Happy International Women Day!
I totally support the views that women should be united to fight for equality and fair treatment in life. These are the excerpts from Marina Mahathir and I'd love to share with the readers of this blog:
----------------------
Three young Iraqi women, Wassan Talib, 31, Zainab Fadhil, 25, and Liqa Omar Muhammad,26, were sentenced by an Iraqi court to be executed on charges which are unclear.The Brussels Tribunal has issued a statement against this.It is quite heartbreaking.The execution has been postponed pending an appeal but nobody knows when the appeal is.The three women had no lawyers at all when they were sentenced and are being held in prison where one of them gave birth.
*Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and more than 70 remain missing in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico.A new Special Prosecutor's office to investigate crimes against women has been set up which has reviewed the original investigations.According to Amnesty International,177 state officials were found to have been possibly responsible for negligence or omission in the original investigations. However, none of these officials has been brought to justice by the state authorities as the statute of limitations has been applied in their favour.
At the end of 2006, 17 million women were living with HIV, an increase of 1 million since 2004.According to the Global Coalition of Women against HIV, globally, violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of HIV/AIDS: women facing violence within intimate relationships often cannot negotiate safer sex practices, such as condom use. Rape and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation also spread the virus. In addition to untenable levels of stigma and discrimination from the community, women who test positive for HIV are often subjected to physical abuse from partners and can face eviction from their homes. Further, as a result of such stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, they are prevented from obtaining life-saving medical care and treatment. These issues underscore the concern that women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS is attributed to social roots, not just biological ones. Their subordinate position in many societies can make it impossible for them to protect themselves from HIV.
* And here in Malaysia, it has been over a year since the Islamic Family Law was forcibly passed through Parliament and then immediately sent to the Attorney-General's Chambers for review.Many consultations have been held with many NGOs but to this day, there has been no news on what the result of these consultations have been and what will happen next. As long as the law stays as it is, Muslim women in Malaysia remain at an inferior status to their non-Muslim sisters with regards to their rights in marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance.The fact that this law is retrogressing from earlier days when Malaysia had one of the most advanced laws protecting Muslim women is an indication of the kind of mindset towards women's rights and women in general in our country, despite the Constitutional amendment preventing discrimination on the basis of gender in 2004. The latest fiasco in Selangor concerning a survey of delinquent girls in order to find ways to prevent immorality among girls only serves to show the one-sidedness of official thinking, where the role of boys in this 'immorality' is totally disregarded.Would there be as big an outcry if a study showed that many boys are not virgins either?But it hasn't all been misery. Here and there, there are success stories:
----------------------------
Happy women day!
----------------------
Three young Iraqi women, Wassan Talib, 31, Zainab Fadhil, 25, and Liqa Omar Muhammad,26, were sentenced by an Iraqi court to be executed on charges which are unclear.The Brussels Tribunal has issued a statement against this.It is quite heartbreaking.The execution has been postponed pending an appeal but nobody knows when the appeal is.The three women had no lawyers at all when they were sentenced and are being held in prison where one of them gave birth.
*Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and more than 70 remain missing in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico.A new Special Prosecutor's office to investigate crimes against women has been set up which has reviewed the original investigations.According to Amnesty International,177 state officials were found to have been possibly responsible for negligence or omission in the original investigations. However, none of these officials has been brought to justice by the state authorities as the statute of limitations has been applied in their favour.
At the end of 2006, 17 million women were living with HIV, an increase of 1 million since 2004.According to the Global Coalition of Women against HIV, globally, violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of HIV/AIDS: women facing violence within intimate relationships often cannot negotiate safer sex practices, such as condom use. Rape and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation also spread the virus. In addition to untenable levels of stigma and discrimination from the community, women who test positive for HIV are often subjected to physical abuse from partners and can face eviction from their homes. Further, as a result of such stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, they are prevented from obtaining life-saving medical care and treatment. These issues underscore the concern that women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS is attributed to social roots, not just biological ones. Their subordinate position in many societies can make it impossible for them to protect themselves from HIV.
* And here in Malaysia, it has been over a year since the Islamic Family Law was forcibly passed through Parliament and then immediately sent to the Attorney-General's Chambers for review.Many consultations have been held with many NGOs but to this day, there has been no news on what the result of these consultations have been and what will happen next. As long as the law stays as it is, Muslim women in Malaysia remain at an inferior status to their non-Muslim sisters with regards to their rights in marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance.The fact that this law is retrogressing from earlier days when Malaysia had one of the most advanced laws protecting Muslim women is an indication of the kind of mindset towards women's rights and women in general in our country, despite the Constitutional amendment preventing discrimination on the basis of gender in 2004. The latest fiasco in Selangor concerning a survey of delinquent girls in order to find ways to prevent immorality among girls only serves to show the one-sidedness of official thinking, where the role of boys in this 'immorality' is totally disregarded.Would there be as big an outcry if a study showed that many boys are not virgins either?But it hasn't all been misery. Here and there, there are success stories:
----------------------------
Happy women day!
posted by Rohaya & Taufik at
1:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home