Made in Bangladesh: American ad with topless model causes outrage : 'distasteful' US practice

In a bid to send out a strong social message, an American company, American Apparel, has ended up being uncomfortably offensive instead. The ad features a topless South Asian woman with the phrase, "Made in Bangladesh" stamped across her chest. The phrase is meant to signify the woman, and not the jeans she is wearing, reported the Daily Mail. The message is intended as a nod to American Apparel's fair labour practices: the woman in the billboard, identified as Maks, is an American designer of Bangladeshi descent who works for AA.

 The American Apparel ad

The statement from American Apparel introducing its ad campaign reads as follows: “[Maks] is a merchandiser who has been with American Apparel since 2010. Born in Dhaka, the capitol of Bangladesh, Maks vividly remembers attending mosque as a child alongside her conservative Muslim parents. At age four, her family made a life changing move to Marina Del Rey, California. Although she suddenly found herself a world away from Dhaka, she continued following her parent's religious traditions and sustained her Islamic faith throughout her childhood. Upon entering high school, Maks began to feel the need to forge her own identity and ultimately distanced herself from Islamic traditions. A woman continuously in search of new creative outlets, Maks unreservedly embraced this photo shoot.

She has found some elements of Southern California culture to be immediately appealing, but is striving to explore what lies beyond the city's superficial pleasures. She doesn't feel the need to identify herself as an American or a Bengali and is not content to fit her life into anyone else's conventional narrative. That's what makes her essential to the mosaic that is Los Angeles, and unequivocally, a distinct figure in the ever expanding American Apparel family. Maks was photographed in the High Waist Jean, a garment manufactured by 23 skilled American workers in Downtown Los Angeles, all of whom are paid a fair wage and have access to basic benefits such as healthcare.”

The ad has, however, attracted heavy flak with critics slamming it as a 'distasteful' way of using Maks' body to sell clothes. They argue AA exploited a Bangladeshi woman's body in an  ad allegedly critiquing  exploitation of  garment workers in countries like Bangladesh. Company CEO Dov Charney has taken a strong and vocal stand against the dangerous conditions that prevail inside these factories. "In Bangladesh, the problem with these factories is that they’re only given contracts on a seasonal or order-by-order basis," Charney told the LA Times. "There’s so much pressure to perform, some of the working conditions are outrageous, almost unbelievable. It has completely stripped the human element from the brands … It’s such a blind, desensitized way of making clothing."

Shaher Bano Shahdady killed by Islamist Husband

Shaher Bano Shahdady, 21, had no idea Facebook would cost her her life when she was married against her wishes three years ago.The Canadian mother of a two-year-old son was found dead in her Scarborough apartment Friday evening while the toddler played in the home.News reports said the alleged killer, her estranged husband Abdul Malik Rustam, 27, had beaten her to death sometime Thursday then left her body to rot inside her Eglinton Ave. E apartment.Shahdady’s body was discovered by her father around 5:00 p.m. Friday. Rustam surrendered to police Saturday morning and was charged with first-degree murder.

Sources in Canada, who knew about the incident, said the girl's father, a Muslim missionary named Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, had got her married against her wishes to Rustam, a Muslim missionary like himself from Karachi, Pakistan.

Shadady's use of Facebook is said to have annoyed Rustam, while their relationship was dysfunctional since day one. Rustam was unlettered but Shahdady went to school in Toronto. Mullah Ghafoor became a born-again Muslim after arriving in Canada. He used to help ethnic Baloch immigrants from southwest Asia as an interpreter in court hearings.“Mullah Ghafoor was here in Vancouver many years ago. He said he will visit me only if I go with him to the mosque,” Frank Baloch, a Balochistan liberation activist based in Vancouver, recalled on phone Wednesday evening. "I declined," he said.

Commenting on a story in Greenwich Diva, Umair Baloshi said Tuesday, “Hang till death Abdul Malik Rustum.... he is killer of our sweet Bano.” Another commentator who used the acronym “freedom” said, “Yes death is what he deserves. He is crazy and took our innocent Bano from us.”

Bubbli Baloch, who described Shahdady as “my sweet sister” said Bano went thru many hard times raising a child who had heart problems and then to be killed by an unloving husband. “Bano’s murderer should be hung to death ... We need justice for Bano.”

When contacted, activists of Baloch Human Rights Council of Toronto dismissed as untrue rumors that the alleged killer was a member of their organization. However, some B.H.R.C. members were in touch with both Rustam and the victim's father.

2002 and 2010, Canada experienced 13 cases of honour-based murders

Ravinder Kaur Bhangu was hacked to death, allegedly by her husband, at the newspaper where she worked

Abdul Malik Rustam had only been in Canada for only two months before his wife, Shaher Bano Shahdady, rented a Toronto apartment of her own. Around midnight on July 22, 2011. police say, Mr. Rustam found his way in and strangled her. Neighbours reported hearing a child’s screams for 15 minutes, and then silence. Ms. Shahdady’s father discovered her body the next day. According to Toronto police, the couple’s 2-year-old son had been left alone with Ms. Shahdady’s body for more than 12 hours.

Six days later, in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, 24-year-old Ravinder Bhangu was seated at her desk at Sach Di Awaaz, a Punjabi-English newspaper. Just before 11 a.m., Ms. Bhangu’s estranged husband, Sunny Bhangu, allegedly strode through the door with an axe and drove it into Ms. Bhangu as she was attempting to flee, screaming “Save me! Save me!” News photographer Narinder Nayar jumped in to intervene, but was fought off with a meat cleaver, suffering light injuries. Ms. Bhangu “died on the spot,” said a witness.

In both cases, sources within Canada’s South Asian communities fear the murders carry the distinctive marks of honour killings. In both cases, the husbands turned themselves into police and have been charged with first-degree murder.

Honour killings are different from standard cases of domestic violence in that the killings are carried out in order to “cleanse” a family name of perceived dishonour. The practice remains relatively rare in Canada, although experts agree there is an “upward trend” in Canadian instances of honour-based violence. Between 2002 and 2010, Canada experienced 13 cases of honour-based murders, according to a 2010 report for the federal government by Amin Muhammad, a psychiatrist at Memorial University in St. John’s, N.L.

Ms. Shahdady was raised in Canada, but in her late teens was sent to Pakistan by her father. At 18, she was wedded to Mr. Rustam in an arranged marriage. Due to complications in a subsequent pregnancy, she came back to Canada to give birth. Medical problems with her son compelled her to stay in Canada for another year so he could receive a heart transplant. In May, Ms. Shahdady sponsored her husband to immigrate to Canada.

Community members report that Ms. Shahdady was initially happy with her husband’s arrival, but the two quickly began to clash. “She saw her friends in the community going to college, university, getting good jobs – and that’s the kind of independent life she wanted for herself and for her child,” says Zaffar Baloch, a friend of the family, which comes from the Baloch region of Pakistan. “This husband, people say he was against her going to school.”

Mr. Rustam was also reportedly irked by Ms. Shahdady’s use of Facebook, where, under a pen name, she was an administrator for a page on Baloch culture.

On July 1, 2011  Ms. Shahdady moved out of her parents’ house and into a Scarborough apartment. “She wanted nothing to do with her husband,” says Mr. Baloch.

Immediately following the murder, Mr. Baloch and others gathered at the home of Ms. Shahdady’s father, Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, when the police arrived looking to interview him and search the room previously shared by Ms. Shahdady, 21, and Mr. Rustam, 27.

It is “possible” Ms. Shahdady’s murder was an honour killing, says Mr. Baloch, president of the Baloch Human Rights Council of Canada. “But there is still much we don’t know … for instance, we don’t know anything about her husband,” he says.

Not much is known about Ms. Shahdady or her sisters, either. “Because of her father’s religious beliefs, the family was very much secluded from large gatherings,” he says.

Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, last week called Ms. Shahdady’s murder an “honour killing of the worst sort.” “She had thrown off her burkha, and through social assistance got this new apartment and custody of her child,” says Mr. Fatah.

Like Ms. Shahdady, Ms. Bhangu had been separated from her husband.

She had told friends of marital problems and moved in with her aunt two or three months ago, according to several friends who spoke with the Vancouver Sun. “You can say that it was an honour killing,” journalist Sukhminder Cheema, who spoke to witnesses after the killing, told the Vancouver Province.

The alleged murderer was on site when police arrived on the scene. He made “no attempt to flee” said a witness.

“She never used to talk too much. One day I said, ‘Why did you move to your auntie’s house?’ and she cried, but didn’t say much to me. I didn’t find myself very comfortable to ask further,” Baljinder Gill, a good friend of Bhangu’s, told Postmedia.

Together with Ms. Gill, Ms. Bhangu taught folk dancing classes at Surrey’s Shan-E-Punjab Arts Club. “It’s going to be a big shock for those kids,” Ms. Gill told Postmedia through tears. “I don’t know how we’re going to tell them.” Following the breakup of her marriage, Ms. Bhangu had reportedly been laying plans to return to India.

Last July, 2011  Minister for the Status of Women of Canada , Rona Ambrose announced a plan to introduce an honour killing-specific amendment to the Criminal Code. The suggestion was quickly shot down by the Justice Department. “An intentional killing is murder, regardless of the motive,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Pamela Stephens at the time.

The most recent edition of Discover Canada, a federal government guide issued to all new Canadian immigrants, is harsh in its condemnation of culturally sanctioned domestic violence. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence,” it reads.

On International Women’s Day remember Bano Shahdady- who threw away her Burka

She threw away her Burka, only to be killed by her husband disguised in a Burka

The story no newspaper wishes to tell

By John Goddard
TORONTO—When her baby got a heart transplant at Sick Children’s Hospital, Bano Shahdady threw away her burqa.
At twenty years old, after years of religious training, she also decided to return to public high school. With help from her son’s doctors and a social worker, she arranged to rent an apartment to leave her parents and husband.
It was there, two weeks after she moved in, that police found her strangled to death, her son left alone with the body for 15 hours, murdered by a man hiding his identity behind a burka.
On Wednesday, the husband Abdul Malik Rustam was sentenced to life in prison for the murder with no chance of parole for 17 years.
“A woman has an absolute right to end any relationship,” Judge John McMahon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice told the court. He said that Rustam planned the attack, disguised himself in a burqa to gain access to the apartment, and justified his actions to police. The judge also said that the victim’s father forgave Rustam and pleaded for mercy in court on his behalf, without once mentioning the loss of his daughter.
Honour Killing
The facts, as the judge outlined them, pointed to an “honour killing,” a crime distinct from other murders because its motive is to cleanse perceived family dishonour caused by a wife’s or daughter’s behaviour. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate… ‘honour killings,’” says the federal Discover Canada guide issued to new immigrants.
But the judge never said the two key words.
“Man gets life sentence for murdering wife,” read the Toronto Star’s headline, relegating the crime to a domestic abuse case.
The Toronto Sun went with, “Man who wore ‘burka’ sentenced in estranged wife’s killing.” Not a single other Canadian news outlet reported the story.
Bano Shahdady deserves better. Not only did she fight her attacker — by clawing at him and surviving his strangulation attempts for a full 30 minutes — but she also fought the Islamist social ideology that had kept her a vassal in her own home.
This is the story nobody else will tell.
Eleven days after Bano’s death in July 2011, a relative and a family friend, both of them men, spent two hours telling it to me. Both asked that their names not be used, saying that they could not officially speak for the family. Further information comes from an “agreed statement of facts” that Judge McMahon read aloud at the sentencing.
When she was 18 months old, Bano came to Toronto from Pakistan with her parents, the relative said. They settled in Scarborough, where her father joined the Islamist movement Tabligi Jamaat, meaning “Proselytizing Group.” He took a religious title, calling himself Mullah Abdul Ghafoor.
Harry Potter
“She was very bright,” the relative said of Bano. “I remember her reading a thick Harry Potter book. She said, ‘Go to any page and read the first two sentences and I will tell you the rest.’ I thought she was bluffing. I went to page 20 and read the first two lines, and she told me the rest.”
When Bano was 13 or 14, her father pulled her out of her Canadian school and enrolled her in a Muslim religious school in Karachi, Pakistan. When she turned 17, he arranged for her to marry her first cousin, an illiterate tailor, who was 25. Almost right away, Bano got pregnant and quit school. She returned to Canada to have the baby at a Canadian hospital.
“When she came back she was completely indoctrinated and completely covered,” the relative said. “You could not see her face. She wasn’t allowed to talk.”
Heart transplant
In August 2009 Bano’s son was born with a heart defect and a few months later underwent a transplant.
“It was very emotional,” the relative recalled. “We were all waiting in the waiting room when the doctor said the heart was coming. The government sent a plane to Arizona, got the heart, returned to Pearson, and a helicopter was bringing it to Sick Kids’.
“I was crying,” he said. “Here was a Muslim family that believed that Muslims are supreme, and everybody else will go to hell because they are not Muslim, and some Christians in Arizona are giving them their child’s heart.
“They phoned to see if everything was all right,” he said. “In the Muslim world, nobody gives a heart to anybody.”
After the operation, Bano visibly changed.
Throws Burka and Hijab
“She opened up,” the relative said. “She threw away her burqa. For a while she wore the hijab, then she threw away the hijab. She joined Facebook and organized a website called Balouch Entertainment. She was openly showing her reaction against the mullahs and fanaticism.”
In March 2011 husband Abdul Malik Rustam arrived in Canada as a landed immigrant and saw his son for the first time. He moved in with Bano and the boy in Bano’s parents’ basement. By then, the relative said, Bano wanted to move out.
“She said she wanted a divorce,” Judge McMahon said picking up the story.
Bano went on social assistance and on July 1, 2011, rented an apartment on Eglinton Ave. E. After fixing it up, she moved in.
Two weeks later, on July 22, shortly after 1 a.m., Rustam arrived at her building “planning to cause her harm,” the judge said. “Security video showed him dressed in a full burqa, only his eyes showing, and wearing female white wedge shoes.”
Rustam got off at the sixth floor. Still wearing the burqa, he tilted up the security camera pointing at his estranged wife’s door and knocked. Bano let him in. Within minutes the downstairs neighbour, who was awake texting, heard furniture scraping the floor and muffled screams, as though the screamer had a hand over the mouth. After 30 minutes the noises stopped.
The autopsy showed cuts and bruises around the face, neck, clavicle and upper back. Whether Rustam strangled her with a scarf, or a soft belt, or while wearing gloves, or with his bare hands could not determined. He left the body on the bathroom floor and his two-year-old son screaming in the living room. The strangulation had taken place in front of him. On his way out Rustam broke a heel and had to carry the shoes, still wearing the burka. “He did not panic,” the judge said.
Morning prayers in Mosque after Midnight Murder
Rustam went home to his in-laws’ basement. At 4:30 a.m. he got up with his father-in-law to attend morning prayers at the mosque, then went to work. When somebody asked why his face was badly scratched, he said he got into a fight with “some black guy.”
Later that day, when his brother asked about the scratches, Rustam replied, “I finished her by the throat.” The brother understood. At about 5 p.m., more than 15 hours after the murder, the in-laws rescued the boy and Rustam went to the police at 43 Division.
“He said he killed his wife and had justification for his actions,” the judge said without elaborating. Police charged Rustam with first-degree murder. Ten days before the trial, the judge accepted a guilty plea to second-degree murder of the young woman who once delighted in Harry Potter stories.

TORONTO — A Muslim man who wore a traditional woman’s burka and female shoes before he strangled his estranged wife was sentenced Wednesday to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 17 years, a judge ruled.

Justice John McMahon passed the sentence for second-degree murder against Abdul Malik Rustam, who admitted he donned the headdress -- which disguised his face -- and wedge shoes when he killed his wife, Shaher Bano Shahdady, after she asked for a divorce.

The murder occurred in her Scarborough, Ont. apartment and Rustam left their almost two-year-old son abandoned for 15 hours before Shahdady’s body was discovered.

“The accused demonstrated an exceptionally callous disregard for that young child’s well being,” said McMahon. “It’s hard to fathom what that child went through. The only glimmer of hope is that he’s so young it will fade into the child’s memory.”

Rustam, now 30, pleaded guilty on Valentine’s Day to second-degree murder in the July 22, 2011, slaying.

Shahdady fought for her life, leaving scratch marks on Rustam’s face and neck and keeping his DNA underneath her fingernails, court heard. On the day of the murder, Rustam confessed to his brother he “finished her by the throat.”

A History of International Women's Day: "We Want Bread and Roses Too" from Womankind (March 1972.)

(Editor's note: This is a historical look at the origins of International Women's Day in the USA and how it spread throughout the world.)
International Women's Day, a holiday celebrated world wide, honors working women and women’s struggle everywhere.

 Taught that women's place in history is relatively undistinguished, it should be a real source of pride and inspiration to American women to know that International Women's Day originated in honor of two all women strikes which took place in the U.S.

On March 8, 1857, garment workers in New York City marched and picketed, demanding improved working conditions, a ten hour day, and equal rights for women. Their ranks were broken up by the police. Fifty-one years later, March 8, 1908, their sisters in the needle trades in New York marched again, honoring the 1857 march, demanding the vote, and an end to sweatshops and child labor. The police were present on this occasion too.

In 1910 at the Second International, a world wide socialist party congress, German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed that March 8th be proclaimed International Women's Day, to commemorate the US demonstrations and honor working women the wor ld over. Zetkin, a renowned revolutionary theoretician who argued with Lenin on women's rights, was considered a grave threat to the European governments of her time; the Kaiser called her “the most dangerous sorceress in the empire."

The labor struggle in the US is an exciting one, but it traditionally concentrates on men. A little examination shows that women carried their weight and their share from the beginning, both supporting the men’s organizing and quite soon, after realizing that women's needs were ignored in the existing unions, forming women's caucuses or all women's unions. The first all women strikes took place in the 1820's in the New England tailoring trades. The idea of women striking and demanding better conditions, decent wages, and shorter hours, apparently provided great amusement to the townsfolk of the peaceful mill towns. It would be interesting to know how our sisters a century and a half ago felt about not having their lives and aspirations taken seriously.

The most famous of the early strikes took place at the Lowell cotton mills in Massachusetts. Here young women worked eighty-one hours a week for three dollars, one and a quarter of which went for room and board at the Lowell company boarding houses. The factories originally opened at 7 am, but fore men,noticing that women were less "energetic" if they ate before working, changed the opening hour to 5 am., with a breakfast break at 7 a.m. (for one-half hour). In 1834, after several wage cuts, the Lowell women walked out, only to return several days later at the reduced rates. They were courageous but the company had the power; a poor record or a disciplinary action could lead to blacklisting. In 1836 they walked out again, singing through the streets of the town:


Oh, isn't it a pity such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die.

Again they returned to work within a few days. In l844 serious organizing led to the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association. Their prime demand was the ten hour day. The leadership and activity of this union is credited with initiating some of the earliest reforms in the conditions of the textile industries.

In the period of intense labor activity following the Civil War, when widowhood and general hard times forced thousands of women into the labor force, thus causing panic and hostility on the part of men, women found themselves excluded from most of the national trade uniqns. So they formed their own, including the Daughters of St. Crispin, a union of women shoemakers. During this era unions were formed by woman cigar makers, umbrella sewers, and printers, as well as tailoresses and laundresses.

The clothing workers formed some of the most famous unions in U.S. history, notably the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, founded about 1900. The garment trade shops in the big cities, such as New York, were deplorable. Fire hazards were rife, light was scant, the sound of machinery deafening, the environment polluted. Women were fined for virtually anything - talking, laughing, singing, machine oil stains on the fabric, stitches too large or too small. Overtime was constant and required, but pay for it was not. With the support of the National Women's Trade Union League, founded in 1903 - a combination of working women and middle-class, often professional women who supported the working women's struggle - the shirtwaist makers launched a series of strikes against Leiserson and Company and Triangle Waist Company, two of the most notorious shops in New York. Called the "Uprising of the 20,000", these actions culminated in the first long-term general strike by women, putting to death tne tiresome arguments that they were unable to organize and carry out a long hard struggle.

For thirteen weeks in the bitter dead of winter, women between 16 and 25 years of age picketed daily, and daily were clubbed by police and carried off in "Black Maria" police vans. The courts were biased in favor of the sweatshop owners; one magistrate charged a striker, "You are on strike against God and Nature, whose prime law it is that man shall earn his bread in the sweat of his brow. You are on strike against God." This elicited a cablegram from George Bernard Shaw, who with other Europeans was following the course of U.S. labor history. He wrote: "Delightful. Medieval America always in intimate personal confidence of the Almighty."

The strike was ultimately broken, as settlements were made shop by shop, but the talent and endurance of the women made it impossible for people to go on claiming that labor organizing was for men only. One year after the strike was broken the infamous Triangle fire occurred. Trapping women on the upper floors (the fire doors had been bolted from the outside to prevent walkouts by the workers) the fire took l46 lives, most of the women between the ages of 13 and 25, most of them recent emigrants to the U.S.

The employers were tried; one was fined $20. A settlement was made to the families of the dead women for $75 per death. Rose Schneiderman, a Garment Workers organizer, berated the community for supporting the law and institutions that made such tragedies possible. "I know from my own experience that it is up to the working people to save themselves," she proclaimed. "The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."

This has been but a fraction of the history of American working women; part of this fraction was enough to inspire an International holiday. Russia first celebrated March 8 after the Revolution; it is not often recognized that one of the major sparks of the Russian Revolution was a mass strike in 1917 by Russian women textile workers. Chinese women began celebrating in l924, paralleling a strong women's movement in the Chinese Communist party. When the women’s liberation movement began in the U.S. and Britain, Women's Day was rediscovered and revived as a feminist holiday. In 1970 the revolutionary Uraguayan Tupamaros celebrated March 8 by freeing 13 women prisoners from Uraguay's jails.

The story of American working women is often tokenly recognized by referring to great heroines of the movement Mother Jones, Ella Reeve Bloor, Kate Mullaney, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. These were remarkable women and so were their stories. A good cure for depression is to read a chapter of Flynn's autobiography or reread the account of Mother Jones terrorizing scabs and participating in the 1919 steel strike at the age of 90. But it should not be forgotten that these were individual women, and that the bulk of the' organizing, struggling, as well as succeeding and failing, was done by ordinary women whom we willnever know. These were women who, realized the tactical necessity of standing and working together lest they be destroyed individually, women who put to shame the ridiculous theories of "woman's place'," women who in the famous Lawrence textile strike carried picket signs reading "We want Bread and Roses, too", symbolizing their demands for not only a living wage but a decent and human life, and so inspired James Oppenheim’s song "Bread and Roses"

As we come marching, marching,in the beauty of, the day
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing, Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the, rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler that toil where one reposes
But a sharing of life's glories, Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses


partial list of sources

Centuries of Struggle Eleanor Flexner, Atheneum Publishers

I Speak My Own Piece - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Masses and Mainstream Publishers

Labor's Untold Story - Richard 0. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais
Published by United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
When Workers Organize - Melvyn Dubofsky, University of Mass. Press

Equality for women and girls truly is progress for all:Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin

As we commemorate International Women's Day and celebrate the many achievements of women and girls, we should also remember that for far too many, the ability to live a healthy, productive life free from violence, to fully enjoy their rights, remains an aspiration. So today is also a time to recommit ourselves to delivering once and for all on the promise of gender equality, women's empowerment and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all women and girls everywhere.

Great progress has been achieved over the past two decades in a number of areas. Fewer women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, we have reduced maternal mortality by nearly 50 percent. Women's access to family planning and antenatal care has also improved.

More women have access to education, work and political participation. More girls are going to school, with primary enrolment rates approaching 90 percent. This has positive implications for other aspects of their lives and is, in fact, good for all of us, men included. Educated women and girls can make informed decisions about their health and lives. They can claim their rights and contribute more fully to their families and communities. When they are in leadership roles, they can work more effectively to promote sustainable development, peace and good governance.

Yet women and girls continue to face human rights violations, including violence and harmful practices. Laws designed to protect their rights, where they exist, are often not enforced. One in 3 women is subjected to violence over the course of her lifetime, often by someone she knows. Millions of girls around the world still face the risk of genital mutilation/cutting, despite a century of efforts to put an end to it. Every day, 20,000 girls below age 18 give birth in developing countries. Nine in 10 of these births occur within marriage or union, which reflects the fact that the percentage of girls being married off before they turn 18 has not changed much in recent years.

As we chart the development path ahead, let us look to the foundation laid 20 years ago in Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development, which recognized that empowering women and girls was both the right thing to do and the key to improved well-being for all – a message echoed a year later by world leaders in Beijing.

The comprehensive ICPD@20 global review recently led by UNFPA points to enormous development gains over the past two decades. But it also reveals that persistent inequalities and discrimination continue to undermine the human rights of far too women and girls. These inequalities, if not addressed, threaten to derail development. That is why, as we build a new sustainable development framework, it is so critical that we put the most marginalized and vulnerable women and girls at its center.

On this International Women's Day, it's time to make good on our promise to the world's women and girls. UNFPA is firmly committed to helping realize gender equality, women's empowerment and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, with an emphasis on the most marginalized, particularly adolescent girls.

Equality for women and girls truly is progress for all and the key to a more sustainable future.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNFPA Executive Director

Qur’an or Sunnah did never demand women wear the hijab or cover their hair- Arab Islamic Scholar

Aug 14th, 2006, 01:14 PM
Daily Times [13th August] has a story stating that the veil as worn by most muslim women today is not required by Islam. I have limited religious knowledge so I am confused. Surely, so many of the Muslim women wearing the hijab must have some justification for it? Can anyone pls help me out.

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A leading Arab Islamic scholar has said that neither the Qur’an nor the authentic Sunnah demand that women wear the hijab or cover their hair. 

“There is no specific verse that obliges women to wear headscarves, but you find verses setting the broad lines for public modesty or decency,” according to Gamal El-Banna, brother of Hasan El-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. (Muslim brotherhood followers support extremism and terrorism).

Writing in the magazine Egypt Today, El-Banna lays to rest the controversy over the increasing use of hijab by explaining that there is no Quranic authority or injunction for donning the hijab. He writes, “The Qur’an states: ‘And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent and to draw their veils over the bosoms (24:31).’ If the Qur’an wanted to oblige women to cover their hair, it would have stated it very clearly. Why would the Qur’an resort to expressions that have a variety of interpretations? The fact is that the Qur’an can be understood directly without resorting to interpretation if it couldn’t, we would have clergy to lead us.” 

In his book al-Hijab, El-Banna declares that the veil is not an Islamic tradition, but a pre-Islamic one. He bases this view on the research he has completed on the Arab world prior to the advent of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). In those days, he says, Arab women covered their heads and left the upper parts of their chest uncovered. He concludes that the Quranic verse commands women to cover their chests, not their heads. 

According to El-Banna, the Prophet (PBUH) improved the status of women as much as he could given his cultural milieu. He also opened the door for further aspects of emancipation. However, the Arab society was reluctant to tolerate this new reality, so many of them started to make up ahadith that would maintain the status quo. Similarly, El-Banna says, there is no religious foundation that prevents women running for any elected office, including the presidency. 

El-Banna dismisses accusations that he is calling on the faithful to abandon the Sunnah, but insists that the orally transmitted traditions of the Prophet (PBUH) are less binding on Muslims than the Qur’an itself. “We cannot deny the Sunnah, even though it has been proven that most of the sayings attributed to the Prophet (PBUH) have been made up, were narrated in other people’s words or were transmitted inaccurately. This does not mean that there are no true sayings that set many Islamic fundamental principles; what it does mean is that it’s high time to study the Sunnah in a different way,” El-Banna says.

PS: I am new here. I tried searching for it but found nothing. So if it's been discussed before, pls point me to it. 

Thanx.
http://www.paklinks.com/gs/religion-and-scripture/227152-wearing-of-hijab-not-required-by-quran-egyptian-scholar.html

Niqab: "Using the language of tolerance to justify oppressive practices is a grotesque perversion of liberalism"

by TarekFatah • October 24, 2006 •

“…using the language of tolerance to justify oppressive practices is a grotesque perversion of liberalism. The veiling debate is a case in point. No amount of rhetorical sleight of hand can disguise the fact that the full-face veil makes women, literally, faceless. Some Muslim women in the West may choose this garb (which is not mandated in the Koran), but their explanations often reveal an internalized misogynistic view of women as creatures whose very existence is a sexual provocation to men. What’s more, their choice helps legitimize a custom that is imposed on millions of women around the world who have no choice.”

October 23, 2006

Women and Islam

By Cathy Young
The Boston Globe

BRITAIN HAS been in turmoil over veils in recent days, after a school in Yorkshire suspended a Muslim teacher’s assistant for wearing “niqab” — a form of the traditional veil that leaves only a slit for the eyes. Further stoking the flames, House of Commons leader Jack Straw revealed that in meetings with constituents, he had asked niqab-wearing women to remove their veils for better face-to-face interaction.

The niqab controversy has focused on thorny questions of cultural integration and religious tolerance in Europe. However, it is also a debate about women and Islam.

For Westerners, the veil has long been a symbol of the oppression of women in the Islamic world. Today, quite a few Muslims regard it as a symbol of cultural and religious self-assertion and reject the idea that Muslim women are downtrodden. In our multicultural age, many liberals are reluctant to criticize the subjugation of women in Muslim countries and Muslim immigrant communities, fearful of promoting the notion of Western superiority. At the other extreme, some critics have used the plight of Muslim women to suggest that Islam is inherently evil and even to bash Muslims.

Recently, these tensions turned into a nasty academic controversy in the United States, as the Chronicle of Higher Education has reported. In June, Hamid Dabashi, an Iranian-born professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University, published an article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram attacking Azar Nafisi, Iranian émigré and author of the 2003 best seller “Reading Lolita In Tehran.” Nafisi’s memoir is a harsh portrait of life in Iran after the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution, focusing in particular on the mistreatment of women, who were stripped of their former rights and harshly punished for violating strict religious codes of dress and behavior.

Complaining that Nafisi’s writings demonize Iran, Dabashi branded her a “native informer and colonial agent for American imperialism.” In a subsequent interview, he compared her to Lynndie England, the US soldier convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

While Dabashi’s rhetoric is extreme, it is not unique. Even in academic feminist groups on the Internet, criticisms of the patriarchal oppression of women in Muslim countries are often met with hostility unless accompanied by disclaimers that American women too are oppressed.

A more thoughtful examination of Islam and women’s rights was offered earlier this month at a symposium at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The keynote speaker, Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan, an outspoken critic of Islam, described an “honor killing” of a young Middle Eastern woman that occurred with the help of her mother. In a later exchange, another participant, Libyan journalist Sawsan Hanish, argued that it was unfair to single out Muslim societies, since women suffer violence and sexual abuse in every society including the United States. Sultan pointed out a major difference: In many Muslim cultures , such violence and abuse are accepted and legalized.

Yet the symposium’s moderator, scholar Michael Ledeen, rejected Sultan’s assertion that Islam is irredeemably anti-woman. He noted that the idea that some religions cannot be reformed runs counter to the history of religions. Several panelists spoke of Muslim feminists’ efforts to reform Islam and separate its spiritual message from the human patriarchal baggage. Some of these reformers look for a lost female-friendly legacy in early Islam; others argue that everything in the Koran that runs counter to the modern understanding of human rights and equality should be revised or rejected. These feminists have an uphill battle to fight, and they deserve all the support they can get.

Meanwhile, using the language of tolerance to justify oppressive practices is a grotesque perversion of liberalism. The veiling debate is a case in point. No amount of rhetorical sleight of hand can disguise the fact that the full-face veil makes women, literally, faceless. Some Muslim women in the West may choose this garb (which is not mandated in the Koran), but their explanations often reveal an internalized misogynistic view of women as creatures whose very existence is a sexual provocation to men. What’s more, their choice helps legitimize a custom that is imposed on millions of women around the world who have no choice.

Perhaps, as some say, women are the key to Islam’s modernization. The West cannot impose its own solutions from the outside — but, at the very least, it can honestly confront the problem.
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Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe. 
http://tarekfatah.com/using-the-language-of-tolerance-to-justify-oppressive-practices-is-a-grotesque-perversion-of-liberalism-the-veiling

Nyamko Sabuni wants to Ban the Hijab on Children in Sweden

Sweden’s Muslim minister turns on veil By Helena Frith Powell

The Sunday Times, London

THE latest media darling of Scandinavian politics is not only black, beautiful and Muslim; she is also firmly against the wearing of the veil.

 Minister for Gender Equality, Deputy Minister for Education,Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has caused a storm as Sweden’s new integration and equality minister by arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job.

Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe.

“I am neither,” she said in an interview. “My aim is to integrate immigrants. One is to ensure they grow up just as any other child in Sweden would.”Sabuni believes all immigrants must try to become proficient in Swedish — just as she did when she arrived from Africa aged 12 — rather than alienating locals.“Language and jobs are the two most crucial things for integration,” she said. “If you want to become a Swedish citizen, we think you should have some basic knowledge of Swedish.”

An elegant, vivacious woman who uses subtle make-up and wears soft clothes in pastel shades and tight woollen sweaters, she argues for a total ban on veils being worn by girls under the age of consent, which is 15 in Sweden.

“Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a child should wear a veil; it stops them being children. By putting a veil on a girl you are immediately saying to the outside world that she is sexually mature and has to be covered. It’s wrong,” she said.

Sabuni was born in Burundi. Her father was a political dissident who was in prison during much of her early childhood. In 1980 he was granted asylum in Sweden. The next year his wife and six children joined him and they settled near Stockholm.

Sabuni read law at Uppsala University, Sweden’s equivalent of Oxbridge, and became a public relations consultant. Her husband, who works in the travel industry and runs their home in Stockholm, took paternity leave when their twin boys, now five, were born.

In Sweden she is best known for her suggestion that adolescent girls should have compulsory examinations to make sure they have not been subjected to genital mutilation. “It would enable us to prosecute people carrying out the practice,” she said.

According to Sabuni, many politicians have shied away from talking about the need for assimilation rather than multi-culturalism: “I am one of the few who dares to speak out. Sadly, some members of the Muslim community feel picked on.”

Muslim groups in Sweden are already organising a petition to have her removed from government. “I regret that Muslims feel I am a threat to them,” she said. “Everybody has a right to practise their religion, but I will never accept religious oppression. And I represent the whole of society, not just the Muslims.”

Despite her ascendancy in her adopted country, Sabuni says that Sweden, where immigrants — half of them Muslims — make up nearly 12% of the population, has been only moderately successful at integration: “We have a whole underclass of people who don’t have jobs, who don’t speak the language and who are living on the fringes of society.”

Although fighting discrimination is one of her stated aims, she effectively closed down a Centre Against Racism last week by withdrawing its £400,000 state funding. By chance, the centre was run by her uncle.“It didn’t achieve its aims,” she said bluntly. “It simply didn’t do what it set out to do, so I had to pull the plug. My uncle is a good and a competent man, but a whole institute can’t be run by one man. He understands that I have to do my job.”

Other ministers appointed by Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister, are more concerned about their jobs. Since he took over on September 17, two ministers have resigned in a series of minor scandals involving unpaid television licences and black-market domestic help, and two more are under pressure to go.

Should Reinfeldt’s government fall, Sabuni would be willing to step into his shoes. On a TV show three years ago she declared that she would become Sweden’s first female prime minister. “I stand by that,” she said. “It’s not something I think about on a daily basis but, if I’m in politics, the ultimate aim has to be to become prime minister.”

Anders Jonsson, a political commentator on the liberal newspaper Expressen, says there is no doubt Sabuni is one to watch. “She is a tough cookie and incredibly ambitious,” he said. “But I think it’s good that a black woman is raising these issues and she has proved that she is prepared to take tough decisions in order to get things done.”