Asia

“Depriving women of inheritance rights”

This article reports on the role played by mothers and grandmothers in depriving their daughters of their inheritance rights in Southern provinces of Afghanistan.

“In Afghanistan, U.S. shifts strategy on women's rights as it eyes wider priorities”

When the U S Agency for International Development (US AID) sought bids in March 2010 for a $140 million land reform program in Afghanistan, it insisted that the winning contractor meet specific goals to promote women's rights: The number of deeds granting women title had to increase by 50 percent; there would have to be regular media coverage on women's land rights; and teaching materials for secondary schools and universities would have to include material on women's rights. Before the contract was awarded, USAID overhauled the initiative, stripping out those concrete targets.

“Customary and Family Law: A gender approach in Afghanistan”

This article argues that customary laws have been the main source of justice in Afghanistan and that the Constitution of 2004 is tacit on customary law, and permits the practice of customary law provided it does not interfere with principles of Muslim Laws.

Violence Against Women in Asian Societies

In this volume the authors explore violence against women in the wider context of patriarchal violence, seeking to tease out the ways in which violence acts to perpetuate not only gender inequality, but also broader social, economic and political injustices that deny women’s and men’s human rights. In this volume, the authors address each of the interconnected categories of direct, indirect and structural violence.

Asia Regional E-Campaigning Training

The Strategic e-Campaigning Workshop was held in Asia as part of the Violence is Not Our Culture campaign being managed by the Women Redefining and Reclaiming Culture Programme (WRRC) and the Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) international solidarity network.

UPDATE: Appeal for ongoing support of WLUML's nomination of Zarizana Abdul Aziz for UN Working Group

We are pleased to announce that WLUML board member, Ms. Zarizana Abdul Aziz, has made it through the second round of Human Rights Council (HRC) consultations and is on the short-list for the Asian member of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. WLUML would like to thank those of you who endorsed Ms. Abdul Aziz's nomination; WLUML is now appealing to you to contact your governments and urge your support for her candidature. Please do urge your governments regardless of whether they are members of the HRC. You can find embedded a list of the current member states of the HRC and the Report of the Consultative Group. For your country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva click here.

Endorse WLUML's nomination of Zarizana Abdul Aziz for new UN Working Group

Women Living Under Muslim Laws is nominating WLUML board member Ms. Zarizana Abdul Aziz from Malaysia as the most knowledgeable and experienced candidate for the Asia representative of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. You can find a copy of Zarizana Abdul Aziz’s CV here: http://www.wluml.org/sites/wluml.org/files/CV_Zarizana%20Abdul%20Aziz_2010.pdf and instructions on how to make your endorsement follow.

FES publication on Religious Fundamentalisms in Asia

In the new Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung publication, Religious Fundamentalisms and Their Gendered Impacts in Asia, Claudia Derichs and Andrea Fleschenberg (eds.), there is a chapter by WLUML board member, Zarizana Abdul Aziz: 'Malaysia – Trajectory towards Secularism or Islamism?' Abdul Aziz writes, "As the Malaysian legal system moves closer towards accommodating syariah, there has been an increase in inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions.