More Than 250 Women Graduates From Training To Join Saudi Arabian Armed Forces
New Age Islam News Bureau
12 January 2023
• Shamima Begum Says She Is ‘Just So Much More Than
Daesh’
• Muslims With Headscarves Wait 4.5 Times Longer For
Jobs In Germany
• Madeline Hoffman Cycles To Türkiye From Germany To
Finally Meet Her Turk Father, Duran Tekin
• Saudi Women Now Make Up More Than A Third Of
Kingdom's Workforce
• Children Of Saudi Women Married To Expat Men Can
Apply For Citizenship
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/saudi-arabian-armed-forces/d/128860
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More Than 250 Women Graduates From Training To Join Saudi
Arabian Armed Forces
Saudi Arabia Women's
Training Institute on Wednesday saw the graduation of 255 female Saudi
recruits. Ministry of Interior, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia / @security_gov /
Twitter
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Jan 12, 2023
The Women's Training Institute of the Saudi Arabian
Armed Forces saw the graduation of 255 recruits on Wednesday.
The women graduated with diplomatic security and Hajj
and Umrah security specialisations.
The graduation ceremony was held with the support of
Minister of the Interior Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud and the Director of Public
Security Lieutenant General Mohammed Al Bassami.
Saudi Arabia opened up military recruitment to women
in February 2022.
The first female recruits graduated from the Armed
Forces Women's Cadre Training Centre last September, the first time in the
kingdom's history that women will begin service in front-line roles.
Women must be aged between 21 and 40. First-time male
applicants must be aged between 17 and 40. Other conditions are the same — from
admission procedures to medical checks and needing no criminal record.
The change to allow women into the Saudi military came
as part of the kingdom's Vision 2030, which seeks to reform almost every aspect
of life and government.
Source: The National News
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Shamima Begum Says She Is ‘Just So Much More Than
Daesh’
Shamima Begum is locked in a
legal battle with the British government as she attempts to have her
citizenship restored. (Screengrab/BBC)
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January 11, 2023
LONDON: Shamima Begum has acknowledged that she joined
a terror group but said that she is “just so much more than Daesh.”
Giving her first full account of her flight to Syria,
she told The BBC podcast “The Shamima Begum Story” that she had been “relieved”
to make it out of the UK and said that when she left, she expected never to
return.
Begum said she knows the public now sees her “as a
danger, as a risk, as a potential risk to them, to their safety, to their way
of living.”
But she said: “I’m not this person that they think I
am.”
Now the 23-year-old — who had three children in Syria,
all of whom died — is in a legal battle with the British government to try to
have her citizenship restored so she can return to London.
The tribunal hearing has centered on whether she was a
victim of trafficking for sexual exploitation or a committed Daesh volunteer
who is a threat to the UK.
Acknowledging that the public sees her as a potential
danger if she should return, Begum said she is “not a bad person” and blamed
the media for her portrayal. She said: “I’m so much more than everything I’ve
been through.”
Does she understand society’s anger toward her? “Yes,
I do understand,” she said.
“But I don’t think it’s actually toward me. I think
it’s toward Daesh. When they think of Daesh they think of me because I’ve been
put on the media so much.”
Challenged that the media coverage was a consequence
of her decision to join Daesh, she said: “But what was there to obsess over? We
went to Daesh, that was it, it was over, it was over and done with. What more
is there to say?
“They just wanted to continue the story because it was
a story, it was the big story.”
Pressed further on whether she accepts that she did
join a terror group, she said: “Yes, I did.”
Tim Loughton, former children’s minister, told the BBC
it was still not clear why Begum joined Daesh as a teenager and “what forces
brainwashed her,” but he said public sympathy for her when she first went
missing had increasingly been replaced by anger.
He said many people were justifiably suspicious that
she was now “putting on act” in appearing to “transition from a heavily veiled
Muslim young woman to somebody wearing Western clothes” as if she had “stayed
in east London as a normal British teenager.”
He added: “I think most people will say that, frankly,
we owe her nothing. She got herself into this mess and frankly it’s down to her
to work out how she’s going to get out of it.”
According to Begum’s account, the preparation for her
and two other girls from Bethnal Green to join Daesh in Raqqa involved their
own research as well as explicit instructions from the terror group’s members.
One of the girls later died and the other is also believed to have been killed
in Syria.
Begum said there were “people online telling us and,
like, advising us on what to do and what not to do,” with “a long list of
detailed instructions,” including what cover story to use if they were caught.
Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer who represented the families
of the girls, told the BBC that he searched their rooms after they fled,
looking for clues: receipts, phone bills, texts, emails.
“I’ve never seen anything so thoroughly dry-cleaned of
evidence or information as these young teenagers managed to do themselves,”
said Akunjee, a criminal lawyer with 20 years of experience. “They must have
had a great deal of trust in whoever it is that they were speaking to, to
follow that, to follow their advice very, very carefully.”
He said just one scrap of paper was found in Begum’s
house. It was a shopping list, detailing items they would need for their trip
to the Daesh caliphate and how much they cost — a phone for £75 ($90), socks
for £4, taxi for £100 — with a name or an initial of one of the girls next to
each.
Begum denied the list was hers, saying it had been
left by Amira, one of the other girls.
“We tried so hard to clear up our tracks and just one
of us was stupid,” she said.
Begum said they tried to pack light for the journey,
though she was advised to “pack nice clothes so you can dress nicely for your
husband,” referring to the fact that they were expected to marry Daesh
fighters.
While they showed sophistication in concealing their
intentions to join Daesh, other aspects of their planning betrayed the age of
the teenage runaways.
Begum said she stocked up with chocolate bars that she
knew she would not be able to buy in Syria: “about 30” mint Aero bars.
“You can find a lot of things in this country, but you
cannot find mint chocolate,” she said.
One woman who went to school with Begum said she had
been “a ghost” who was quiet and kept to a small friendship group.
Begum says her family thought she was “weak to do
something so crazy” and “did not think in a million years” that she could be
recruited by Daesh.
“I’ve always been a more secluded person. That’s why
it’s so hard the way my life has turned out being all over the media because
I’m not a person that likes a lot of attention on me,” she told The BBC.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2230681/world
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Muslims with headscarves wait 4.5 times longer for
jobs in Germany
Tim Stickings
Jan 11, 2023
Muslims in Germany are particularly vulnerable to
discrimination based on their name and appearance, a racism survey has found.
A government report said women with headscarves
struggled to get jobs and children with Turkish names were marked down at
school.
Germany’s integration commissioner Reem
Alabali-Radovan, who delivered the report to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet
on Wednesday, said these were examples of structural racism.
She highlighted one study that found a headscarf and a
Turkish name made it four-and-a-half times harder to get a job interview.
It comes amid an ugly row over violence on New Year’s
Eve that sparked a fresh debate over integration in Germany.
Right-wing politicians caused uproar by demanding to
know the first names of German citizens involved in the unrest, implying they
might have a migrant background.
“We have to judge the New Year culprits on the basis
of their actions and not on their first names,” Ms Alabali-Radovan said in
Berlin.
“Racism is not an abstract danger, but a painful
experience for many, many people in our country.”
Ms Alabali-Radovan, the child of Iraqi parents, said
she often heard stories from migrant and religious communities about
discrimination against Muslims.
About 5.5 million Muslims live in Germany, including
many people of Turkish origin whose families migrated after the Second World
War and Syrians who arrived during the 2015 refugee crisis.
While there have been some notable success stories,
the 104-page racism report said Muslims suffered some of the most negative
attitudes of any minority group.
Some surveys have found a quarter of Germans say there
are too many Muslims in the country, while half say they feel like strangers in
Germany because of the Islamic presence.
The report said cases of overt anti-Muslim violence
had slightly declined but described an undercurrent of racial bias that limits
people’s opportunities in work and education.
One study said female job applicants had to try
four-and-a-half times as often to get an interview if they had a Turkish name
and were wearing a headscarf in an attached photo.
It was eight times as difficult in higher-skilled
jobs, compared to women with a more typical German name, Ms Alabali-Radovan
said.
“It is structural racism when a woman with a
headscarf, with the same qualifications as a woman with a typical German name
without a headscarf, has to apply four-and-a-half times as often,” she said.
Another survey found that the same schoolwork was
graded lower when it was apparently submitted by “Murat” rather than “Max”.
“Studies show that people read as Muslims have a
clearly heightened risk of discrimination,” the report says.
“The data available shows that Muslim men and women
see themselves more affected than others by discrimination.”
A separate expert panel on Islamophobia is expected to
report back in the summer.
Across all social groups, 22 per cent of people in
Germany reported having suffered racial discrimination.
“The stark view of the data makes clear that we have a
glaring racism problem in Germany,” said Aziz Bozkurt, the head of a working
group on migration in Mr Scholz’s Social Democratic Party.
“The current discussions over events at New Year make
this depressingly clear, not least when even parties in the supposed centre
ground want to reduce people’s Germanness based on how their first name
sounds.”
The Berlin branch of the Christian Democrats, the main
centre-right opposition in Germany, asked for first names after firework
displays ran out of control in some cities.
It accused Mr Scholz’s party of deliberately turning a
blind eye to what were “mainly young men with a migrant background” causing
trouble on New Year’s Eve, according to Berlin CDU chief Kai Wegner.
Source: The National News
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Madeline Hoffman Cycles To Türkiye From Germany To
Finally Meet Her Turk Father, Duran Tekin
Esma Kucuksahin
11.01.2023
KAYSERI, Türkiye
A young woman met her father for the first time after
spending over four months making the long bicycle trek from Germany to central
Türkiye, where her father now lives.
Seven years ago, Madeline Hoffman learned that her
father was a Turk. Hoffmann, who at the time was a fashion designer living in
Sydney, Australia, decided to take a trip to finally meet her father.
Hoffmann, 33, resigned from her job and returned to
Germany, where she had grown up, and set off on her bicycle journey last Aug.
23.
Sharing the journey with her followers on social
media, Hoffmann wrote about her feelings and experiences.
At length reaching the central Anatolian city of
Kayseri after over four months, she finally met her father, Duran Tekin, who is
now 64.
Speaking to Anadolu, she said she was shocked at the
age of 26 when she learned that she was half Turkish and decided to embark on a
journey to "discover the other half of her origin and find herself.”
“There were different feelings inside because I was
going to meet my father for the first time. I've been waiting for this moment
for 33 years. I've been traveling by bike for four-and-a-half months to
experience this moment,” she said.
2nd culture
She added that she would like to see and meet Turkish
people as much as possible to learn about her second culture. “I want to listen
to Turkish music, try Turkish food, and learn a few Turkish words,” she said.
After starting her personal bike trek in Germany, she
passed through France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Greece, before finally reaching Türkiye.
Tekin said that he went to Germany in 1973 and started
doing business.
Explaining that he had two daughters with a woman he
met in Germany, he said they broke up for various reasons.
Noting that he had not seen either of his daughters
for many years, he said he reached out to the municipality and started to track
down his daughters after 28 years,
He said he met his eldest daughter in Germany but was
unable to meet face-to-face with his younger daughter Madeline because she
lived halfway around the world, in Australia.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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Saudi women now make up more than a third of kingdom's
workforce
Mariam Nihal
Jan 12, 2023
Saudi women now comprise 37 per cent of the workforce
in the kingdom, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, Ahmed
Al Rajhi, has said.
In 2016, only 17.7 per cent of the workforce were
female.
About 2.2 million Saudis are now employed in the
private sector, the highest number in the country's history.
"Young Saudi girls are passionate, driven and
skilled," said Shurouq Ahmed, a female sports trainer in Jeddah.
"They want to go out there and work. They are
independent and have always been this way, but now the difference is they have
the chance and the opportunity thanks to our leadership and Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman."
Saudi women aged 15 to 24 are actively taking up more
jobs, statistics show. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Statistics’ (Gastat)
said their participation rate rose from eight per cent in the second quarter of
last year to 50.1 per cent in the third.
Basma Bouzo, co-founder of Saudi Design Week and
Bouqo, a consulting agency, said: "In the firm we’re actually all females
with the exception of one male.
"At SDW, we consciously make sure we have a
balanced female-to-male ratio for speakers."
Ghalia Alshareef, an entrepreneur and chef in Khobar,
said: "Saudi women have always supported each other.
"If a woman wants to become a baker, all her
friends will start sharing her social media page and ordering from her, or if
there's a designer, suddenly all your family and friends will become your first
customers.
"This is our culture and I have to stay it's
impressive and keeps us together, giving us motivation and strength to do
better."
Aloula, one of the country's leading non-profit
organisations, was founded by Jihan Alamawi and Saria Islam in 1962 under the
name Aljamia Alnsaia Alkhiria Aloula, starting out with seven women on its
books.
Aloula supports underprivileged women and children,
empowering females by providing them with basic needs, health support and
training.
The organisation helps educate women by training them
to use computers, teaching them nursing assistance and providing
self-confidence and entrepreneurial skills. Aloula also established an
orphanage and an elderly home.
"In 2003, we established a ladies club for women
and children with swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts and a gym for
them and their children," said Aloula board member Nasiba Hafiz, a Saudi
fashion designer in Jeddah.
In 2017, Aloula developed a new strategy that focused
on fighting poverty through early intervention with educational, professional
and physical training.
"We provide basic needs for the families — from
housing, food school supplies and health care — so they can live a quality
life," said Ms Hafiz. "I joined Aloula in 2020 during lockdown and it
was one of the best blessings for me ... working with such great women has
taught me so much.
"My role before becoming a board member was using
some of the leftover materials from years back and making use of it —
recycling, upcycling, reusing anything we had to create a fashionable
collection to raise money for the families of Aloula."
Source: The National News
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Children of Saudi women married to expat men can apply
for citizenship
January 11, 2023
Khitam Al Amir
Dubai: King Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia has
issued a royal decree that will grant children of Saudi women married to
non-Saudis the right to apply for citizenship when they turn 18 years.
The decree amends article No 8 of the Saudi
citizenship law. The amendment stipulates: “On the orders of the Prime Minister
upon a suggestion by the Minister of Interior” the law shall be replaced “upon
a decision by the Minister of Interior”.
Saudi citizenship is passed on automatically to
children through Saudi father. Children of Saudi mothers and expatriate fathers
can apply for the citizenship if they meet certain conditions, they should be
born and live permanently in the kingdom. They can apply for citizenship once
they turn 18 years and they should be able to speak Arabic and are of good
conduct.
Source: Gulf News
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