Spain: IV International Congress on Islamic Feminism

Catalan Islamic Board and the Union of Muslim Women of Spain announce the Fourth International Congress on Islamic Feminism, Madrid, 22-24 October 2010. The event has become a global benchmark of the movement of Muslim women in pursuit of their rights. Among the participants will be Zahira Kamal, former Minister of Women Affairs in Palestine, Ziba Mir Hosseini (Iran), Omaima Abou Bakr (Egypt), Asghar Ali Engineer (India), and other leading activists and intellectuals working for the rights of Muslim women, for a total of eighteen speakers at the highest level.

Sessions will be held on Islamic feminism in Palestine, Egypt, Iraq and Southeast Asia. One of the main focus of the fourth edition will be exploring the relationships between spirituality, Sufism and feminism in Islam. Another session will focus on masculinity and male involvement in Islamic Feminism.

General Objectives:

1. To continue the task which was started in the previous editions of the Conference on Islamic Feminism, through which the growing Muslim women’s movement in pursuit of gender equality became known, on a theoretical and practical level.
2. To analyze the strategies undertaken by Muslim feminists to cope with new forms of oppression arising from globalization.
3. To analyze the relationsheep between Islamic spirituality, Sufism and Feminism.
4. To help to consolidate Islamic Feminism as a transnational movement, through the creation of networks of organizations working in the field of women’s rights in Islam.

Public / Sectors to whom the activity is addressed:

* Organizations which work to improve the legal and social situation of women in the field of Islam.
* Muslim women from countries in which patriarchal cultural practices or discrimination against women takes place.
* Institutions or persons working in the fields of feminism or gender equality.
* Institutions or persons carrying out their activities in the fields of immigration and cultural diversity.
* Non-governmental organizations working with countries with a Muslim majority.

The conference will be held between 22nd and 24th of October in Madrid, and is sponsored by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECI), the Ministry of Equality, Casa Árabe and the Council of Women and Employment of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.

More information and registration: http://feminismeislamic.org/