Girls' Rights Activists Demand Review of Tanzania’s Marriage Law That Gives Parents the Right to Marry Underage Girls
New
Age Islam News Bureau
11
October 2021
• Gender Equality: Women are at the Heart of UAE’s Remarkable Success, Says Envoy
•
Woman Offers Puja at Temple Built By Muslim Husband And Handed Over To Hindus
In Karnataka
•
Former Pakistan Women's Basketball Captain Empowers Girls with Training Camp
•
Iran’s Women’s Football Team to Hold Camp in Belgium
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/rights-activist-tanzania-marriage/d/125554
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Girls'
Rights Activists Demand Review of Tanzania’s Marriage Law That Gives Parents
the Right to Marry Underage Girls
Kizito
Makoye
10.10.2021
(Photo courtesy: aa.com)
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DAR
ES SALAAM, Tanzania
On
the International Day of the Girl Child, activists in Tanzania strongly
criticize the government for embracing a half-century-old marriage law that
gives parents the right to marry underage girls.
Campaigners
say it denies girls the right to an education while crushing their future
dreams.
Tanzania’s
Marriage Act of 1971, sets the marriage age for boys at 18 while allowing girls
as young as 14 to get married with a court or parental consent.
But
campaigners oppose the law because they say it violates girls’ right to
education given that at that age girls are not biologically ready to conceive,
give birth and face the challenges of raising a child.
Jean-Paul
Murunga, a campaigner with Equality Now, a global charity working to defend
young girls' rights, said Tanzania’s vague and contradictory laws have failed
to define who is a child.
“The
Tanzanian government has yet to review the Marriage Act to provide protection
against child marriage,” Murunga told Anadolu Agency.
Age
of consent
Murunga,
who leads the charity’s End Sexual Violence Team, said although the age of
consent to matrimonial affairs in Tanzania is 18, there’s no stated limit for
males, consequently, child brides are denied the right to consent and are
frequently subjected to statutory rape, which often results in early, unwanted
and forced pregnancy.
“Girls
who are wed are often given little choice in when their marriage will take
place or who their husband will be, and it is common for the groom to be older,
sometimes substantially older,” he said
Child
marriage is a serious public health problem in Africa. In Tanzania, the
prevalence of child marriage is estimated at 37% with the majority of victims
in rural areas.
The
problem is often fueled by gender inequality and marriage-related social norms,
pregnancy during adolescence, and poverty.
Almost
one in three girls in Tanzania marry before they reach 18 and most have to drop
out of school, according to Tamwa, a local charity tracking girls' rights.
Experts
believe there is a strong correlation between child marriage, school dropout
rates, early pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS.
Girl
brides often experience a violent future as wives before they are physically
and emotionally ready for sexual relations or become mothers.
Girls
who are married before 18 are more likely to experience a range of other human
rights violations, including physical and emotional violence, coercion,
discrimination, and subordination in decision making, said Murunga.
He
said that by having conflicting laws that permit girls to marry at 14 with a
court's permission and 15 with parental consent, the Tanzanian government is
exacerbating the denial of education to girls.
“Child
marriages contribute to teenage pregnancy, which ultimately leads to girls
being kicked out of school due to the government’s discriminatory policy of
permanently expelling pregnant girls from school and banning adolescent mothers
from returning to school after giving birth,” he said.
Tamwa
and its Tanzanian partners have filed a joint case at the African Court on
Human and Peoples' Rights against Tanzania, seeking to overturn the
discriminatory ban.
Activists
believe that preventing pregnant girls and adolescent mothers from attending
public school denies them access to education and keep many ensnared in a cycle
of poverty, exposing them to further abuses, including female genital
mutilation and sexual and labor exploitation.
The
country’s controversial law on child marriage and the ban on teen mothers and
pregnant schoolgirls, has denied many the opportunity to gain the skills and
knowledge needed to succeed in life, said Murunga.
“They
are prevented from securing the types of jobs that would enable them to raise
themselves and their family out of poverty and contribute to their country’s
economic development and prosperity,” he said.
Move
to law review
Campaigners
are pushing for a repeal of the controversial laws permitting child marriage.
“We
have supported local civil society organizations to draft amendments and share
these with members of parliament for their input and validation before tabling
such amendments for parliament to debate and pass,” he said
However,
the government has been dallying dilly to implement the recent Court of Appeal
judgment outlawing child marriage, on the pretext that consultations need to be
done in the whole country, despite the existence of a court order mandating the
amendments and repeal.
The
East African country enacted several laws to protect women's and children's
rights.
The
Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act of 1998, which was enacted to protect
women and children from sexual violence has virtually failed to address young
girls’ vulnerability to rape, leaving them exposed to violent acts.
Girls
who are married at young ages believe the culture of silence and family taboos
were responsible for their predicament.
“The
whole society feels that it is right for a young girl to be married, that’s why
fighting underage marriage becomes difficult,” said Saida Abdul, who got
pregnant and escaped a forced marriage.
Source:
Anadolu Agency
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Gender
Equality: Women are at the Heart of UAE’s Remarkable Success, Says Envoy
October
09, 2021
NEW
YORK: Gender equality lies at the heart of the UAE’s success, according to Lana
Nusseibeh, the country’s permanent representative to the UN.
In
a mere 50 years, the small Gulf nation has gone from having to borrow
educational curricula to set up its first school, to a mission to Mars and
collecting data on the origins of the universe. Women have been instrumental to
this rapid development, the envoy said.
Gender
equality is “a central pillar of our foreign policy and a key reason for our
success,” she added.
“We
guarantee women’s equal rights under the law. We protect the rights of women in
the workplace. We ensure equal pay for equal work and I think we’re one of the
only countries in the world that enshrine that in our legislation.
“The
empowerment and equality of women in your society really defines whether you
are a successful nation or not.”
The
members of the UAE’s UN delegation — 70 percent of whom are female, “not by
choice but by meritocracy,” the envoy said — are busy preparing for its
two-year stint as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, which begins
on Jan. 1.
In
an exclusive interview with Arab News, Nusseibeh set out her vision for how
best to tackle some of the toughest and most pressing regional and
international issues on the council’s agenda, including climate change, women’s
rights and counterterrorism.
“If
the tensions of the past decade or two, since (9/11), have shown us anything
(it’s) that we’re interconnected, that we can’t all be islands, that an
isolationist approach will never work in international relations — that our
fates are connected,” she said.
The
UAE will take its seat on the Security Council at a particularly challenging
time for the region. More than 100 Security Council meetings about Syria have
failed to end the decade-long civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands
of people and displaced half of the population. Neither have regular meetings
about the situation in Yemen made any headway in a country experiencing the
worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The
fragile ceasefire in Libya continues to hold but the country is teetering on
the brink of uncertainty as it prepares for national elections in December that
might or might not happen. The Palestinian question remains unresolved, and
Lebanon continues its free fall into an abyss amid the collapse of its economy,
security and political system.
“We
don’t have a silver bullet for issues that have been on the international
agenda for a number of years now,” said Nusseibeh.
“But
we do come with the belief that stability in these countries is really vital
for the entire region. You can’t just be a successful country in and of
yourself. These issues cross borders. If the region (is) doing well, then the
UAE continues to do well.”
This
shared destiny is actually the light at the end of the tunnel, she said, and
keeps hope alive that the world will continue to work to find solutions to
these crises. It is a hope “very much grounded in realpolitik,” she added.
“The
international community is engaged because the fate of what happens in Lebanon,
in Yemen, in Syria, affects all of us,” Nusseibeh said. “So, it’s also in our
national self-interest, as countries, that for us to survive and continue to
build on the decades of work we’ve already achieved, we need stable, secure
societies around us.
“It
is in all of our national interests (that) we don’t push ourselves into a cycle
again of just managing it through humanitarian aid and short-term solutions. We
need to manage it through a bigger perspective (based) around political
dialogue and longer-term solutions.”
Nusseibeh
describes the UN as “the convening tent that we all step into” and called for
the organization’s existing processes to be strengthened instead of reinventing
its mechanisms and devising new initiatives.
“Let’s
not reinvent the wheel,” she said. “Let’s inject (these processes) with some
urgency toward conflict resolution rather than the more traditional conflict
management, (where complex issues) are managed ‘as best we can’ and we kick the
can down the road for a generation, 10 or 20 years from now. I think that’s
unfair. It’s our responsibility to do better on these issues.”
Hope
also lies in the promise and potential of youth, Nusseibeh believes.
“What
gives me hope is the generations coming up always do better than the
generations before them,” she said.
“Youth
everywhere in our region deserves to live safely, with a secure, dignified and
prosperous future ahead of them. And I think that, frankly, they will make
demands of their governments, and those governments will have to respond around
the world to that youth question.
“I
am amazed by how the youth have moved the dial on climate, just to give you a
non-political example.”
For
millions of young people in Arab countries, the stellar success of the UAE has
earned it a reputation as a “model nation” and “a beacon of hope.”
Surveys
conducted over the past nine years have shown that the majority of 200 million
Arab youths now give the UAE as their top choice of country in which to live,
work and build a family, replacing the US, Canada, and Germany.
The
majority of young Arabs in troubled nations also say they want their “corrupt”
governments to “emulate the UAE.” But is this possible? Can the successful
Emirati model be applied to other countries in the region?
Every
nation must chart its own path and choose its own model, Nusseibeh said, because
attempts to impose models based on external examples always fail. However, she
added that there are some key takeaways from the UAE success story that are
applicable not only in the Arab world but universally, as they have proven to
be prerequisites for the success of any nation.
“That
women are at the table when decisions are being taken, and involved in all
elements of society, whether it is the judiciary, the military, the private
sector or the government; that has been one of the core pillars of our success
that we’ve embraced and that is applicable in a regional model,” Nusseibeh
said.
The
COVID-19 pandemic has made it abundantly clear just how interconnected and
interdependent nations are on each other, but it is not the only global
challenge in recent years to reveal how the entire world is increasingly
linked. As a result, the Security Council finds itself facing new challenges.
The
effects of climate-related threats — water scarcity, deforestation and the
displacement of populations, for example — are often more profound on women and
girls. UN data shows that about 80 percent of people displaced by climate
change are women.
“So
of course (in) the climate action that we undertake we have to tailor our
response to that understanding. Climate-risk analysis has to be gender
sensitive,” said Nusseibeh.
“This
is part of our broader objective to strengthen women’s participation in all
aspects of society, but also in the response to these challenges. They should
not just be this nameless data point; they need to be part of the tailored
response to this.
“So
we want to bring this perspective to the Security Council and encourage fellow
members to address the security impact of climate change in this holistic
manner.”
Although
countries sit on a differing sides of the spectrum in their attitudes to
climate change, the UAE believes the gaps can be narrowed.
“It’s
not polarization, grandstanding or big initiatives,” said Nusseibeh. “It’s how
we nudge the dial in a direction that we believe to be right (for) the
evolution of our collective societies.”
On
Thursday, at Expo 2020 in Dubai, the UAE became the first country in the Gulf
to announce its commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the country’s vice president, prime
minister and ruler of Dubai, said the country will invest $163.4 billion in
renewable energy.
“The
fact that we are preparing for a post-oil revolution is smart foreign policy
but it also sets us in the group of countries that are preparing for an energy
revolution that is necessary for the protection of our planet and for future
generations,” said Nusseibeh.
The
UAE has been at the forefront of renewable-energy efforts. It hosts the
International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi, and has put itself forward
as a candidate to host the UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, in 2023.
“We’ve
really diversified our energy portfolio with clean energy, nuclear clean
energy, renewable energy and solar, and of course the mix includes
hydrocarbon,” said Nusseibeh. “That is something that we think is applicable
internationally.”
A
strategy of “nudging the dial in the right direction” also applies to the
central issue in the Arab world: the Middle East peace process.
According
to Nusseibeh, although the Abraham Accords — the recent agreements between
Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, to normalize relations
— did not in themselves resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they
represent a step in the right direction as they have resulted, for example, in
the inclusion of Jewish communities in the social fabric of the UAE.
“What
was exciting for the UAE was seeing the Jewish community able to establish
itself and emerge for the first time in hundreds of years in the Arabian
Peninsula,” she said.
“When
we don’t have fear of other faiths and religions, when we try to do everything
we can to improve interfaith dialogue and moderation, I think these are all
steps in the right direction as well.”
Such
peaceful co-existence is also the single most efficient weapon against the
scourge of terrorism which, at its heart, feeds on and spreads sectarian fear,
allowing the extremist ideologies that promote hate-driven violence to thrive.
As
global efforts continue to tackle the effects of the pandemic and return to
normal life, misinformation is another major pandemic the world is facing,
Nusseibeh said.
“Unless
we focus on stopping (extremist ideology) in its tracks (we) are going to see
an increase in the ability, and the rapid pace because of technological
advances, of groups and people who promote violence and hate, including
Islamophobia,” she added. As a country where people of 200 nationalities “live,
work and worship side by side,” the UAE prides itself on its diversity,
Nusseibeh said. It represents a positive model not only for the region but also
globally, she believes. This is exemplified, she added, by the Abrahamic Family
House Initiative, a complex on Saadiyat Island, the cultural heart of Abu
Dhabi, that houses a church, a mosque, a synagogue and an educational center.
“The
model in a difficult region that the UAE embodies is a model that offers hope
(that) we can in fact create a modern Islamic country that also fully embraces
the concept of diversity, tolerance and peaceful coexistence,” said Nusseibeh.
“It
sounds so simple in, terms of it being a low bar, when you put it like that
but, actually, when we look around the world it’s clearly not a bar that enough
countries and communities have reached. It’s something that we keep striving
for.
“There
are many pressing challenges that we face as an international community, and
getting pulled down in ideological warfare will hold all of us back. (So will)
getting pulled down through debates about whether women are an equal part of
your society or not.”
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1944151/middle-east
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Woman
Offers Puja At Temple Built By Muslim Husband And Handed Over To Hindus In
Karnataka
By
Sakina Fatima
11th
October 2021
Shivamogga:
Ahead of the Dussehra festival, a Muslim woman offered special puja at a temple
built by her late husband in Sagar town of Shivamogga in Karnataka which was
then handed over to the Hindu community.
Bhagavati
Amma temple was constructed nearly 50 years ago by a railway employee Ibrahim
Sharif.
“My
husband, a railway employee, had built this Bhagawati Amma temple and handed it
over to Hindu community 50 years ago,” Famida told ANI.
MS
Education Academy
She
further said that her husband died two years ago but his family members and
other relatives continue to offer special puja during Hindu festivals.
Disclosing
the idea behind the construction of the temple by her husband, she said, “The
Goddess was appearing in my husband’s dreams. He consulted seer Sridhar and
constructed a small temple. Ibrahim had been doing namaz and puja at home and
at the temple, respectively.”
She
said the railway department had provided a piece of land to build the temple.
Source:
Siasat Daily
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Former
Pakistan women's basketball captain empowers girls with training camp
Faizan
Lakhani
Sep
28 2021
KARACHI:
It was just another day for Sana Mahmud — the former captain of the Pakistan
women's basketball team and project officer at Right to Play — at work as she
was facilitating a sports-based girls empowerment camp in Islamabad.
But
a small and unplanned activity on the sidelines of the project has highlighted
how sports can become the greatest hope for underprivileged children.
The
project was a three-day basketball training camp at one of the local public
courts in Islamabad focusing to work with children to allow them to experience
the joy of sports and the multiple life and leadership lessons one can learn
from it.
While
15 school girls, from various privately run charity schools located on the
outskirts of Islamabad, were busy in training, Mahmud noticed two out-of-school
girls lingering around the basketball court.
“We
didn’t get a chance to interact much, as they mostly kept to themselves but
seemed very curious about our equipment and what we seemed to be doing there,”
she said, narrating the story.
The
next day, she noticed five out-of-school children sitting on the side and
watching others play.
“When
asked if they wanted to play with us, they eagerly nodded and three of them —
two girls and a little boy — joined us on the court,” she recalled.
"Given
that they were far younger and shorter than the teenagers who were part of the
training camp, I had them play separately for a bit and then got them together
with the larger gang. Their athletic ability was amazing,” Mahmud said, while
noting that perhaps surviving on the streets probably would have taught them to
run, jump, and throw like they did while playing.
It
didn’t end there. The next day Mahmud met more out-of-school but enthusiast
children, eager to participate in the sporting activity.
“As
I parked my car, I was surrounded by 10 children, excitedly waiting to be
invited to play and when I asked if they wanted to play, they all eagerly ran
behind me to enter the park.
“It
was utter chaos. Each kid attacked a basketball, wanting to grab it and keep it
for themselves, and started dribbling across the court. Though we didn’t speak
the same language I was able to help them understand the rules of the game.”
“Barefoot,
without access to the best of nutrition, and probably with a looming
responsibility of having to collect and sell garbage/scraps to meet the daily
quota, yet these kids had an electric energy,” she recalled.
Mahmud
said the eagerness of the kids made her decide to extend her camp for another
day.
The
former captain of the Pakistan basketball team highlighted that it is important
for society to capitalise on the interest displayed by these out-of-school
children, who have zero opportunities for them.
“If
[they are given] even an hour every morning the joy of their childhood, the
innocence and care-freeness that play offers, we think it can make a
difference,” she said.
“I
am grateful and humbled to be a part of their lives if even for three days and
I pray we give them something that children on the streets often leave behind —
hope. This is the power of basketball. This is the power of sports,” she
stressed.
Source:
Geo Tv
https://www.geo.tv/latest/372786-sports-can-become-the-greatest-hope-for-underprivileged-children
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Iran’s
women’s football team to hold camp in Belgium
October
9, 2021
Iranian
women football team made history in late September by booking a place at the
2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup for the first time ever.
The
competition will be held from Jan. 20 to Feb. 6 in India.
“The
women’s football team will travel to Belgium to hold a training camp in the
European country. Our team will also play two friendly matches with Charleroi
football club in their training,” Azizi Khadem said.
Azizi
Khadem didn’t talk about the exact time of the training.
Source:
Tehran Times
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/465814/Iran-s-women-s-football-team-to-hold-camp-in-Belgium
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