Islamic state fears effect of ‘tempting’ eyes on men
Says it ‘has the right’ to issue repressive edict
Women must already cover their hair and wear full-length black cloak
By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE
Women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover them up under Saudi Arabia’s latest repressive measure, it was reported yesterday.
The ultra-conservative Islamic state has said it has the right to stop women revealing ‘tempting’ eyes in public.
A spokesperson for Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Sheikh Motlab al Nabet, said a proposal to enshrine the measure in law has been tabled.
'Tempting' eyes: Muslim women could be forced to cover up even their eyes if a 'right' of the Saudi state is enforced
Women in Saudi Arabia already have to wear a long black cloak, called an abaya, cover their hair and, in some regions, conceal their faces while in public.
If they do not, they face punishments including fines and public floggings.
One report on the Bikya Masr news website suggested the proposal was made after a member of the committee was attracted by a woman’s eyes as he walked along a street, provoking a fight.
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The woman was walking with her husband who ended up being stabbed twice in the hand after the altercation.
The virtue and vice committee has repeatedly been accused of human rights violations.
Founded in 1940, its function is to ensure Islamic laws are not broken in public in Saudi Arabia.
In 2002, the committee refused to allow female students out of a burning school in the holy city of Mecca because they were not wearing correct head cover.
The decision is thought to have contributed to the high death toll of 15.
They are also banned from driving by religious edict and cannot travel without authorisation from their male guardians.
In September, a Saudi women sentenced to 10 lashes for defying the driving ban was only spared when King Abdullah stepped in to stop the public flogging.
Also in September, the king announced that women would be given the right to vote for the first time and run in the country’s 2015 local elections.
The ruling party’s political rhetoric — and its odd reorganization of government ministries — has women worried that the government wants to reassign them to a more traditional role
Turkish women demonstrate outside the parliament to protest the state's failure to stop the rape and killings of children and women in Turkey. The banner reads, "Will we eternally keep quiet on the violence against women and children?" / AP
Turkish women demonstrate outside the parliament to protest the state’s failure to stop the rape and killings of children and women in Turkey. The banner reads, “Will we eternally keep quiet on the violence against women and children?” / AP
ISTANBUL, Turkey — The night of the Turkish parliamentary elections, five of Turkey’s 78 newly elected female members of parliament appeared on a local talk show to discuss their plans once in office. Two were from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and three came from the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). When the conversation turned to violence against women — approximately 45 percent of Turkish women aged 15 to 60 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence during their lives — one of the AKP representatives erupted with an astonishing accusation.
“What do you have against family values? What does the CHP have against the family? It is family values that we stand for! Thank God for the family!” she shouted.
“Thank God for the family!” she continued. “Thank God for the family!”
She repeated it four more times for good measure, seven times in all, recalled Safak Pavey, one of MPs from the CHP who was also on the show.
But even without her outburst, there was no mistaking the AKP’s stance. In a cabinet shake-up the week before the elections, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the dissolution of the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs and its replacement by a Ministry of Family and Social Policies. “We are a conservative democratic party,” he said. “The family is important to us.”
That message resonated with voters, who handed the AKP 326 seats in the 550-seat parliament with nearly 50 percent of the popular vote. Millions of women voters — 55 percent of them, according to newspaper reports — voted for the AKP. Less tradition-minded candidate did not fare as well. Benal Yazgan, an independent candidate whose campaign platform focused on women’s issues, received a mere 700 votes in her district. But Fusun Yurtman, a retired engineer and board member of the newly formed Women’s Party Initiative, which supported Yazgan’s run, was hardly swayed.
“They just erased women,” she said of the AKP. “They are saying that it’s the family that’s important and the woman is just a part of it.”
The move worries Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Turkey who helped prepare a recent report on violence in the family, “He Loves You, He Beats You.”
“Losing the word ‘women’ in the title subjugates their issues to just one among many,” she said. “It’s putting women in a category with other groups who supposedly need protection: children, the families of those killed in action, the elderly, the disabled. It’s a very backwards step.”
Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, “the woman question,” as it was then known, has been a tricky one. Early reforms modeled on Western ideals empowered women in the public sphere — especially in such areas as education, political enfranchisement, and dress — but left the private sphere (and most of Turkey’s rural population) untouched. According to Boston University social anthropology professor Jenny B. White, what she describes as top-down “state feminism” never empowered women as individuals.
Even though Turkey’s new penal code, adopted in 2005, does enshrine individual rights, a more traditional concept of rights still holds sway, she told me.
“The implementation on the ground is still based on women as members of the community,” White said. “You have rights because you’re a bona fide member of the community. But if you break the code in any way, you may lose your rights, and people may sanction you with impunity, because you did something wrong. It’s your fault.”
On election night at the AKP headquarters, 20-year-old party activist and English literature student Hülya Içöz did not seem concerned with signs that women’s rights in Turkey could be under attack. The AKP had just opened a new women’s branch, she said, and women were extremely active. That few women were in decision-making positions did not seem to bother her.
“It will change,” she said confidently.
via Why Turkey is Backsliding on Women’s Rights – Anna Louie Sussman – International – The Atlantic.
ISTANBUL — Until she gave birth to her first child three months ago, 29-year-old Gulsen Cigdem worked at TransOrient International Forwarding, handling sales and logistics for moving goods by air, truck and sea.
Now, her days are spent caring for her son, Doruk, while she and her husband, Tarik, who works in the technology sector, try to find an affordable baby sitter so she can return to work when her maternity leave expires. She wants to avoid becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish women who, armed with a university degree, find a well-paying and interesting job but do not return to the work force once they marry or start a family.
“I got an education,” Mrs. Cigdem said during a recent interview. “I worked hard for that, and to just drop it because I became a mother is not my style.”
Creating more economic opportunities for women like Mrs. Cigdem is among the goals of the 2011 Global Summit of Women meeting through Saturday in Istanbul as a sort of Davos for women, mirroring the annual gathering of world economic leaders at the Swiss resort. Held for the first time in Turkey, the conference is taking place in a country where women, once they find jobs, often struggle to stay in them.
Researchers say that nearly half of all Turkish women enter the labor market at some point in their lives, but most end up quitting because of family obligations or poor working conditions. Raising rates of employment by women is “instrumental in building capacity for economic growth and poverty reduction,” a report by the Turkish State Planning Organization and the World Bank said.
via Women Still an Untapped Labor Force in Turkey – NYTimes.com.
Gaddafi’s choice of bodyguards has been the subject of much media attention. His 40-member bodyguard contingent, known as the Amazonian Guard, is entirely female. All women who qualify for duty supposedly must be virgins, and are hand-picked by Gaddafi himself. They are trained in the use of firearms and martial arts at a special academy before entering service.
Gaddafi is already having his own version of heaven on earth by having an entourage of female supposedly virgin body guards that live and will die for him. What is up with that?
His argument on creating female fighters is that if women are trained and taught the art of
combat they can better protect themselves and not be victims like those in other war torn
Arab countries.
His female body guards known as The Amazonian Guard are killing machines. They are trained
to protect him and die for him. They also take a vow of chastity and apparently many young
women are dying to take on this role. As a matter of fact one got killed saving his life
when his convoy was attacked by assasins by throwing herself in the line of fire.
So even if Gadaffi doesn’t see his dream of being the first leader of a United States of
Africa, atleast he has seen his heaven on earth.
For sure, some of these ladies are real stunners, but they’ll stun you, too or “knock you
out… if you mess with their supreme leader. Some wear lipstick, jewelry, polished nails,
even high heels.
Gaddafi is in safe hands . These virgins can kick a$$…
The Libyan leader’s female guards are trained to kill.
More trained killers…
Muammar Gaddafi fears flying over water, prefers staying on the ground floor and almost never travels without his trusted Ukrainian nurse, a “voluptuous blonde,” Galina Kolotnytska.
Qadhafi relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, who has been described as a “voluptuous blonde.”
In spite of recent attempts to put an end to a controversial ban on the use of the headscarf — which applies to certain public buildings and military locations in Turkey as well as some private offices, many headscarved women argue that there is widespread discrimination against them in the workplace.
The headscarf ban has remained a hot topic for Turkey for over a decade. However, there is still a lack of political compromise to end the ban. “In Turkey there are lots of jobs for women who do not wear the headscarf, but there are so few for the headscarved.
A group of students are seen in a February 2008 file photo sitting outside Marmara University as they were not allowed to go on campus despite a decision to lift the ban.
The ban affects us psychologically,” noted 23-year-old Ayşenur Bozkurt, who said she has been wearing the headscarf for nine years.
Bozkurt, a translator by profession and a graduate student, said she has faced bitter disappointments because of the headscarf ban while looking for a job and sent in her curriculum vitae — that included a headscarved photo of her — last year to a number of companies, all private. She did not apply to state offices because she already knew she had no chance of working for the state with a headscarf. “One day I received a job offer from a university. They probably had no idea about my headscarf. When I told them about it on the phone, they withdrew their offer, wished me a good day and just hung up.”
In Turkey, state offices do not hire headscarf-wearing women. Covered women are also denied employment in most private companies despite the lack of a law that prohibits the use of the headscarf in private businesses. They are not elected to Parliament, either. A scarf ban was imposed for many years on university campuses, and it ended only recently.
A recent study conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) found that while up to 70 percent of Turkey’s women wear the headscarf, only a small percentage of women in the workplace are headscarved. In professional life, headscarved women are usually expected to “make concessions” if they want to be employed by companies, which can entail agreeing to work for a low salary or in a lower position or even taking off the headscarf if necessary.
Nihal Sağdıç, a 23-year-old woman who wears a headscarf and who agreed to talk to us using a false name, said she worked for a private company as an architect for one year but is unemployed at the moment. She wants to work for a municipal office in İstanbul where the use of the headscarf is allowed. “This was not my dream when I graduated from university, but I have to do it now,” she noted. She also added that she applied to more than 15 private companies with a CV that included a photo of her with a headscarf, but that none of them agreed to meet her. “I wanted to try my chances with a CV that did not include a photo. Then I received offers from some companies. When I went in for an interview with one of the companies, they refused to talk to me. They gave me a form to fill in and said they would call me later. But they did not,” Sağdıç explained.
Another headscarved woman, who identified herself as Nadide, complained that she was offered a lower salary than her colleagues who do not wear the headscarf. “The employer believes that you need him and the job. And he sees you as a source of ‘cheap labor.’ I am not sure he would offer such a low salary to a woman who does not wear the headscarf or a man,” she stated.
The findings of a report belong to a four-day workshop of a European Media Encounter program titled “Media, Intercultural Dialogue and Fight Against Discrimination — Cross-reports from Turkey,” a joint effort by the Council of Europe’s “Speak Against Discrimination” campaign and the Intercultural Cities program under the Turkish chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
When the headscarf ban was imposed in universities for the first time in 1997, some headscarved students refused to take off their head coverings and dropped out, some women took off their headscarves and continued to attend school, while a small group of covered women were able to go abroad to continue their studies. Every one of these women suffered in one way for their choice.
But no sociological or statistical study has been conducted to date on the extent of the negative effects of the ban on society.
Highlights of scarf ban in Turkey
The notorious ban on the use of the Muslim headscarf has been a matter of contention in Turkey. The Republic of Turkey has traditionally maintained a secular identity. The strong military has opposed the idea of the free use of the headscarf out of concern that the religious garment would erode the country’s secular order.
After the 1980 coup d’état, a regulation clearly defined the permissible clothing and appearances of staff working in state offices, including the stipulation that the hair of civil servants must be uncovered. Starting then, headscarved women were denied the right to be employed by the state. The ban extended its scope to universities in 1997 when military generals ousted a coalition government led by a conservative party. Thousands of students were not allowed onto university campuses with a headscarf due to the ban.
Politicians have since failed to reach a compromise on how to end the headscarf ban. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) attempted to revoke the ban in 2008 but failed due to strong opposition from other political parties. The party barely escaped closure due to its anti-ban attempt. In October of this year, the Higher Education Board (YÖK) sent a circular to universities across Turkey, advising them not to enforce the headscarf ban. Either willingly or unwillingly, university administrations have been allowing headscarved students on campuses since then.
Yet, a de facto ban on the use of the Muslim headscarf remains in place in the workplace, that is to say in all state institutions and in most private companies. In mid-August, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) asked Turkey to end its discrimination against headscarf-wearing women, arguing that the ban on the use of the headscarf has a negative impact on women’s participation in such fields as education, work, health and the political and public spheres. Turkey became a signatory to CEDAW in 1985.
Women protested PM Erdoğan at the International Women’s Istanbul Meeting for having said that “men and women are not equal”. Pointing to women murders they said, “”More of us are being killed when you say we are not equal”.
Istanbul – BİA News Center 08 November 2010, Monday
Women at the International Women’s Istanbul Meeting protested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during his speech at the Istanbul Congress Centre. They rose to their feet and held up banners reading “More of us are being killed when you say we are not equal” and “The men’s love kills three women per day”.
The women protested quietly. Security personnel in the hall took the banners and removed the women from the venue.
“The Prime Minister should think about our safety instead of the number of children”
Members of the Feminist Collective underlined that 236 women were killed in the first seven months of 2010. “Prime Minister Erdoğan continues to tell women to give birth to three children whereas he does not mention the women who died”, they criticized.
The women reminded Erdoğan’s statement made in a meeting with women organizations in Istanbul where he said, “I do not believe in gender equality”. The women questioned “Prime Minister Erdoğan’s policies to be implemented to provide safety for the life of women”.
Başbakan Erdoğan’ın Dolmabahçe’de kadın örgütleriyle yaptığı toplantıda “kadın erkek eşitliğine inanmıyorum” dediğini hatırlatan kadınlar, “Başbakan Erdoğan’a kadınların can güvenliklerini sağlamak için hayata geçirecekleri politikaları” sordular:
“We do not ask Prime Minister Erdoğan to work on the women’s ‘disposition’ or on ‘how many children they should have’. We want him to fulfil his duty and prevent violence against women, oppression and discrimination. We want to hear that steps are being taken and policies are being implemented that guarantee our right to life and life safety. We want to hear that very urgently because on every day that passes with all these announcements, another three women are being killed”.
“Women murders are not on the government’s agenda”
The women made a press release including the following issues:
* According to the standards of the European Union (EU), one women’s shelter should be opened per 7,500 people. Hence, there should be 7,500 shelters in Turkey, but in reality there are 38. They have a total capacity of 867 people.
* In the Gender Equality report of the World Economic Forum Turkey ranks in 126th position among a total of 134 countries.
* The number of women murders increased by 1,400 percent within the past seven years. There is no action plan to stop this development. In fact, the legislature and the executive do not even have an according agenda.
* At court, the murders benefit from an unjust mitigation of punishment because of provocation. The women are killed by their husbands after they come back from the police, from shelters and prosecutors.
Erdoğan again defended rights of “ladies with headscarves”
In his speech delivered at the International Women Istanbul Meeting, Erdoğan once more claimed that the rights of women with and without headscarves should be defended. Read the main points of his speech as follows:
Don’t wait for you rights to be delivered: We appreciate to see more of our sisters in every area from politics to local administration, from work life to education and in culture and sports; we appreciate to see more successful women. Yet we know that this is not sufficient. Do not wait for your rights to be delivered but struggle for obtaining your rights.
Rights and freedoms are not the vision of a certain section: Rights and freedoms as basic human needs may not be assessed as owned by a certain section [of society] or as the dream of a certain section.
Headscarf question: Despite our struggle, both in the name of contemporary life and modernity it does not accord with equality, humanity or conscience to have young girls removed from school because of their way to dress. (BB/VK)
