa's name is also included in it.
The
Time magazine also announced names of women from Mexico, Iran, Brazil, Ukraine
and Pakistan among other countries who have been prominent and exceptional in
different fields such as politics, human rights, and arts, in its 2023 list.
Coming
from a tribal community in Northern Pakistan, Siddiqa became a climate and
human rights defender after being a personal victim of climate change. She
realised at the age of 14 that the environment around her is not safe.
Siddiqa
is considered a potent voice in Climate change activism. Last year, she also
addressed the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC
(COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt and shared her poem "So much about your
sustainability, my people are dying."
As
a climate sustainability worker, she started her activism at the age of 16 and
for 24 years she has been highlighting the impact of climate change problems
occurring all around the world with special emphasis on the least-income
countries that are bearing the major brunt of climate change.
In
2020, she co-founded an international climate youth coalition named
"Polluters out" and started a climate training course under the name
"Fossil free university."
While
speaking with the magazine she noted: "I was raised with the idea that
Earth is a living being. She gives life to you and in return, you have a
responsibility. We have reached a point where we are collectively ignoring the
cries of mother earth. This is how the climate crisis is linked to women and
girls because of the same structures that are abusing, hurting, and taking
without consent."
"This
is how we treat planet earth. This is how we treat the very thing which gives
us life", she noted.
Siddiqa
highlighted that she had lost one family member after another over a course of
10 years, due to polluted water. She also said that one starts analysing why
people are to be killed for resources.
"I
was absolutely shocked by the human rights violations. Violence is linked to
climate defenders and people just trying to as for clean air and water",
the climate defender highlighted.
The
activist emphatically noted with reference to last year's flooding in Pakistan:
"In South Asia, climate change disproportionately affects women. When
people are displaced, women have to go get water, raise the children, women
have to find work. There were 60,000 women that were pregnant during August and
we didn't have enough haemoglobin, collectively, to save them."
When
they were giving birth, lots of mothers lost their lives, she added. We are
reaching the climate crisis with a very global north lens, she said.
Siddiqa
also said that when people live under an unstable government they cannot
eliminate climate pollution because unstable states do not function properly
and one cannot go and ask the government to do better.
"We
need to think more dynamically about the solutions. The majority of the world
that is facing the effects of climate change is actually citizens of unstable
governments.
"This
is what we have to critically apply as part of the equation when we think of
climate solutions when we think of legal solutions, economic and technical
solutions," Siddiqa noted.
We
need to do it fast, she said.
The
Pakistani climate activist said when the naturally resourced countries would
not able to provide raw materials to the industrialised countries the global
north will collapse.
"One
thing that climate crisis teaches us is we are in this together. We need to
think of this crisis as a collective global crisis. We cannot be
individualistic anymore. It will not work, she remarked.
Source:
Geo TV
https://www.geo.tv/latest/473954-pakistans-ayisha-siddiqa-named-among-women-of-the-year-2023
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Why Sara Netanyahu’s Salon Trip Ended With Riot Police
Sara Netanyahu/ Photo: The
Times of India
-----
02 March ,2023
The scene signalled a grave national emergency —
dozens of riot police charged through the streets of Tel Aviv as crowds of
anti-government protesters howled and roared. Their mission: to rescue Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife from a swanky salon where she was
getting her hair done.
The protesters’ Wednesday night siege of the beauty
parlor, accompanied by chants of “shame, shame,” cast a spotlight on Mrs.
Netanyahu, a divisive figure long been intertwined with her husband’s political
career.
She has drawn scorn for a reputation of living a
lavish lifestyle at the taxpayers’ expense — an image only reinforced by her
decision to get her hair done in the center of a city wracked by unrest that
turned violent Wednesday for the first time.
Israelis have also accused Mrs. Netanyahu, a former
air hostess turned educational psychologist, of wielding undue influence over
Netanyahu, pressuring him over political appointments and policy issues.
Here’s a look at what has made Netanyahu’s wife so
controversial over some three decades on the political stage.
Hey, big spender
Mrs. Netanyahu, 64, has garnered sensational headlines
over the years for allegedly misappropriating public funds, overspending on
household expenses and pocketing gifts from world leaders, among other things.
In 2019, she accepted a plea bargain to settle
accusations that she misused $100,000 in public funds to order lavish meals
from celebrity chefs at the prime minister’s official residence, although she
already had cooks on the government payroll. She also has become entangled in
Netanyahu’s corruption trial, which has precipitated the country’s yearslong
political crisis.
In exchange for political favors, Netanyahu allegedly
accepted gifts from billionaire friends that included tens of thousands of
dollars in crates of champagne and extravagant jewelry for Mrs. Netanyahu, and
struck backroom deals with newspaper publishers aimed at scoring more favorable
coverage of his wife.
He denies all wrongdoing. Most recently, a
parliamentary committee approved new spending money for the Netanyahus,
including an increase of thousands of dollars each year in clothing and makeup
expenses for Mrs. Netanyahu.
“The general feeling is that this is a very greedy
couple,” said Israeli journalist Amir Oren. “It does have a sort of Marie
Antoinette vibe.”
Temper tantrums
Over the years, Mrs. Netanyahu’s household help has
consistently accused her of explosive tirades and mistreatment. In one case, a
leaked phone conversation surfaced of Mrs. Netanyahu screaming at her publicist
about how a gossip column omitted to mention of her educational credentials. In
another, the family’s nanny said Mrs. Netanyahu fired her for burning a pot of
soup, kicking her onto the curb without her clothes or passport.
Two domestic workers have won damages in lawsuits
accusing Mrs. Netanyahu of making their lives miserable. In court testimony,
one of them revealed Mrs. Netanyahu’s taste for pink champagne and other
expensive luxuries. Friends and staff over the years have shared accounts about
Mrs. Netanyahu’s extreme outbursts and unhealthy obsession with cleanliness.
Netanyahu’s family has depicted themselves as the
casualties of a press war. They brought a libel suit against Ehud Olmert, a
former prime minister, after he described them as being “mentally ill.”
Calling the shots?
Critics of Netanyahu’s family have accused Mrs.
Netanyahu of interference in the prime minister’s decision-making.
Former officials have testified recently in court that
Mrs. Netanyahu wielded undue influence over top security appointments. In
January, a retired general testified that Mrs. Netanyahu interviewed him for 45
minutes for the job of the prime minister’s military secretary, after Netanyahu
had left the room.
“For the last few years, there has been no appointment
of a senior official that was not interviewed or influenced by Sara,” said
Gayil Talshir, professor of political science at Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
She has been accused of pushing Netanyahu further to
the right and helping drive his government’s determination to overhaul the
country’s judiciary — a plan that has prompted some of the largest protests in
Israeli history and drawn widespread condemnation from across Israeli society
and around the world.
Given her past legal troubles, critics argue, she has
just as much stake in the government’s plan to weaken the court system as her
husband. Mrs. Netanyahu and her son, Yair — similarly a lightning rod for
controversy — have repeatedly incited against Israel’s “elites” – the media,
the bureaucrats, the civil servants. Netanyahu insists that his wife keeps out
of affairs of state.
Bad hair day
Because of Mrs. Netanyahu’s public profile, the
opposition argues she’s not simply a first lady — but rather, a legitimate
political target for the protest movement. Yair Golan, a former general and
one-time Meretz party lawmaker, told Kan radio that “with all due respect, Sara
Netanyahu is a political figure” and is involved in key appointments and
decisions.
Yet the dramatic scenes of police forces, secret
service and helicopters called to extract Mrs. Netanyahu from her hair
appointment changed the course of “the day of disruption.”
Netanyahu posted a photo on Twitter that showed him
hugging his wife late at night, saying she returned home safe and warning that
such “anarchy” would lead to the loss of life.
The incident, which grabbed headlines even after
police shocked the country by firing water cannons, stun grenades and tear gas
at pro-democracy protesters, once again revealed Netanyahu to be a master
political manipulator, said Talshir.
“He managed to play it well, projecting his wife as
the real victim of yesterday’s protest,” she said. “But from the protesters’
point of view, Sara has been crucial in dividing the country and turning it
toward autocracy.”
Source: Al Arabiya
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Selangor Appoints, Noor Inayah Yaa’kub, As First
Female Mosque Administrator
02 Mar 2023
KLANG, March 2 — Infrastructure University Kuala
Lumpur (IUKL) president and vice-chancellor, Professor Datuk Noor Inayah
Yaa’kub, became the first woman in Selangor to be appointed as a mosque nazir
(administrator).
Noor Inayah, 53, who will serve as a nazir at IUKL’s
Ikram Mosque in Bandar Baru Bangi, received her letter of appointment from the
Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah at the presentation of letters
of appointment ceremony at the Balairung Seri Istana Alam Shah, here today.
Raja Muda of Selangor Tengku Amir Shah was also in
attendance.
When met by reporters after the ceremony, Noor Inayah
expressed her gratitude for the appointment because it is a rare occasion (for
a woman to be appointed as mosque nazir) in the state, and described it as
elevating the level of women to work alongside other mosque committee members.
“We see that the management of the mosque does not
restrict if a woman becomes a leader, and maybe this is very rare, but I have
the full support of my friends who are more knowledgeable, the appointed imams
(today) and other nazir,” she said.
Noor Inayah, who is also a Baitulmal Selangor
Committee member, said that her appointment as a mosque nazir is a big
responsibility, to bridge the gap between the students of the IUKL and the
local community.
“As I am the nazir of a mosque at an institution,
apart from students receiving knowledge there, local community relations need
to be prioritised too because we do not want this mosque to only (consist of)
students studying at the institution.
“After being entrusted as a nazir, I hope that the
local community can be brought closer to the academics and students in the
university and bridge the gap with other mosque congregants,” said Noor Inayah,
who is one of 1,256 mosque imams and nazir in Selangor who received their
letters of appointment today. — Bernama
Source: Malay Mail
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UAE
tops Mena in the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law report
2
Mar 2023
Sheikha
Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of the UAE Gender Balance
Council (GBC), President of the Dubai Women Establishment, and the wife of
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the
Presidential Court, lauded the UAE’s commitment to gender balance, noting that
the UAE leadership’s unwavering support and confidence in women’s capability
has led them to effectively contribute to the nation’s sustainable development
journey.
Sheikha
Manal made these comments following the release of the Women, Business and the
Law 2023 report by the World Bank, which ranked the UAE as the leading country
in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Sheikha
Manal made these comments following the release of the Women, Business and the
Law 2023 report by the World Bank, which ranked the UAE as the leading country
in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
She
highlighted that the UAE serves as a global model in women’s empowerment,
achieved through the collaboration of the public and private sectors who share
a common vision of enhancing women’s contributions in the workplace. This
partnership has been reinforced by laws and regulations that provide women with
ample opportunities to contribute to the nation’s development across various
sectors, including future-oriented industries where the UAE is a leader. She
also emphasised that this progress aligns with the leadership’s vision of
making the UAE the best nation in the world by 2070.
The
annual World Bank report, that covers 190 countries, indicated that the UAE
scored 82.5 out of 100 possible points across 35 sub-indicators divided into
eight main areas of the report: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood,
Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.
It
is noteworthy that the UAE is a regional and global leader in introducing
legislation and regulations that support women’s rights and their role in the
workplace. The country’s commitment to this cause dates back to 2012 when the
UAE Cabinet passed a decision on the presence of women on the boards of
government entities, making the UAE the first country in the region and the
second in the world to introduce such binding legislation.
In
2015, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid announced the establishment of
the UAE Gender Balance Council, a federal entity tasked with developing and
implementing the gender balance agenda in the UAE. The Council’s objectives are
to reduce the gender gap across all government sectors and achieve gender
balance in decision-making positions, as well as promote the UAE’s status as a
benchmark for gender balance legislation.
The
UAE GBC has collaborated with various federal entities, resulting in the
introduction and reforms of over 20 legislations related to employee benefits,
equal access to credit, political participation, personal status, judiciary,
wages, freedom of movement, marriage, entrepreneurship, assets and pension.
These reforms focus on enhancing women’s economic participation and
safeguarding their rights.
Source:
Khaleej Times
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The
Syria-Turkey Earthquake Has Worsened An Invisible Crisis For Women
By
Rowaida Abdelaziz
03/03/2023
Shaza
Hamo considers herself among the lucky ones. The 36-year-old activist and
mother of five survived the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed at least
50,000 people in Syria and Turkey earlier this month.
Hamo
lost her home, her money and all of her belongings. Still, she called and
checked on the women in her community, often running to find infant formula for
her friends’ babies, despite the fact that she never knew where she would be
staying on a given night. She jumped from one friend’s place to another.
But
then another earthquake rocked southern Turkey near the Syrian border last
week. For the first time in her life, Hamo and her 15-month-old slept in the
streets. Hamo found herself as vulnerable as the women whose mental and
physical well-being she used to care for.
Nearly
three million people were impacted by the earthquake in northwest Syria, where
Hamo lives. Over 300,000 people are now displaced and at least 11,000 families
are now homeless.
Earthquake
survivors in Syria don’t know how to begin rebuilding. Their nation has been at
war for more than a decade, meaning thousands of people are displaced, poverty
levels continue to rise and public infrastructure is nearly decimated. Syrian
women in particular are suffering from a mental health crisis, facing the brunt
of compounding trauma marked by years of death, destruction and despair that
has only been exacerbated by the latest earthquakes.
After
the 2011 pro-democracy protests in Syria turned into a civil war, many men died
or left to fight, forcing women to shoulder the responsibilities both inside
and outside the home including finding shelter and food, raising children and
securing employment. Women were now the breadwinners and the decision-makers.
But
those changes came abruptly, and at a cost. Women also became more susceptible
to abuse, sexual exploitation and gender-based violence. Organizations that
provided resources and safe haven to women, including one founded by Hamo, were
destroyed or shut down. Women and children have for years faced internal and
external displacement, which has taken a toll on their physical and
psychological health.
After
the earthquake, Amel Lakhdari, the founder of the Middle East North Africa
(MENA) Women’s Coalition, a group of women-led grassroots organisations including
Hamo’s, began pairing therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists from around
the world with women in Syria.
Most
of the women she has worked with are clinically traumatised, depressed or
anxious, said Lakhdari.
Even
before the latest tragedy, suicide rates in the region were on the rise,
according to 2021 data from the International Rescue Committee.
“There
has been a lot of suicidal ideation,” Hamo told HuffPost over the phone from
Idlib. “These women were already traumatised and then add to that the
earthquake and with its impacts, it doesn’t help.”
Dahane
Saliha, a clinical psychologist based in Algeria and one of the many
practitioners treating Syrian women remotely through the MENA Women’s
Coalition, said two of the women she is working with are the main breadwinners
of their families and are in charge of taking care of young children. Both the
women and their children suffered from PTSD symptoms, including night terrors
and bedwetting.
“They
are living a life of no security, no stability, and they lost a lot,” Saliha
said. “When the earthquake came, they were already broken.”
Daily
stressors from the conflict such as the lack of access to basic needs, loss of
family, and uncertainty about the future are all compounding triggers for
everyday Syrians living throughout violence and war.
Lakhdari
said women, especially those with young children, have felt abandoned by the
international community.
Immediately
after the earthquake, aid groups struggled to swiftly access the impacted
regions. In Turkey, fuel shortages, a lack of trained rescue teams and
political bureaucracy delayed crucial life-saving resources. The situation was
worse in Syria, as nonprofits navigated donor fatigue and government
permissions to travel through dangerous borders, and faced the risk of
airstrikes.
“You
just see the sadness and almost like a hopelessness in their eyes,” said Sophia
Banu, a psychiatrist from Dallas, Texas, who went to Syria and Turkey on a
humanitarian mission with MedGlobal, a humanitarian nonprofit that provides
emergency response in disaster regions.
Zaher
Sahloul, a Syrian American and the president of MedGlobal, told HuffPost in a
Zoom call from Syria that international aid, which is distributed by President
Bashar Assad’s regime, is manipulated and weaponised, often not making it to
those most vulnerable.
“Although
they’ve been through crisis after crisis for 12 years, this is different,” said
Dania Albaba, a Syrian-American from Houston and a third-year psychiatry
resident at Baylor College of Medicine. “People think of Syria as a place that
is constantly ravaged by crisis and disaster and displacement of people. But
this has really affected people psychologically in a very different way.”
Hamo
said the need for safe spaces for women is more urgent than ever. The women’s
empowerment centre she founded in 2017, which acted as a resource and shelter
for women, was forced to shut down in 2022 due to a lack of support.
She’s
particularly worried about mothers. If they break, their families could crumble
with them.
Nora
Abdullah, a third-year psychiatry resident at the University of Texas
Southwestern in Dallas who was also on the MedGlobal trip, said that Syrian
women have long been disproportionately impacted by both acute and chronic
trauma and fatigue.
“There
was a sense of urgency just from a perspective of people that have dealt with
so much trauma for so long,” Abdullah said.
The
earthquake will only make it more challenging to recover from the decades of
isolation and war.
“The
trauma here is ongoing. It hasn’t ended,” Albaba said. “All these little
tremors and minor earthquakes are still affecting the children and are still
affecting women. They just don’t feel comfortable. They feel like they’re
reliving the same experience over and over and over again.”
Source:
Huffington Post
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AMAN
Centre Of Qatar Holds Activities To Mark International Women’s Day
02
Mar 2023
Doha:
Protection and Social Rehabilitation Centre (AMAN), a subsidiary of Qatar
Foundation for Social Work announced organizing a number of events and
activities to mark the International Women’s Day, which falls on the 8th of
March every year.
In
a statement, Aman Centre said that the a number of experts at its protection
and rehabilitation departments are going to present several awareness and
educational workshops in Qatar University, Community College of Qatar and
Lusail University. Accompanying the workshops, there will be booths to
introduce the Centre and the services it provides.
Executive
Director of (AMAN) Centre Sheikh Dr. Nasser bin Ahmed Al-Thani said in remarks
that marking the International Women’s Day, aims to highlight the women’s
achievements and successes in all fields, and to recognize their important role
in building the future. He noted the services provided by the Center to support
women, provide social protection and encourage them to achieve more success in
various fields.
He
added that the center’s celebration of International Women’s Day includes
presenting educational messages, designs and film materials to emphasize the
importance of women’s role in society.
The
International Women’s Day is celebrated this year under the theme “Gender
Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow” to encourage girls and women who
lead the task of adapting to and mitigating climate change in order to build a
more sustainable future. The celebration also comes as an appreciation from the
international community for the efforts of women and their active role in
societies as well as to their achievements in various fields.
Source:
The Peninsula Qatar
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