Women Living Under Muslim Laws

Last updated
Women Living Under Muslim Laws
AbbreviationWLUML
Formation1984
Type Non-governmental organization
Legal statusSolidarity network
PurposeResearch and activism
Location
Website www.wluml.org
Formerly called
Action Committee of Women Living Under Muslim Laws

Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) is an international solidarity network established in 1984. It does academic and advocacy work in the fields of women's rights and secularism, focusing on the impact on women of laws inspired by Muslim religion or customs. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Origins

The trigger for the establishment of the network was independent events in various parts of the Muslim world, "in which so-called Islamic laws deprived women of their human rights". Women from Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Mauritius, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Pakistan founded an action committee in 1980 to support women's struggles for their rights on site. This resulted in the network with coordination offices in London, Dakar and Lahore between 1984 and 1986. It does not represent an ideology or uniform point of view. [7]

The network started out as a loose organization with no fixed membership, where individual and groups assumed responsibility for specific initiatives. It attracted women harmed by Muslim laws, whether they are Muslims or not, bringing together religious believers, human rights advocates, secularists and atheists. Until Marieme Helie Lucas retired as international coordinator in the late 1990s, it remained a fluid organization without clearly defined staff positions. [8]

Research and current work

The network coordinates research exploring the mechanism by which laws affecting women borrow from cultural practices and colonial laws in addition to religious dogma, to eliminate progressive laws and restrict women's freedom. It also facilitates communication between women's groups across Africa and Asia, sharing success stories and helping to coordinate international actions. [8] [4] It conducted studies and advocated on issues such as forced marriage of girls and stoning. [9] [10] The group's research on the impact of Muslim family law led to the founding of the Musawah campaign in 2009. [11]

Some governments look unfavorably upon the group's work. Collaboration with Women Living Under Muslim Laws was mentioned as a motive for the 2016 arrest of both Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Homa Hoodfar by Iranian authorities. [2] [12] [13] Since 1986, the organization has published the journal Dossier ( ISSN   1560-9677). [14] [15] : 102  The purpose of the journal is to analyse and publicise issues which impact Muslim women under both secular and religious regimes, by telling women's stories. [15] : 99  Reviewer Pragna Patel, called the journal "invaluable", [15] : 97  because of the quality of information regarding human rights and recognition of the variances in women's experiences in different Muslim societies. [15] : 100 

See also

Related Research Articles

Within the Muslim world, sentiment towards LGBT people varies and has varied between societies and individual Muslims, but is contemporarily quite negative. While colloquial, and in many cases, de facto official acceptance of at least some homosexual behavior was commonplace in pre-modern periods, later developments, starting from the 19th-century, have created a generally hostile environment for LGBT people. Most Muslim-majority countries have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights and recognition at the United Nations (UN), including within the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hijab</span> Islamic head covering for women

In modern usage, hijab generally refers to various head coverings conventionally worn by many Muslim women. It is similar to the tichel or snood worn by Orthodox Jewish women, certain headcoverings worn by some Christian women, such as the mantilla, apostolnik and wimple, and the dupatta worn by many Hindu and Sikh women. Whilst a hijab can come in many forms, it often specifically refers to a scarf wrapped around the head, covering the hair, neck and ears but leaving the face visible. The use of the hijab has been on the rise worldwide since the 1970s and is viewed by many Muslims as expressing modesty and faith; it has also been worn for purposes of adornment. There is a consensus among Islamic religious scholars that covering the head is either required or preferred, though some Muslim scholars and activists point out that it is not mandated.

There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors.

Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate for women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized secular, Western, or otherwise non-Muslim feminist discourses, and have recognized the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.

India since its independence in 1947 has been a secular state. The secular values were enshrined in the constitution of India. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Law Minister B.R Ambedkar are credited with the formation of secular values in the modern history of the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic scarf controversy in France</span> Controversy over wearing of the hijab in France

In France, there is an ongoing social, political, and legal debate concerning the wearing of the hijab and other forms of Islamic coverings in public. The cultural framework of the controversy can be traced to France's history of colonization in North Africa, but escalated into a significant public debate in 1989 when three girls were suspended from school for refusing to remove their headscarves. That incident, referred to in France as l'affaire du foulard or l'affaire du voile, initially focused the controversy on the wearing of the hijab in French public schools. Because of the wide-ranging social debates caused by the controversy, l'affaire du foulard has been compared to the Dreyfus affair in its impact on French culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryam Namazie</span> Iranian human rights activist, broadcaster

Maryam Namazie is a British-Iranian secularist, communist and human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster. She is the Spokesperson for Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation, One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She is known for speaking out against Islam and Islamism and defending the right to apostasy and blasphemy.

Diya in Islamic law, is the financial compensation paid to the victim or heirs of a victim in the cases of murder, bodily harm or property damage by mistake. It is an alternative punishment to qisas. In Arabic, the word means both blood money and ransom, and it is spelled sometimes as diyah or diyeh.

Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stoning</span> Method of capital punishment

Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient history.

The Simone de Beauvoir Prize is an international human rights prize for women's freedom, awarded since 2008 to individuals or groups fighting for gender equality and opposing breaches of human rights. It is named after the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, known for her 1949 women's rights treatise The Second Sex.

Honour killings in Pakistan are known locally as karo-kari. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, over 470 cases of honour killings were reported in Pakistan in 2021. But human rights defenders estimate that around 1,000 women are killed in the name of honour every year. An honour killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the belief the victim has brought dishonour upon the family or community. The death of the victim is viewed as a way to restore the reputation and honour of the family.

The French ban on face covering is the result of an act of parliament passed in 2010 banning the wearing of face-covering headgear, including masks, helmets, balaclavas, niqābs and other veils covering the face, and full body costumes and zentais in public places, except under specified circumstances. This ban does not apply to the hijab, as it does not cover the face. The ban does apply to the burqa, a full-body covering, if it covers the face. In April 2011, France became the first European country to impose a ban on full-face veils in public areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sister-hood</span>

sister-hood is an international platform for the voices of women of Muslim heritage founded in 2007 by Norwegian, film-maker and human rights activist Deeyah Khan through her media and arts production company Fuuse.

Sharia means Islamic law based on age-old concepts. Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farida Shaheed</span> Pakistani sociologist and activist

Farida Shaheed is a Pakistani sociologist and feminist human rights activist. In 2012, she was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, while she held that role in the field of education from 2022. She heads the Shirkat Gah women's resource centre in Pakistan, and is known for her extensive work on gender and class analysis, both in Pakistan and more globally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marieme Helie Lucas</span> Algerian sociologist and human rights activist

Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist as well as an activist for women's rights and secularism. She occupied leadership positions in human rights groups starting in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Najma Kousri</span> Tunisian lawyer, journalist and feminist

Najma Kousri is a Tunisian feminist and LGBT-rights activist. Kousri is a co-founder of the #EnaZeda movement and a co-ordinator of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women. She is a campaigner for LGBT rights and her photographic project documenting the lives of same-sex couples went viral in 2017.

Cassandra Marlin Balchin was a British journalist and women's rights campaigner.

References

  1. ↑ Nuhiya Ahmed, Tasmiah (February 18, 2018). "How fundamentalists treat women". Dhaka Tribune. Archived from the original on March 15, 2019. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  2. 1 2 Dehghanpisheh, Babak; Torbati, Yegaheh (July 18, 2016). "Arrest of several dual-national Iranians could be politically motivated". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  3. ↑ "Sisters in Islam's Zainah Anwar among 10 most influential Muslim women". The Star. December 31, 2013. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Who we are and our aims". Secularism is a Women’s Issue. March 28, 2007. Archived from the original on March 24, 2019. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
  5. ↑ "About WLUML". WLUML. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  6. ↑ Lucas, Marieme Helie (March 29, 2016). "Femmes sous lois musulmanes : Contre l'intégrisme, les femmes laïques s'organisent dans un réseau non confessionnel". Presse-toi à gauche! (in French). Retrieved June 3, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Kultur". www.goethe.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  8. 1 2 Jacobson, Scott (March 31, 2017). "An Interview with Marieme Helie Lucas – Activist & Founder of Secularism is a Women's Issue". Conatus News. Archived from the original on March 15, 2019. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  9. ↑ McCoy, Terrence (May 28, 2014). "In Pakistan, 1,000 women die in 'honor killings' annually. Why is this happening?". Washington Post. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  10. ↑ Alexander, Chris (August 31, 2016). "Taking action against forced marriage". National Post. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  11. ↑ Balchin, Cassandra (December 18, 2009). "Last but not least: CEDAW and family law". Open Democracy. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  12. ↑ Erdbrink, Thomas (June 15, 2019). "Iran Accuses Thomson Reuters Charity Official of Sedition". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Iran. Des défenseurs des droits des femmes traités comme des "ennemis de l'État"". Amnesty International (in French). August 10, 2016. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Dossier 1". Dossier. Combaillaux, France: Women Living Under Muslim Laws. 1. February 1986. ISSN   1560-9677 . Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Patel, Pragna (Spring 1991). "Review: Alert for Action, Women Living under Muslim Laws Dossiers 1-6". Feminist Review . Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publishing (37): 95–102. doi:10.1057/fr.1991.8. ISSN   0141-7789. OCLC   4824829583 . Retrieved 16 March 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.