The Cost of Being a Muslim Woman in a Muslim World

Posted on October 13, 2008
Filed Under Afghanistan, Canada, Eurabia, Europe, Freedom, Freedom from Religion, Germany, Honor killing, Human Rights, Imams, International, Jordan, News, Pakistan, Palestine, Sharia law, Sweden, Terrorism, Turkey, UK, US, United Kingdom, United States, hijab, honor killings, islam, killings, niqqab, violence against women, wife abuse, women, women's rights, women's veil | Comments Off

[My dear friend Nora, from Spanish Pundit, has once again agreed to grace this pages with a guest post. I am honored to publish it! - Chaim]

Violence against women is a global problem! No region of the world, no ethnicity, no religion, no skin color, is exempt from this type of despicable occurrences. Some men, too small, too insecure in their own manhood, need to lord it over women in an attempt to mask their own feelings of woeful inadequacy. In some cases, however, the problem is more prevalent depending on the culture and/or professed religion. Whether a direct result of religious misinterpretation, whether a part of tribal culture or the combination of both factors, nowhere is the problem as violent, as often as in the Muslim communities around the globe.

In a case that is hard to watch, in a case that will turn your stomach (youtube.com has since removed the gruesome video), a man married for six months accused his wife of infidelity. In return for such he cut off her lips, her nose and scratched out her eyes… he left her for dead… against all odds she survived. The full inhumanity of the violence I described only fully assaults the sense of reality once you see what the woman looked like, in the video, as a result of an absolutely inhuman… but seemingly devout follower of Islam.

In another case, that would be laughable were not for the fact that its idiocy came from the mouth of a respected Saudi Imam, Sheikh Mohammed al-Habadan. The good Sheikh had the effrontey to suggest that since women paint their eyes, the wearing of a niqqab (which only shows their eyes) is how women seduce men… Therefore the solution, according to al-Habbadan, would be for women to cover all but one eye… When it was pointed out that it would make women loose their depth perception, the answer that this would be preferable for the well being of the average Muslim, Allah fearing, male… No doubt women are the ones to blame for the total lack of Muslim males’ self control. Obviously, proud Muslim males aren’t capable and shouldn’t be expected to act like humans as do most infidel males!

As I’ve said before, while violence against is unfortunately a global issue, none of the cases approximate the horror, the gruesomness, of those perpetrated by Muslims. When five women were buried alive as honor killings, in order to cleanse their male family members’ honor (and, of course, the family’s name) in Baloochistan, international protests forced Pakistan’s Parliament to bring up the cases in discussion. One of the Parliament members, argued successfully that it was a question of tribal customs and no Parliament has any business introducing legislation to safeguard women against this seemingly time hollowed traditions… Though it has been practiced for centuries, the recurrence of such events increased with:

…in the Eighties with the implementation of Muslim Sharia Laws, and has continued through the Nineties as Muslim extremists have flourished to gain commanding political ground in Punjab, Balochistan and the NWFP.

The reason for such senseless, inhuman behavior was because these women tried to fend off rapists, not being able to produce for male Muslim witnesses “of upright character” that they were indeed trying to defend themselves, it was obvious to the tribal court that they were loose women who engaged in illicit and very punishable behavior…

More instances of such horrible, unjust, lack of logic can be found in this story from Britain’s The Independent in this story, women as young as 15 are rotting away in Afghan jails because they run away from super abusive arranged marriages. How can that become a crime? When their own families ostracize as a result of the shame on the family honor, these women are accused of having had illicit sexual encounters. Notice that it is the women who have done something wrong in all these cases, never the m,ales…

In another unspeakably gruesome case, twenty six year old Saira Liaqat poses for the camera, while holding a picture of her former self before her betrothed doused her face with acid. In the attached you can see how she looks after nine operations…

The web site of KARAMAH – Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights declares:

Domestic violence within the Muslim American community

The problem of domestic violence against women is an international and a national crisis today. In America today domestic violence is devastating and destroying Muslim families and communities in which women, girls, children and immigrants are the most adversely impacted. These women and girls face additional barriers because of language barriers, social and cultural differences. In many of the cases, in order to maintain control, their battering spouses purposefully keep them ignorant and isolated. Not surprisingly, most of these women and girls are unaware about their immigration status and rights. Therefore, this ignorance often deters battered immigrant women and girls from reporting abuse and reduces the likelihood of securing criminal convictions of abusers. Unfortunately, few local communities, service providers and government agencies are prepared to meet the challenges of providing protection and culturally sensitive services to migrant and immigrant women. There is a lack of technical assistance that focuses on the specific cultural, religious, linguistic, social and legal issues that victims of domestic violence from these communities face.

On January 18, 2008, Erica Barnett wrote:

Raising awareness of domestic violence in Muslim-American communities is a challenge. One surprising factor that makes the challenge even more daunting is the perception that attempts to deal with domestic violence in Muslim families constitute attacks on Islam itself.

That perception is not entirely baseless. According to a recent New York Times story on domestic-violence advocacy in Muslim communities, traditional women’s shelters have been known to advise Muslim women to “throw off the yoke” of religious symbols like the veil, arguing that such customs are the symbols of a patriarchal and oppressive culture.

Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle Cinnamon Stillwell reports:

Throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, young Muslim women are being targeted for violence. Lest it be thought hate crimes are to blame, it is, in fact, their own relatives who are the perpetrators. So-called honor killings, whereby a Muslim male family member, typically the father, murders his daughter in order to defend the family’s honor, is a growing problem.

While statistics are notoriously hard to come by due to the private nature of such crimes and the fact that very few are reported, the United Nations Population Fund approximates that as many as 5,000 women are murdered in this manner each year worldwide. Undoubtedly that’s a low estimate, as reports from Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories, among other locales, are filtering in at an alarming rate. Add to the list Germany, Sweden, other parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, and it’s clear that young Muslim women in the West are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

While fathers are commonly responsible for honor killings, they often act in concert with their daughters’ brothers, uncles, and even female relatives. For infringements upon a Muslim daughter’s “honor” constitute the greatest humiliation possible to the religious and tribal tradition from which many such immigrant families emerged. Acts that demand “punishment” include refusing to wear a hijab (or headscarf), having non-Muslim boyfriends or male friends of any origin, being sexually active, rejecting arranged marriages, aggressively seeking employment and education, and, more than anything else, attempting to assimilate into Western culture.

As has been amply written in many, many prestigious publications and myriad blogs around the world including this one, and my own the horror of the stories emerging from Muslim societies has shocked the world. What however are we doing, to safeguard our Muslim sisters, what steps has the world at large taken to protest the dehumanization of women in general and Muslim women in particular? What will it take for the world to realize that unless the female half of the world’s population is afforded the same opportunities, whether educational, social, religious, or intellectual, 50% of the world’s resources are being wasted! The result of this situation is merely increased povberty for all of us!