Syrian Democratic Forces Recruiting Among Minus-18 Girls: al-Arabi al-Jadid
New Age Islam News Bureau
5
Aug 2020
• UNESCO
Extends Saudi Scientist Dr. Hayat Sindi’s Goodwill Ambassador Role For Another
2 Years
• Female
Entrepreneurs Excel Behind Middle East’s Most Loved Brands
• Meet
The 27-Year-Old Woman Who Created A Game To Escape Arranged Marriage
• Women
Banned from Riding Bikes In Iran Province Run By Ultra-Conservative Cleric
• In
Lebanon, Syrians Fight Child Marriage Tent By Tent
• Ram
Mandir Bhumi Pujan: Muslim Women Stage Protest in Hyderabad
• Turkish
Women’s Anger as Doubts Grow Over Domestic Violence Treaty
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/syrian-democratic-forces-recruiting-among/d/122549
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Syrian
Democratic Forces Recruiting Among Minus-18 Girls: al-Arabi al-Jadid
Aug
04, 2020
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have
increased the number of their recruits in the past few months after forcing
under-18 girls abducted by them to joint their ranks.
-----
The
Arabic-language al-Arabi al-Jadid news website reported on Tuesday that while
the SDF has signed an agreement with the UN not to use child soldiers, its
militants have in the past few months entered certain areas under their control
and abducted girls who are under 18.
Lina
Abdol Baqi, 14, is a girl whose family has for over 6 months been trying to
find her but in vain. The family has been told by the SDF that Lina has been
sent to the adolescent division.
Sidra
Abdol Salam, 16, Ahlam, 14, Qazaleh, 15, and Ronida, 11, are other girls who
have been kidnapped by the SDF from Kobani region in Aleppo and their family
members are concerned about their fate.
Syria’s
official news agency reported last month that the Kurdish-led militants of the
SDF, which enjoy Washington’s support, kidnapped a number of young people in
Syria’s Northeastern province of Hasaka apparently for forced recruitment.
Local
sources told SANA that houses were raided in various neighborhoods of the town
of Shaddadi.
The
SDF militants continue with their criminal and abusive practice against
ordinary citizens in areas under their control.
The
security situation is reportedly deteriorating in the areas controlled by the
SDF in Hasaka and the province of Deir Ezzur amid arrests of civilians by the
militants.
https://en.farsnews.ir/newstext.aspx?nn=13990514000643
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UNESCO
Extends Saudi Scientist Dr. Hayat Sindi’s Goodwill Ambassador Role For Another
2 Years
August
05, 2020
Dr. Hayat Sindi
-----
JEDDAH:
Saudi medical scientist Dr. Hayat Sindi’s prestige role as a UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador has been extended for another two years by the organization’s
director general, Audrey Azoulay.
Makkah-born
Sindi was given the title in recognition of her work to create an ecosystem of
entrepreneurship and social innovation for scientists, technologists, and
engineers in the Middle East and around the world.
Sindi
was the first woman from the Gulf to obtain a Ph.D. in biotechnology from the
University of Cambridge and was one of the first female members of the Saudi
Shoura Council.
In
addition, she co-founded and co-invented Diagnostics for All — a program to
create affordable diagnostic devices for millions of people in impoverished
regions — alongside a team from Harvard University.
In
2008, Sindi led the Diagnostics for All team to first place in Harvard Business
School’s business plan contest, the social enterprise track, and also won MIT’s
$100K Entrepreneurship Competition in the same year — becoming the only team to
take top spot in both competitions in the same year.
She
founded the i2 Institute that aims to empower and inspire the next generation
of innovators to realize their dreams and contribute to the world. She also
invented a low-cost diagnostic tool for early detection of breast cancer by
converting light into sound, and holds nine patents.
In
2017, Sindi was appointed chief scientific adviser to the president of the
Islamic Development Bank and has since put science, technology, and innovation
at the heart of bank’s work in driving economic growth and sustainable
development.
Sindi
was selected as one of Newsweek’s 150 Women Who Shake the World, was ranked
second by Forbes on a list of the most powerful Arab women in Saudi Arabia and
was again selected by Newsweek, and The Daily Beast, as one of 150 fearless
women. In 2018, she was named by the BBC among the 100 most inspiring and
influential women in the world.
In
2015, she was appointed as an honorary adviser to the UN Environment Program
for the Eye on Earth Summit and the following year joined a 10-member group
supporting the technological facilitation mechanism for sustainable development
goals.
Recently,
Sindi was appointed by the G20 as global ambassador for the health and
development partnership of the group.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1714776/saudi-arabia
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Female
Entrepreneurs Excel Behind Middle East’s Most Loved Brands
August
4, 2020
Female entrepreneurs excel behind Middle
East’s most loved brands
------
DUBAI
— Forbes Middle East has unveiled its second annual Women Behind Middle Eastern
Brands list for 2020, featuring 40 of the most successful female entrepreneurs
that have created and scaled some of the most loved brands in the Middle East.
It
has also released a Women Behind Middle Eastern Tech Brands list for the first
time, highlighting 10 female founders of innovative and successful technology
startups and established brands.
The
fashion sector represents 42% of the Women Behind Middle Eastern Brands list
with 17 entries. These are led by designer Reem Acra, who found fame in
Hollywood by dressing celebrities such as Halle Berry and Beyoncé.
The
jewelry sector came in second with nine entries, led by Azza Fahmy and her
daughters Amina and Fatma Ghali with their eponymous brand Azza Fahmy Jewelry.
Iraqi-American Huda Kattan, who was named amongst America’s Richest Self-Made
Women 2019 by Forbes with a fortune estimated at $610 million, tops the list
again this year.
In
creating the rankings, Forbes Middle East’s methodology included celebrity
endorsements, revenues and growth rate, the number of countries the brand is
present in, and media and social media reach.
For
the Women Behind Middle Eastern Tech Brands, it also looked at the amount of
funding received. These entrepreneurs have succeeded in gathering millions in
external investment.
Mona
Ataya and Leena Abi Khalil top the list with their brand Mumzworld, which has
gathered a total of $50 million in funding from notable investors, making it
the highest-funded women-led e-commerce business in the region.
Top
10 Women Behind Middle Eastern Brand
1.
Huda Kattan, Nationality: Iraqi-American Brand: Huda Beauty; 2. Reem Acra
Nationality: Lebanese-American Brand: Reem Acra; 3. Azza Fahmy, Amina &
Fatma Ghali Nationality: Egyptian Brand: Azza Fahmy Jewelry; 4. Dima Rashid
Nationality: Palestinian Brand: Dima Jewelry; 5. Nada Ghazal Nationality:
Lebanese Brand: Nada Ghazal Fine Jewelry; 6. Salwa Idrissi Akhannouch
Nationality: Moroccan Brand: Yan&One; 7. Gemy Maalouf Nationality: Lebanese
Brand: Gemy Maalouf; 8. Razan Alazzouni Nationality: Saudi Brand: Razan
Alazzouni; 9. Andrea Wazen Nationality: Lebanese Brand: Andrea Wazen; 10. Jude
Benhalim Nationality: Egyptian Brand: Jude Benhalim. — SG
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/596255
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Meet
The 27-Year-Old Woman Who Created A Game To Escape Arranged Marriage
By
Sumitra Nair
August
04, 2020
Love
is complicated. Equally complicated? Marriage! Finding the right match these
days has come a long way from matching kundalis and internet dates
choreographed by friends to being set up on blind dates by parents.
A
peek into the latest Netflix show Indian Matchmaking gives us a glimpse of how
some stereotypes are yet to change. Sima Taparia, Mumbai’s top matchmaker in
the show, says many factors are considered before she zeroes in on the right
match for her client.
Finer
nuances of an arranged marriage are still not understood, especially by western
society. “Westerners often speak about acid attacks and honour killings and conflate
arranged marriages with forced marriages, when in reality, the two are entirely
different,” says Nashra Balagamwala, a 27-year-old from Karachi, Pakistan, who
currently is studying Masters of Design at Harvard University. Balagamwala, who
created a game Arranged in 2017 to escape an arranged marriage, talks
about the game and her experience.
Edited excerpts:
You
created Arranged to explain the concept of an arranged marriage to westerners.
Please elaborate.
Many
articles in Western media misrepresent arranged marriage–they often speak about
acid attacks and honour killings and conflate arranged marriages with forced
marriages, when in reality, the two are entirely different. I wanted to provide
an insider view of the nuances of arranged marriage.
In a
society like India or Pakistan, is it possible to do away with the concept of
arranged marriages and dowry at all?
I
believe it is possible to do away with dowry! I’m from a social sect where
dowry is a huge part of marriage. However, in both my siblings’ marriages,
there was no such exchange because we believed the tradition was both demeaning
and archaic.
I
don’t think we’ll do away with arranged marriages for a long time, and I don’t
necessarily believe we have to. In societies as conservative as Pakistan and
India, where religion and tradition play a big role in the way we conduct
ourselves, sometimes an arranged marriage is the only way to meet a suitable
partner. If the process is more lenient, it isn’t that different from being set
up on a blind date or meeting someone through a dating app.
How
can such a patriarchal, complicated system be altered?
I
don’t think there’s any solution to it. I believe there’s a series of efforts
that need to be made. The women’s march and liberation movements are a great
start, but we have an incredibly long way to go.
Pakistan
as well as India still have a high number of instances of domestic abuse. In
your views, is arranged marriage—where a couple more often does not know each
other before they tie the knot—directly proportional to the same?
I
think an abusive person makes an abusive relationship. I’ve seen abusive
partners who married for love, caring partners who were arranged, and
vice-versa.
I do
believe, however, that arranged marriages allow for a lower possibility of
divorce–this is because more often than not, the women are not accepted back
into their parent’s home, cannot provide for themselves, and therefore, are
made to stay in abusive relationships.
Also,
arranged marriages are forced upon gay men and women, too. Your thoughts.
It’s
extremely problematic. This impacts both, the LGBTQIA community as well as the
people they are made to marry who have no idea of their sexual preference.
I’ve
had friends personally impacted by this. One of my best friends was married to
a man who wasn’t straight, and it was only a year into the marriage that she
realised what she had gotten herself into, and it immediately led to a divorce.
I
hope that one day we live in a world where everyone can marry whomever they
please, freely and without any backlash.
How
did your family, people in Pakistan react when you launched the game. Give us a
brief timeline of the game and its conceptualisation.
The
inspiration behind creating Arranged was my journey and struggle to avoid
getting an arranged marriage, as well as watching my friends get pressured into
loveless marriages with strangers their family picked for them.
I
started by making a list of every silly thing I'd done to avoid an arranged
marriage—wearing fake engagement rings, getting a tan, cutting my hair short,
etc. I then added issues and ideas that I’d never been able to discuss back at
home and masked the seriousness of this topic by turning it into a
light-hearted game dedicated to running away from the Rishta Aunty–the
matchmaker that most girls meet to be paired with a man.
I've
had an unbelievably overwhelming response so far. People from all over the
world have reached out to provide moral support and words of appreciation.
I've
had several Pakistani and Indian girls reach out to thank me for finally
speaking up about something so important, and have talked to me about their own
arranged marriages and family pressures.
That's
not to say that all the feedback has been positive. I've also dealt with a lot
of criticism. Many Pakistanis have said negative remarks and have made it clear
to me that I'm a disgrace because I'm bad-mouthing the society. Aunties who
once loved me and thought of me as a potential for their sons now roll their
eyes at me and whisper negative remarks as I walk by.
Tell
us how the game works.
The
gameplay involves a matchmaker trying to get the teenage girls married off to
any and every boy she can find, while they try to run away from her and a
loveless marriage.
They
can do so by talking about having a career, gaining weight, being seen in the
mall with boys or several other things that most societies would consider
normal, but are seen as disgraceful in South-Asian culture.
There
are three female protagonists and one “Rishta Aunty” (the matchmaker).
The
Aunty’s goal is to get all the girls married off. She moves closer to them as
she learns about things such as their ability to cook, the amount of dowry
they’ll bring in and whether or not they have “childbearing hips”.
The
girls spend their time coming up with creative ways to avoid getting hitched by
the aunty. They can do so by talking about having a career, gaining weight,
being seen in the mall with boys or several other things that every other
society would consider normal, but are seen as disgraceful in South Asian
culture. Occasionally, the girls may learn things about the aunty, such as the
fact that she has a 23-year-old unmarried daughter, and use it to blackmail her
into moving away from them.
At
some point during the game, the aunty may come across the Golden Boy. The
light-eyed, light-skinned, liberal CEO of a business with a foreign passport.
This is when the entire game dynamic switches around as it turns into a rat
race to get married to the dreamy Mr Right.
The
girls then start to make their way towards the aunty by flaunting their
talents, such as the fact that they pray five times a day or only have female
friends.
Only
one girl makes it in time to marry this Golden Boy, and the rest are hitched
off to the mama’s boys and womanisers. It is best when played with three to
four players.
https://www.theweek.in/leisure/society/2020/08/04/meet-the-27-year-old-woman-who-created-a-game-to-escape-arranged-marriage.html
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Women
Banned From Riding Bikes In Iran Province Run By Ultra-Conservative Cleric
August
05, 2020
The
"Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Prohibiting Vice" in Iran's
Khorasan Razavi Province has enforced a ban on women riding bicycles in public
places.
The
capital city of the province is Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city with a
shrine considered by Shiites as the holiest religious venue in the country,
where their eighth Imam, Ali bin Mousa al-Reza (766-818 CE) is buried.
The
head of the Khorasan-e-Razavi Province Cycling Board, Mehdi Roozbehaneh, says
the Headquarters has obtained "relevant permits" for the ban. It has
been decided that women are not allowed to ride bicycles in Mashhad's public
places, Roozbehaneh maintained.
Promoting
Virtue and Prohibiting Vice, also known as "enjoining good and forbidding
wrong," is a Quranic expression calling the faithful to propagate good
deeds and condemn wrong-doing. However, the Quran does not say people or even
state bodies have the right to "enforce" the term.
Mashhad's
Friday Prayer Imam, Ayatollah Ahmad Alam ol-Hoda, is also renowned for his
ultra-conservatism and opposition to women's social freedoms. "Women
should only ride bicycles where no men are around," he cleric said on June
21.
He
stressed that if women ride bikes in public places such as universities, they
will arouse the "youth’s sexual instincts," and the university will
become a "hub of fornication."
The
issue of women's cycling has been a heated debate in the Iranian public and
media for more than twenty years. Due to the fierce opposition of religious and
governmental institutions, it has always been highly controversial.
Iranian
women had long assumed that they could ride a bike in public if they respected
Iran's strict dress code, which requires women to completely cover their hair
and body in public.
In
2016, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appeared to crush the notion with a fatwa
explicitly banning women from cycling in public, but it was not strictly
enforced.
Khamenei's
fatwa prompted an angry reaction from female cyclists, who launched a social
media campaign in defiance of the ban.
Hundreds
of women uploaded photos of themselves on their bicycles on social media.
"Do not be sexually tempted; I am merely riding a bicycle," some had
written on their garments.
Since
the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the clerical establishment has enforced Islamic
laws denying women equal rights in divorce and inheritance, prohibiting women
from traveling abroad without a male relative's permission, and attending major
men's sports events.
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/women-banned-from-riding-bikes-in-iran-province-run-by-ultra-conservative-cleric/30767110.html
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In
Lebanon, Syrians fight child marriage tent by tent
August
04, 2020
CHTAURA
‒ A group of Syrian women is on a
quest to persuade families not to make the same mistake that shattered their
lives. On a summery afternoon, at the
Women Now’s office in the town of Chtaura, Fatima al-Etter and Ghaidaa
Doumani read out handwritten names and figures from their notebooks that are
added into an Excel sheet. Both of these Syrian women married when they were 15
years old and both saw their underaged daughters married. Now, they fight child
marriage tent by tent.
The
Excel sheet shows the results of the campaign ‘Let Me Keep My Childhood’
supported by the NGO Women Now and the Ahel Foundation. In the last five
months, 45 volunteers in the towns of Chtaura and Majdal Anjar in the Beqaa
Valley have reached 2,048 families and 1,826 of them have signed a commitment
not to marry their underaged daughters - 176 of these families were planning to
marry away their minor daughters but were ‘convinced’ otherwise.
The
rate of child marriage among Syrian refugees in Lebanon is 27% (reaching to 34%
in the North governorate), according to UN data. Lebanon has not established a
minimum age for marriage since this falls under the jurisdiction of the 18
officially recognized religious communities that regulate marital issues
through 15 personal status laws – some religious authorities set the bar as low
as nine years old or when the girl “reaches puberty.” Among Lebanese, the child
marriage rate is low (6%) compared to the rates among refugee populations;
Syrians (40.5%), Palestinian-Syrians (25%) and Palestinians (12%), according to
2009 data.
Slow
but steady endeavour
The
battle against child marriage is led by women who have a close experience with
the practice. Ghaidaa, originally from Homs province, married her 24-year-old
cousin when she was 15 years old and has six children. “My regret is that I
didn’t complete my education; when I married, I left school,” she told Syria
Direct. Last year, Ghaidaa allowed her 17-year-old daughter to marry, but the
union lasted only 11 months because her daughter’s husband obtained refugee
resettlement in the US. “My daughter is an 18-year-old divorcee and she got
depressed. I joined the campaign because I regret letting my daughter marry so
young,” she said.
Fatima
opposed marrying her 14-year-old daughter to a 26-year-old relative, but her
husband forced the wedding, which led Fatima to divorce him and join the
campaign against child marriage. “My daughter faced sexual violence, physical
violence, psychological violence, and she entered into depression,” recalled
the 45-year-old refugee originally from Homs. Her daughter, now 20 years old, is
divorced and has a daughter. Today, Fatima’s youngest daughter is 14 years old
and “no way she is getting married,” she told Syria Direct.
Fatima
coordinates the group in Chtaura and they organize ‘home sessions’ with Syrian
as well as Palestinian and Lebanese families at their houses or tents at
refugee settlements. The group’s members use their own experiences to highlight
the dangers of child marriage. “I had that experience so it makes me more
convincing. We expose our children to dangers, they face physical, sexual and
psychological violence. We tell them about the high rate of divorces,” Fatima
said.
Because
of the social distancing measures related to Covid-19, the meetings have moved
online or are done individually. A key element is to convince the father. “The
father is the one that takes the decision, we are in a patriarchal society; it
has been easier to convince men when they were alone and not with other men,”
she explained.
They
invite the ‘convinced’ families to put the campaign logo ‘Together against
Child Marriage’ on their house door to show other families their commitment.
Ghaidaa, on her way to visit a nearby informal refugee settlement in the Beqaa
Valley, tried to convince the tuk tuk driver to put their logo on the vehicle.
Upon arriving at the settlement for Syrian widows, she asked the ‘shauish’ (informal guard of the settlement) to allow
them to put the logo but he refused with a smile. Sometimes the ‘shauish’ did
not allow the members of the campaign to enter a camp, so they had to meet
outside.
Two
generations, the same story
Once
in the settlement, Ghaidaa enters the prefabricated ‘trailer’ and sits with
Nasra Swydan and her 8-year-old son. Nasra, a 42-year old woman from Homs, came
to Lebanon in 2014. Her personal struggle has pushed her to be a strong
advocate against child marriage.
At
14, Nasra was forced by her family to marry a 25-year-old man. “I didn’t
decide, I had no idea of what marriage life meant, I was a child, I was not
even a teenager,” she told Syria Direct. She had to take care of her husband
and his family. “It is as if you dress up a girl as a grown-up woman, it is a
dress bigger than her, I did not understand the needs of my husband, the
house.”
At
18, she gave birth to her first daughter. “I was crying, I didn’t know how to
raise her, how to breastfeed her.” In 15 years of marriage, she had four
children, then she and her husband divorced and he banned her from seeing them.
Later
on, Nasra married a second time and had a baby; this time was her choice. “I was
30 years old, I comprehended life, I knew what I wanted from life,” she said.
With the outbreak of the Syrian war, her two sons from her first marriage died
and her two daughters sought exile with their father in Jordan. In 2014, her
second husband was also ‘martyred’. “I was left alone so I became strong and I
spoke up, I don’t fear anymore. Here in Lebanon many people are racist against
Syrians so you have to become strong.”
Her
first husband still bans her from talking with her two daughters, but Nasra got
news that one of her daughters was married at 16 years old in Jordan, had two
children and then divorced. She is 20 now. “She and me, we have the same story:
What happened to me, happened to my daughter.”
Before
Ghaida leaves, Nasra comments on the latest case of child marriage she heard
about. A well-off Lebanese man had married a Syrian girl, had a baby and then
divorced her and took the 4-month-old baby with him. Fatima explained that
although the majority of ‘child marriages’ are among Syrians; some Lebanese men
marry underage Syrian girls also. “The Lebanese have more power. Families marry
their daughter to men that are already married or are very old so the girl
feels like she is sold to that man.”
In
the next caravan over sits 25-year-old Zeinab Hamd with her nine relatives from
Idlib city. When she was 13, she became the second wife of a 40-year-old man,
had a daughter and divorced. “My dad forced me to marry then because of the
economic situation, I didn’t have a choice,” explained Zeinab. Her ex-husband
used to beat her. “He used to drink [alcohol], he tried to strangle me, he
threatened to burn me; once he put a pillow on the face of my daughter and
almost choked her.” Zeinab later married a second time, had a baby boy and then
divorced. “I am only 25 but because of what I went through I feel I have lived
for a thousand years; I am psychologically tired.” She said her children will
not live the life she had to live.
In
Lebanon, several NGOs provide shelter for survivors of gender-based violence.
The NGO Abaad has three shelters in Beqaa, Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon with
a total capacity of 60 people. Last year they hosted 268 women and so far this
year they have hosted 100 women, girls and children, according to Jihane
Isseid, Emergency Safe Housing Program Manager at Abaad. Half of them are
Syrians and the average stay is three months. “We have cases of child brides
escaping a forced marriage,” explained Isseid. At the shelter, they receive help
from social workers, psychotherapists, educators and a legal team. If the
survivor has children, girls are accepted but only boys under 11 years old can
stay with their mothers due to “legal, social and religious considerations,”
said Isseid. For Fatima, shelters that do not accept the kids are a problem.
“The women prefer to be beaten up and humiliated rather than leave their
children behind,” she said.
Changing
minds
Stories
of abuse after a child marriage are common but some families justify marrying
“early” because of economic pressure, religion or social norms. Ghaidaa and
Fatima have learned how to counterargue each of them.
Some
families tell Fatima that they need to marry one of their daughters because
they cannot maintain all their children. “If you marry your daughter and she
faces violence and then comes back home pregnant, it will be a greater burden
than before,” she tells them, trying instead to convince them to enroll their
daughters in a skill education program to learn a craft to help alleviate the
economic pressure.
Ghaidaa
explains to the families the health-related issues that their daughters will
face if they get pregnant when their body is not ready, from miscarriages to
death at giving birth. “I know many examples where girls had to get their
uterus removed because of the damage caused, they can’t bear the pregnancy, so
men leave them for other women that can have kids,” she said.
A big
obstacle is the perception that ‘early marriage’ is a tradition and is grounded
in religion. The campaign’s members have met with representatives of different
faiths and convinced some to record videos against child marriage that they can
show to the families. “Most of the fathers get convinced by sheikhs [religious
leaders], that is why we contacted the religious men so they would talk to the
fathers,” explained Fatima.
International
law denounces child marriage as a grave violation of children’s rights and the
elimination of child marriage is one of the Sustainable Development Goals set
for 2030. A draft law to abolish child marriage was presented to the Lebanese
parliament in 2017 but has not yet been approved. “Lebanon is a very
confessional country, it is a very controversial topic, and it is not a high
priority of the members of the parliament, especially in the current economic
crisis,” said Isseid.
But
Syrian women are not waiting for a law to be passed. There is much at stake for
the younger generation. Aya Rajjoub, a 21-year-old from Homs has joined the
campaign. “We want to live our childhood, we want to live all the stages of our
life,” she said. She gets exasperated when some families insist on marrying
their minor daughters. “I feel like they do not even care, they insist on
destroying themselves and their daughters.” She has many friends that married
and later regretted it. “Regrets do not help, the time doesn’t come back, the
days are gone, and they will eventually get divorced or be trapped in a violent
marriage.”
Aya
came to the office of Women Now to finalize the details of the closing ceremony
of the first phase of the campaign. Sitting next to her, Mariam Rahmoun, a
15-year-old Syrian refugee that came with her mother and siblings to Lebanon in
2013. Her brother was married at 16 and her sister at 13. Because of the
experience with these early marriages “my mum now rejects child marriage,” she
said.
https://syriadirect.org/news/in-lebanon-syrians-fight-child-marriage-tent-by-tent/
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Ram
Mandir Bhumi Pujan: Muslim women stage protest in Hyderabad
By
Mohammed HussainLast
5th
August 2020
Hyderabad:
The women from Sayeedabad staged a protest against the laying of the foundation
stone of Ram Mandir on Tuesday.
A
group of Muslim women offered prayers to reconstruct Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
They also took a pledge to continue the struggle of Babri Masjid till it is
rebuilt on the same place.
They
have condemned the illegal construction of Ram Mandir and once again declared
the stance of all the muslims that Babri Masjid is and was and it will always
be a Masjid for Muslims will not compromise on any inch of land of Babri
Masjid.
https://www.siasat.com/ram-mandir-bhumi-pujan-muslim-women-stage-protest-in-hyderabad-1939204/
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Turkish
women’s anger as doubts grow over domestic violence treaty
August
05, 2020
ANKARA:
Only days after the sixth anniversary of the Istanbul Convention — the European
legal framework to combat domestic violence — Turkey’s government has postponed
a crucial meeting on a threatened withdrawal from the treaty.
Turkey
was the first country to ratify the convention and spearheaded the drafting of
the legal text, but recently threatened to withdraw despite rising domestic
violence rates in the country.
The
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) central executive was expected to
discuss a possible pullout from the convention on Wednesday, but postponed the
meeting to Aug. 13 amid plans by women’s groups to stage protests over what
they claim is an attack on their rights and a threat to their safety. Among
those lobbying for the withdrawal are ultra-conservative sections with
traditional pro-government leanings.
However,
in a surprise move, KADEM — a women’s NGO whose deputy chair is Sumeyye
Erdogan, daughter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — recently gave its full
support to the convention.
“At a
time when there is no connection between the Istanbul Convention and the rise
in the number of women’s murders, it is not rational to declare the convention,
which aims to prevent women’s murders, as a scapegoat,” KADEM said in a
statement.
Critics
of the convention claim that it threatens the financial and moral integrity of
families by empowering women legally, socially and economically.
According
to recent figures, 155 Turkish women have been murdered in the first seven
months of the year. In July alone, 32 women were murdered, with two more killed
during Eid Al-Adha. More than 470 women were killed last year, with women’s
rights advocates saying they were “hunted like birds.”
Family,
Labor and Social Services Minister Zumrut Selcuk has stayed silent despite the
rising tide of violence against women.
Women’s
groups say that many abusers are set free without proper punishment or with
reduced jail terms “because men wear neckties and suits during their court
appearances.”
The
Istanbul Convention was triggered by a 2009 European Court of Human Rights case
that highlighted the failure of Turkish authorities to protect a Turkish woman
and her mother from the husband’s domestic violence, resulting in the mother’s
killing.
Duygu
Koksal, a human rights lawyer, said the treaty is “one of the main tools
against ‘discriminatory judicial passivity’ in preventing and combating
violence against women.”
Despite
laws to protect the family and prevent violence against women, this mentality
needs to be constantly challenged, she said.
“The
government should show strong political will and refuse to step back and
prevent any backsliding.”
In
recent weeks, Turkish women posted symbolic black-and-white photos on social
media platforms in support of the convention and to show that they might be
next to be murdered.
The
campaign, dubbed “Challenge Accepted,” drew support from celebrities including
Demi Moore, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Biel.
Melek
Onder, spokesperson for the We Will Stop Femicide advocacy platform, said there
is a clear choice between “supporting women’s right to live decently or turning
a blind eye to their brutal murder.”
She
told Arab News: “After the isolation process due to the coronavirus outbreak,
violence against women increased sharply in Turkey. The latest debates about
the potential pullout from the convention added another layer to this
downgrading, and monthly death rates rose to about 30 because men became
encouraged to kill women without accountability.”
Onder
rejects any interim solution. “You either implement it or pull out from it.
There is no other option, there is nothing to negotiate,” she said.
“The
existence of this convention doesn’t solve all problems, it is just a guarantee
for taking protective and proactive measures regarding violence and crime,” she
said.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1714741/middle-east
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/syrian-democratic-forces-recruiting-among/d/122549