|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Global Domestic Violence Continues In Spite of Beijing Promises Islam Online, Washington DC Five years after the Beijing Women's Conference, there is much that remains to be done. Among the many issues discussed at both the Fourth and Fifth Women's Conferences, one of the most important is the debate regarding domestic and other violence against women. Unfortunately, much of the talk this past week in New York has been about what still needs to be done to protect women everywhere. UNICEF, the United Nation's children's agency reports that women and girls all over the world are still facing epidemic proportions of domestic violence. This, despite the pledges made during the historic United Nation's Conference held in Beijing in 1995. According to UNICEF, in many countries as much as 50 percent of the female population has suffered some abuse, whether physical, sexual or mental. Unfortunately, these numbers include many Muslim countries as well. In Egypt, 35% of women reported having been beaten by their husbands. Problems that plague women in particular have caused major discrepancies in the numbers of the female population in many countries. Cultural conditioning that leads to sex-selective abortions, the killing of baby girls, and generally inferior access to food and health supplies leave women and girls particularly vulnerable in South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and China. "They are victims of their own families, killed deliberately or through neglect simply because they are female," says the UNICEF report. Mehr Khan, Director the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, says, "Women and children are often in great danger in the place where they should be safest: within their families…Progress has been slow because attitudes are deeply entrenched and, to some extent, because effective strategies to address domestic violence are still being defined. As a result, women worldwide continue to suffer, with estimates varying from 20 to 50 percent from country to country." The problem happens all over the globe. The United States, among the Western countries, is especially guilty. While one-third of Canadian women report having been abused by their husbands, American women are more than twice as likely to be murdered by their partners as other women. Twenty-eight percent of women in the United States report having been physically abused. In the United Nations, 25 percent of women reported having been physically abused at some point in their lives by a partner. Japan reported a physical abuse of almost 60 percent of women. UN 2000 The primary culprit here has not been the uncaring nature of these states, but an inability to come to a global definition of what constitutes domestic violence and how to best handle the situation. The Fifth United Nations World Conference on Women hopes to address the problem directly and come to some type of common understanding. While there are different nations, religions and ethnicity, the hope is to come to a basic agreement on the human rights of all individuals. While there may be dispute over what exactly can rightfully go on within one's private residence, it can be agreed that every man, women and child has the right to food, water, and health. As Muslims, and especially as representatives of Muslim countries, we have a duty to demonstrate the beauty of Islam and how it protects and nurtures women's rights. Islam gave women rights and opportunities that were previously unheard of and this spirit should prevail. It is unfortunate that many "Muslim" countries do not treat women as Islam would have us treat them. Such meetings as this World Conference on Women should serve as reminders of what Islam can be when allowed to reach its full potential. A model needs to be created for fair treatment of women. That model already exists in the Holy Qur'an
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
