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Muslim women around the world face crisis over violence
by Scott Gilbreath ~ February 23rd, 2009
Straight talk from Yakin Erturk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women:
MUSLIM women around the world are facing a “growing crisis” as Islamic governments fail to honour commitments to end inequality and violence against them, a senior UN official has warned.
[…]
“There is no time left to lose any more as this is a growing crisis,” she said after a speech which dealt with the issue at an international conference on “Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family.”“Women must demand that their governments implement agreements on women’s equality, rights and an end to violence against women, which have been signed but have yet to be carried out,” she said.
“In these countries, those who speak on behalf of Islam still justify things like stoning or killing a woman for this or that reason as being part of their religion. I have heard this at the most official of levels,” Erturk said without specifying which countries were to blame.
The conference is being held in Malaysia. As if to confirm Ms Erturk’s charges, a Malaysian Muslim leader condemned the conference, saying its purpose is to challenge “many Islamic principles… which had been agreed upon and passed by qualified council of Muslim scholars”.
In related news, the first official study of domestic violence in Turkey found that 40 percent of women are beaten by their husbands, and that barely 10 percent of abused wives seek help from any organisation.
h/t: International Campaign Against Honour Killings
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