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VOL. 13,DECEMBER, 2009 |
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In Pakistan, this women's rights activist stages plays that stir controversy - and thought
Sheema Kermani is the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan, considered the cultural wing of the women’s rights movement in Pakistan. For 30 years, Ms. Kermani has staged plays in low-income urban and rural communities that touch on taboo topics, including domestic violence, rape, child molestation, the claustrophobic fate of unmarried women, and the importance of education for girls.
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Photo Credit: www.CSMonitor.com
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In Pakistan, this women's rights activist stages plays that stir controversy - and thought |
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Last December, when the theater troupe Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) performed a play about child abuse in Orangi Town – the largest slum in the Pakistani port city of Karachi – it did not expect Muslim clerics to make up the bulk of the audience.
“We were too scared to perform,” says Asma Mundrawala, one of the actors. “But Sheema encouraged us to go on, reminding us that this was the exact audience we were trying to reach.”
Sheema Kermani is the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan, considered the cultural wing of the women’s rights movement in Pakistan.
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Photo Credit: www.CSMonitor.com |
For 30 years, Ms. Kermani has staged plays in low-income urban and rural communities that touch on taboo topics, including domestic violence, rape, child molestation, the claustrophobic fate of unmarried women, and the importance of education for girls.
Given the controversial nature of her plays, Kermani concedes that performing in villages and urban slums across Pakistan “is always a risk,” adding quickly, “but that’s the point.”
During one performance, a religious political party threatened to shoot at the troupe for bringing men and women together on stage. “I was scared for my life,” Kermani says. “But I knew that this was the exact situation in which the show had to go on.” Guns were fired in the air outside the auditorium, but no one was hurt.
Kermani and her plays continue to be relevant in Pakistan today. Kermani’s troupe makes an important argument for change at a time when militants are cracking down on Pakistan’s cultural heritage. “We needed a platform for women’s creative expression.”
Since giving women a public voice with her first play in 1979, Kermani has been acknowledged as in the avant-garde of the Pakistani women’s movement.
“Sheema took up the challenge to resist pressure and revive theater and dance when everything was banned,” says a prominent women’s rights activist. “Art is one of the most powerful ways to take your message to an audience who is uninitiated and get new ideas out there.”
SOURCE:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0608/p47s01-lihc.html
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Baghdad - As one, the stony faces broke into a free-for-all of kisses, hugs and tears on a Monday in November as the 50 women who called themselves the Lioness group became the first female graduates of Iraq’s police officer training academy.
“It’s been my desire since I was a kid to be a police officer, and now I am one,” Lieutenant Alla Nozad Falih, 22, said. “We are proud to be officers, and we encourage other women to be officers because it’s a great job.”
Women have long worked in the lower police ranks here, directing traffic or searching other women at checkpoints, but until now they have been ineligible for the elite officers’ corps. The government changed the rules this year. |
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| Photo Credit: New York Times |
“When we first joined, we were shy about wearing the uniforms, carrying guns and everything,” said First Lt. Farah Hameed, 24. “But right now we are ready to do anything. Even the trainer said, ‘Now I can tell you are real officers by the way you walk.’ ”
SOURCE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html
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"We have opened a small door, but now we need to change the way people think."
In her home country of Morocco, Aicha Ech Channa has been condemned for her work. But Wednesday in Minneapolis, she received praise and the $1 million Opus Prize, which goes to unsung heroes for their faith-based acts of compassion. A former social worker, Ech Channa is the founder of an organization that helps unwed mothers.
In the 1980s, she was working for the Moroccan Ministry of Social Affairs, where unwed mothers came seeking help, even though little help was available. Under Islamic law, the women were considered prostitutes, and many had their babies taken away over their objections.
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| Photo Credit:
Star Tribune |
Considering that unacceptable, Ech Channa launched her program in 1985. It offers women legal counseling, job training and medical and psychological support with a goal of making them self-sufficient so they can raise their children. “I don’t get involved in politics,” she said through an interpreter, “but I do work very hard to get my point of view across.”
SOURCE:
http://www.startribune.com/local/69247237.html
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Woman ventures into a man's world to feed her children
Rising from a village in south west of Syria is a woman who is breaking through social constraints and venturing into a world monopolized by men by opening the first car wash shop run by a female in the country.
With seven children to support, Sheikha al-Shaaban opened her shop by taking a loan offered by a program aimed helping women set up business in impoverished areas such as her village of al-Maal, on the border with Jordan. “We want to make our financial situation better and to liberate ourselves from social norms,” Shaaban says. “Poverty and unemployment are serious problems here.”
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| Photo Credit:
alarabiya.net |
For Shaaban, the shop is her dream come true both financially and socially. “I feel extremely happy now that I am useful to the community and that I am a productive woman. I am also capable of supporting my seven children and this was not easy at all before, especially when my husband did not have a job.”
Shaaban’s ambition does not stop at the car wash shop. She is currently planning to open a bakery.
SOURCE:
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/11/23/92125.html
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Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) launched the Global Campaign to ‘Stop Stoning and Killing Women!’ on 26 November 2007 at Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey. The Campaign seeks to end the relentless mis-use of culture, tradition and religion to justify violence against women.
The Campaign, initiated by a group of activists, lawyers, journalists and academics, aims at providing support to women’s rights advocates and women’s movements to resist those forces which politicize and misuse culture and religion for subjugating women and to abuse of their human rights.
SOURCE:
www.stop-killing.org
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"We CAN End Violence Against Women!"
On November 25th, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) will launch the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, a global project it has coordinated for 19 years from its base at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Each year the campaign, which mobilizes tens of thousands of people around the world, raises awareness of the many forms of violence faced by women from all walks of life, of every economic status, and in every community throughout the world.
This year’s campaign honors groups and individuals who have committed to bringing violence against women to the forefront of global attention, to encouraging everyone in their various capacities to take action to end violence against women, and to demanding accountability for all of the promises made to eliminate such actions.
SOURCES:
http://www.stop-stoning.org/node/775
http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/home.html
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"This grant, we believe, is the first of its kind…"
The Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation (MWSF) is celebrating following a £235k grant awarded by the Football Foundation, the UK’s largest sports charity. The grant will allow the group to embark on the Born to Succeed project - a three year plan aiming to increase the number of black, minority ethnic women in sport.
Chairperson of the MWSF, Rimla Akhtar said: “The fact is that there are many Muslim women in this country who love to play sport and compete - this enthusiasm has been made clear in the work we have carried out so far.”
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| Photo Credit: Middlesex FA |
“This grant will enable the MWSF to build a foundation on which future generations of minority ethnic women can grow and succeed when it comes to sport. It is only the beginning of a much larger effort to develop healthy and confident women and girls in the UK.”
SOURCE:
http://www.middlesexfa.com/News/2009/11/MuslimWomensSportsFoundationScoreWithFootballGrant.htm
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