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16/7/2013
Force Feeding in West Africa: Body Image Experts Discuss Beauty Around The World

Young women in West Africa are routinely force fed to help them find a husband, say recent reports.

Very slim women are seen as poor and unable to afford food in West African culture, and overweight women look more affluent.

As a result big is not only beautiful, but a goal that women strive towards.

16/7/2013
Rethinking WLUML’s Analysis: Dossier 19, Sultana Kamal, ‘Mehr: An Advantage or Dependency Reinforced?’

“It may be said that the provision of Mahr may be considered to be beneficiary to women as long as women’s social and economic subordination remains the norm. It is a way of reinforcing, institutionalising and perpetuating women’s dependency on men... It can only be appreciated as an effort to minimise the economic risk of women within marriage in a society where her rights to equality are either systematically denied or violated.”

In 1998, in Dossier 19, Sultana Kamal tackled the topic of Mahr, the Islamic obligation of the groom to provide the bride with money or possessions as a prerequisite to marriage. I will revisit this topic and review the ideas put forward by Kamal in different contexts. Kamal analyzes Mahr within a South Asian framework, but what can be said of it from a Gulf context? Furthermore, how can we as Muslim women assert our rights by understanding the place of Mahr in the Qur’an and Hadith?

26/6/2013
US-Taliban Talks: Accountability to human rights and justice is central to enduring peace

The following is the official statement of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) international solidarity network and its partners in Afghanistan, which is addressed to all parties, particularly Afghanistan’s donor countries, who are supporting the direct talks between the Taliban and United States government.

21/6/2013
WLUML E-Gazette, 2nd Edition

WLUML has released its second edition of the WLUML E-Gazette!

21/6/2013
Politics of Nakedness and Freedom of Expression: The Case of FEMEN

WLUML calls for the immediate release of FEMEN activists, including Amina Tyler, and demands that the Tunisian government drop all charges.  WLUML does not endorse FEMEN’s tactics or specific platforms, but we find the imminent imprisonment of FEMEN activists for exercising their right to freedom of expression to be a violation of fundamental human rights. However we may feel about nude protest as a method, it is critical to defend the right of free expression, particularly in the post-dictatorship countries of the Middle East. 

17/6/2013
WLUML Deputy Director Mariem Omari Joins Women’s Rights and Peace Activists at the Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference in Belfast, 28-30 May 2013

There was a quiet moment in the conference room in the Culloden Hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland as six women: Mairead Macguire (Northern Ireland) Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Tawakkol Karman (Yemen), Shirin Ebadi (Iran), Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Guatemala) and Jody Williams (USA), all recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, joined together to welcome us – women activists from all over the world – to the fourth biennial conference of the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

 

Some women were there to discuss women’s rights, some women were there to discuss peace, but regardless of each woman’s motivation, there was one thing that we all agreed on - it is women that have to “invade (or reinvade) the spaces we need to invade” in order to highlight the devastating impact of war and conflict on women.

17/6/2013
Looking Back on WLUML’s Work in 2000: Prioritizing the Women’s Movement’s Goals

“Still Palestinian feminists are struggling to prioritize their goals: Should they fight exclusively for Palestinian statehood, in the hope that this will further their goals? Or should they be social critics, promoting long-term issues of democracy and women's rights as national institutions and a constitution are being formed? In 1988, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat proclaimed that "Palestine is a state...based on social justice, equality with no discrimination...on the basis of ethnicity, religion, color or between men and women." The mechanics of achieving such a vision were left undefined.”

-  Dahlia Scheindlin, "Palestinian Women's Model Parliament"

In WLUML Dossier 22, published 14 years ago, Dahlia Scheindlin argued that the relationship between the women’s movement in Palestine and the Palestinian national struggle is an uncertain one, as the national women’s movement is constantly faced with the question of where it situates itself in relation to the Palestinian liberation struggle. Is the women’s struggle situated within the wider national struggle or is gender equality a separate goal to be pursued independently of Palestinian nationhood?

10/6/2013
40 Days After Boston Bombing: We Must Stop Radical Jihad

WLUML board member Karima Bennoune offers her valuable insight on the issue of radical jihad in the aftermath of Boston bombings.

7/6/2013
Documentary Screening: Women in Shroud

 

Documentary directed by Farid Haerinejad and Mohammed Reza Kazemi. Women in Shroud provides an in-depth look into the efforts of women's rights lawyers and activists to stop the stoning of women in Iran.

This event is part of the Stop Stoning Women – Global Campaign.

Prominent Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Shadi Sadr, who features in the film, will be part of the panel discussion after the screening. 

When:  6:30 pm, Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013.

Where: Brockway Room, Conway Hall,

London WC1R 4RL

 

7/6/2013
Our Own Harvard Fellow, Naureen Shameem, Delivers the Report on the Issue of Discrimination Against Women on behalf of the WHRD-IC

Our own Harvard Fellow, Naureen Shameem, delivered a statement on the report of the Working Group on the issue of Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice on behalf of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) on June 3rd at the 23rd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council.