INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day on Thursday was marked in many Muslim countries with pledges to do more to ensure justice and equality between the sexes. In Bangladesh, men promised to fight against acid attacks on women by spurned suitors or angry husbands. In Pakistan where last month a woman minister in Punjab’s provincial government was assassinated by a gunman who objected to women in politics, President Pervez Musharraf gave his personal support to women’s empowerment. The role of women in society is a hotly debated issue here too. The letters column on this page in recent weeks is evidence of that. And not just this paper. The Saudi media regularly report on women beaten and attacked, of rights denied, of maidservants raped and forced divorce, to the extent that some people may imagine things are getting worse — but it is simply that these things are now being reported.
It is worth looking at the steps being taken to empower women in Pakistan where last year half the 900 cases of rape were gang rapes (and that is merely the number reported) and 565 women were murdered in so-called “honor” killings. Last November, Musharraf pushed an act through Parliament ending some of the conditions that made it difficult for women to accuse men of rape. It was important because reporting violence is the first stage of dealing with it. Equally important, however, was that he called the bluff of those who try to exploit Islam as a cover for their actions. Hard-liners who protested his changes were un-Islamic were given short shrift on Thursday. His response — “these laws are man-made and those who think touching them would violate the spirit of Islam are narrow-minded” — is one with which we concur. Islam cannot be used to defend cultural or tribal traditions which may exist in Muslim societies but which have nothing to do with Islam, or worse, contradict it.
Tribalism has no place in Islam. Nonetheless, changing attitudes is not easy in areas such as forced marriages and forced divorces where local traditions are long-standing. Sometimes though it is just a case of changing procedures. For example, for a woman to register a business in Saudi Arabia can take a month; in Bahrain it takes an hour. That is an easy one to deal with. Another easy one is the inequality between Saudi men and women married to foreigners: The former have no problem accessing citizenship and welfare for their children and spouses while the latter find the doors virtually slammed in their faces and their children cut off from government services provided to citizens. This issue of equality to citizenship rights is not just one that exists in the Kingdom, but in other Arab countries as well.
Governments still have a crucial role to play if women are to be empowered and protected from violence. If nothing is done, nothing will change. The Saudi government is committed to empowering women, economically, socially and politically. But changing laws will not be enough. They have to be enforced as well.
