March 2012 Archives - Bulletin Of The Oppression Of Women in Islam - Bulletin Of The Oppression Of Women in Islam

Archive for March 2012

400 Women in Afghanistan Held for ‘Moral Crimes’

By Asma Marwan on March 28, 2012

(like running away from domestic violence or forced marriage)

Human Rights Watch Reports on the Imprisonment of Women and Girls for “Moral Crimes” in Afghanistan

This 120-page report is based on 58 interviews conducted in three prisons and three juvenile detention facilities with women and girls accused of “moral crimes.”

Almost all girls in juvenile detention in Afghanistan had been arrested for “moral crimes,” while about half of women in Afghan prisons were arrested on these charges. These “crimes” usually involve flight from unlawful forced marriage or domestic violence. Some women and girls have been convicted of zina, sex outside of marriage, after being raped or forced into prostitution.

Continue reading 400 Women in Afghanistan Held for ‘Moral Crimes’

This entry is filed under Afghanistan, Forced Marriage, Sexuality, Sharia.

Women in Yemen: The Queen of Sheba’s Daughters Speak

By Asma Marwan on March 27, 2012

Some good news: Yemen’s women, after centuries of heavy oppression, are finding a voice to speak.

Until up to a year ago, most Yemen women were largely invisible on the political scene, preferring to remain in the shadows, away from a world decidedly dominated by men.

As a traditional Muslim society, women politicians are often, or at least were, frowned upon as many felt women’s very nature did not match well with politics.

Last year’s uprising shattered those beliefs with more often than not, women being seen leading the demonstrations and marches, determined as they were to carve their sons and daughters a new, brighter future.

Women’s very role within Yemeni society was redefined by activists, who like their male counterparts, faced the regime’s wrath, putting their life on the line for they believed they too, could stand up for justice and democracy.
[ . . . ]
Women in Yemen accompanied the revolution every step of the way, putting their skills as doctors, nurses, leaders, writers, photographers, teachers to the service of their country, slowly tearing down the walls that society had built around them.

Continue reading Women in Yemen: The Queen of Sheba’s Daughters Speak

This entry is filed under Arab Spring, Yemen.

Pakistani 12 Year Old Forced to Marry Man of 60

By Asma Marwan on March 27, 2012

In Islam, an older man marrying a young girl is an example set by Mohammed, the perfect man, who married Aisha when she was 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9 and he was 53. Thus, it is Sunnah and permitted in Islam, and not a crime.

Also, in Islam, a woman is viewed as chattel or property belonging to the man. Marriage is not based on reciprocal love but on the strengthening of clan ties and a dowry (money) paid by the man to his bride’s father or guardian, and thus, the exchange of the girl for a debt would be allowed.

But what is not allowed in Islam is forcing a woman (if the girl has reached puberty, she is considered a woman) to marry. According to sharia law, based on Islamic doctrine and Arab culture, the woman can say yes or no to the marriage. So it is on this legality that her case rests.

Four people were arrested by Mochiwala police on Sunday on a girl’s complaint about her forced marriage to an elderly man to settle a loan her step-father had owed him.

The complainant, who said she was 12 years old, told police that her marriage with Sher Muhammad took place two months ago to settle a Rs110,000 loan her step-father had taken from him.

Continue reading Pakistani 12 Year Old Forced to Marry Man of 60

This entry is filed under Child Marriage, Children's Rights, Forced Marriage, Pakistan. | 3 Comments

Honor Killings of Women in Pakistan: An Epidemic

By Asma Marwan on March 23, 2012

My last post was on the state of honor killings in Britain. Now here’s what has happened in the last year to women in Pakistan, a country sending many immigrants to Britain.

At least 943 Pakistani women and girls were murdered last year for allegedly defaming their family’s honor, the country’s leading human rights group said Thursday.

The statistics highlight the growing scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence.

Despite progress on better protecting women’s rights, activists say the government needs to do more to prosecute murderers in cases largely dismissed by police as private, family affairs.

“At least 943 women were killed in the name of honor, of which 93 were minors,” wrote the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in its annual report.

Seven Christian and two Hindu women were among the victims, it said.

The Commission reported 791 “honor killings” in 2010.

Around 595 of the women killed in 2011 were accused of having “illicit relations” and 219 of marrying without permission.

Some victims were raped or gang raped before being killed, the Commission said. Most of the women were killed by their brothers and husbands.

Read the rest here: Nearly 1,000 Women in Pakistan Killed for “Honor”.

This entry is filed under Honor Killing, Pakistan.

Honor Killings in Britain: Truth Slowly Emerging

By Asma Marwan on March 23, 2012

Pat Condell gets it right in this video, as a new BBC documentary shows.

A large number of young British Asians support violence against women who ‘dishonour’ their families, a Panorama investigation will claim today.

The hard-hitting BBC documentary reveals more than two thirds of Asians between the ages of 16 and 34 say communities should live according to ‘honour’ or ‘izzat’.

Research carried out for the show found nearly one in five – 18 per cent – said certain acts thought to shame families were justification for violence.

The possible reasons included disobeying a father, marrying someone unacceptable or wanting to end a marriage.
[ . . . ]
Of 500 Asians interviewed for the Panorama poll, 75 per cent of young men and 63 per cent of young women said families should live according to ‘honour’.

Read the rest here: Honor Violence Acceptable to Young British “Asians.”

Watch excerpts from the BBC documentary about honor killings mentioned in the Daily Mail article. This video should be required viewing for all Westerners. (H/T to Gates of Vienna blog and Vlad Tepes)

This entry is filed under Great Britain, Honor Killing.

A Woman Slave’s Story

By Asma Marwan on March 23, 2012

This story about a woman slave in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is heartbreaking. Remember: Mohammed kept slaves, for work and for sex. Slavery under Islamic sharia law is legal and will be as long as Islam survives.

Moulkheir Mint Yarba returned from a day of tending her master’s goats out on the Sahara Desert to find something unimaginable: Her baby girl, barely old enough to crawl, had been left outdoors to die.

The usually stoic mother — whose jet-black eyes and cardboard hands carry decades of sadness — wept when she saw her child’s lifeless face, eyes open and covered in ants, resting in the orange sands of the Mauritanian desert. The master who raped Moulkheir to produce the child wanted to punish his slave. He told her she would work faster without the child on her back.

Trying to pull herself together, Moulkheir asked if she could take a break to give her daughter a proper burial. Her master’s reply: Get back to work.

“Her soul is a dog’s soul,” she recalls him saying.

Later that day, at the cemetery, “We dug a shallow grave and buried her in her clothes, without washing her or giving her burial rites.”

“I only had my tears to console me,” she would later tell anti-slavery activists, according to a written testimony. “I cried a lot for my daughter and for the situation I was in. Instead of understanding, they ordered me to shut up. Otherwise, they would make things worse for me — so bad that I wouldn’t be able to endure it.”

Please read the rest of this CNN report here: Mauritania: Slavery’s Last Stronghold
(h/t to EuropeNews.dk/)

This entry is filed under Mauritania, Slavery.

Muslim Lesbian Couple Fears Honor Killing If Asylum in Canada Refused

By Asma Marwan on March 21, 2012

An Arab-Israeli lesbian couple, who fled to Canada from Israel in fear of death at the hands of their Muslim family have been told they can remain in Canada for another chance at receiving asylum.

Iman Musa and Majida Mugrabi, living in Toronto, filed unsuccessful refugee claims that were appealed to the Federal Court of Canada; and now the couple has been granted another hearing by an Immigration and Refugee Board based on new information that shows one of Mugrabi’s cousins confessed to the “honor killing” of his sister 12-years ago, reported the Toronto Sun.

According to the Sun, the couple provided an emotional letter explaining that they would be killed if forced to return because they are Muslim and in a same-gender relationship.

The couple, through their lawyer, Daniel Kingwell, said they were pleased by the court’s decision but still fear for their lives.

“As Muslim women, we don’t have any rights in our families,” the couple wrote. “The fact that we are lesbians does not help.”

The letter claimed Mugrabi’s grandfather is a Muslim sheikh, who “repeatedly threatened to kill her.” Musa’s brother, from Ramleh, has “threatened to kill her if she does not leave her lesbian relationship and marry a male,” the women alleged.

Read it all here: Lesbian Muslims Fight Deportation
(h/t to Joanne)

This entry is filed under Canada, Forbidden Love, Honor Killing. | 3 Comments

Lawmaker Proposes Limit to Egyptian Women’s Rights to Divorce

By Asma Marwan on March 18, 2012

An Egyptian lawmaker has proposed a controversial draft law to limit the legal provisions for women to divorce or separate from their husbands.

Mohamed al-Omda, deputy head of the People’s Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, has submitted the draft to cancel a woman’s right to divorce (Khula) or separate from her husband, privately-owned Al-Shorouk newspaper reported today.

Khula is the right of a woman in Islam to divorce or separate from her husband.

In the bill’s explanatory memorandum, Omda said women’s right to divorce through courts was granted to satisfy the National Council for Women (NCW), which was chaired by former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, allegedly to save women from persecution in eastern countries.
[ . . . ]
In recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party has launched an attack on laws regulating personal status in the country.

They accuse the NCW of implementing Western strategies to spoil the family and social life in Egypt.

Last week, a number of Islamist MPs criticised the Khula law and the law regulating child custody, saying theycontradict Sharia.

Continue reading Lawmaker Proposes Limit to Egyptian Women’s Rights to Divorce

This entry is filed under Divorce Rights, Egypt.

Qatar Women Cause Country’s Divorce Rate to Rise

By Asma Marwan on March 17, 2012

Shame and blame is the name of the Islamic cultural default mode. And it’s always easy to blame the Muslim woman for the shame of the Muslim man when his wife (gasp!) disobeys him, or (OMG!) leaves the house on her own and or (Oh Horrors!) refuses to do her household chores.

This is pitiful and would be laughable except it is the plight of millions and millions of women due to the ideology of Islam based on the words of Allah and the speech and deeds of Mohammed and their sharia laws.

The fact that Qatar’s divorce rate is rising can be blamed on the women in the country, according to a survey carried out by newspaper The Peninsula.

Based on this study, more than half of divorces in Qatar are the result of women disobeying their husband: in at least 20% of divorces the women behaved badly and 36% were caused by insolent behaviour by women.

Some 17% of divorces are caused by women refusing to do their household chores.

In 9% of the cases the husband decides to divorce out of jealousy, but also in these cases women are to blame, because they made their husband jealous by leaving the house on their own.

Continue reading Qatar Women Cause Country’s Divorce Rate to Rise

This entry is filed under Qatar.

Moroccan Girl Kills Self to Escape Forced Marriage to Her Rapist

By Asma Marwan on March 17, 2012

A 16-year-old Moroccan girl has committed suicide after a judge ordered her to marry her rapist, according to Moroccan media reports.

Last year Amina al-Filali’s parents filed charges against their daughter’s rapist, a man 10 years older than her but it was only recently that a judge in the northern city of Tangier decided that instead of punishing him, the two must be married.

The court’s decision to forcibly marry Amina to her rapist was supposed to “resolve” the damage of sexual violation against her, but it led to more suffering in the unwelcoming home of her rapist/husband’s family.

“After I filed a complaint against him, he said he will marry her. And when he married her and took her to his family’s home he mistreated her, beating her and leaving her starve with no food,” Zahra Mallim, Amina’s mother told the Morocco’s 2M TV.

Traumatized by the painful experience of rape, Amina decided to end her life by consuming rat poison in the house of her husband’s family, according to the Moroccan daily al-Massae.