C
Cluny
Guest
Behold how Islam exalts and protects women:
At first glance, Bably Akter looks like any other nine-year-old Bangladeshi girl, dressed in a brightly coloured pink and turquoise skirt and top trimmed with silver sequins.
A matching headband conceals her left ear, badly deformed and the only obvious sign she is the victim of an acid attack, a practice rampant in the impoverished country, used mainly in domestic disputes and against women and children.
As her mother, Parul, recounts the story of how Bably’s father put drops of acid on different parts of her body for five days when she was a baby, the little girl lifts her skirt to reveal a large scar on her legs and feet.
“Her father wanted a son. He’d been violent towards me before Bably was born but it was not until day five, when he actually fed her acid I realised something was seriously wrong,” Parul, 26, said.
She complained to the police but charges were never laid.
“We ran away and spent two years at the Acid Survivors’ Foundation (ASF) hospital where Bably had a lot of plastic surgery on her mouth. She still needs more operations.”
With her broad grin and her love of dancing, Bably speaks about her dreams of one day becoming a doctor to help others in the South Asian nation.
“She says she doesn’t remember what happened but sometimes she cries for no reason. Her speech is a little bit impaired and she gets teased at school,” Parul said.
The Dhaka-based ASF says most victims of acid attacks bear obvious physical scars, which make them pariahs. Bably is one of the lucky ones…
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Khyber tribal region have warned authorities not to issue national identity cards to women, saying the practice is “un-Islamic”.
Omar Farooq, the commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in Khyber Agency, warned the National Database and Registration Authority that its offices would be attacked if it issued identity cards to women.
Farooq told reporters on phone from an unknown location that making identity cards for women went against Islamic rules. The Taliban will not allow women to obtain these cards, he said.
He also warned women that they would have to face the consequences if they went to NADRA offices to get themselves registered for the identity cards.
The Taliban in Swat valley of the North Western Frontier Province and parts of the restive tribal have banned girls’ education and barred women from visiting markets unless they are accompanied by male relatives.
PESHAWAR: Terrified, locked up at home and courting death if they go out alone, women oppressed by extremists in Swat have nothing to celebrate on International Women’s Day.
Nearly 100 years after the annual day was created to mark the struggle for equal rights for half the world’s population, most women in Swat look blank and go silent when asked about gender rights and discrimination.
They’re too frightened to speak in public. They can only leave the confines of their homes accompanied by a male relative, their bodies hidden in veils.
‘How can I tell you my name, are you crazy? I was told not to give my name to anyone because the Taliban could hurt me,’ one girl in the ninth grade told AFP by telephone from the former ski resort.
The girl’s dreams of becoming a doctor are over. She worries the Taliban will stop her finishing school, regardless of her parents’ support.
‘My mother told me I can do anything, but my inner soul is shattered.’
‘Tell me if you stop women getting an education where will a sick woman go? Do you want her to go to a male doctor? I was told that education is compulsory for every man and woman in Islam but the Taliban destroyed our schools.’
Militants have destroyed 191 schools in the valley, 122 of them for girls, leaving 62,000 pupils with nowhere to study, local officials say.
Huma Batool – not her real name – is a 42-year-old mother of two who dices with death to teach girls at a private school in the region’s main town Mingora.
‘We have to veil ourselves and wear shuttlecock burqas. We are not safe even at home.
We fear the Taliban all the time. Life is becoming worse and worse for women in Swat,’ she told AFP by telephone.
Educated and financially self-sufficient, she cannot even pop to the shops without a male relative, leaving her frequently couped up at home for hours, waiting for a suitable escort to become available.
‘You cannot imagine how I manage to get to school, practically every day I think about leaving the job and sitting at home.’
‘Life bores us to tears. There is no entertainment. We can’t even think about cable TV, cinema, film and music. Imagine I can’t even go shopping or to the bazaar as women are banned by Taliban.’
Salma Javed, 35, is a nurse at a local hospital, where women – however sick – can only be admitted if accompanied by a male relative.
‘Every woman fears she will be killed if she comes out, so even sick and pregnant women have to visit hospital with their husbands.’…
At first glance, Bably Akter looks like any other nine-year-old Bangladeshi girl, dressed in a brightly coloured pink and turquoise skirt and top trimmed with silver sequins.
A matching headband conceals her left ear, badly deformed and the only obvious sign she is the victim of an acid attack, a practice rampant in the impoverished country, used mainly in domestic disputes and against women and children.
As her mother, Parul, recounts the story of how Bably’s father put drops of acid on different parts of her body for five days when she was a baby, the little girl lifts her skirt to reveal a large scar on her legs and feet.
“Her father wanted a son. He’d been violent towards me before Bably was born but it was not until day five, when he actually fed her acid I realised something was seriously wrong,” Parul, 26, said.
She complained to the police but charges were never laid.
“We ran away and spent two years at the Acid Survivors’ Foundation (ASF) hospital where Bably had a lot of plastic surgery on her mouth. She still needs more operations.”
With her broad grin and her love of dancing, Bably speaks about her dreams of one day becoming a doctor to help others in the South Asian nation.
“She says she doesn’t remember what happened but sometimes she cries for no reason. Her speech is a little bit impaired and she gets teased at school,” Parul said.
The Dhaka-based ASF says most victims of acid attacks bear obvious physical scars, which make them pariahs. Bably is one of the lucky ones…
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Khyber tribal region have warned authorities not to issue national identity cards to women, saying the practice is “un-Islamic”.
Omar Farooq, the commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in Khyber Agency, warned the National Database and Registration Authority that its offices would be attacked if it issued identity cards to women.
Farooq told reporters on phone from an unknown location that making identity cards for women went against Islamic rules. The Taliban will not allow women to obtain these cards, he said.
He also warned women that they would have to face the consequences if they went to NADRA offices to get themselves registered for the identity cards.
The Taliban in Swat valley of the North Western Frontier Province and parts of the restive tribal have banned girls’ education and barred women from visiting markets unless they are accompanied by male relatives.
PESHAWAR: Terrified, locked up at home and courting death if they go out alone, women oppressed by extremists in Swat have nothing to celebrate on International Women’s Day.
Nearly 100 years after the annual day was created to mark the struggle for equal rights for half the world’s population, most women in Swat look blank and go silent when asked about gender rights and discrimination.
They’re too frightened to speak in public. They can only leave the confines of their homes accompanied by a male relative, their bodies hidden in veils.
‘How can I tell you my name, are you crazy? I was told not to give my name to anyone because the Taliban could hurt me,’ one girl in the ninth grade told AFP by telephone from the former ski resort.
The girl’s dreams of becoming a doctor are over. She worries the Taliban will stop her finishing school, regardless of her parents’ support.
‘My mother told me I can do anything, but my inner soul is shattered.’
‘Tell me if you stop women getting an education where will a sick woman go? Do you want her to go to a male doctor? I was told that education is compulsory for every man and woman in Islam but the Taliban destroyed our schools.’
Militants have destroyed 191 schools in the valley, 122 of them for girls, leaving 62,000 pupils with nowhere to study, local officials say.
Huma Batool – not her real name – is a 42-year-old mother of two who dices with death to teach girls at a private school in the region’s main town Mingora.
‘We have to veil ourselves and wear shuttlecock burqas. We are not safe even at home.
We fear the Taliban all the time. Life is becoming worse and worse for women in Swat,’ she told AFP by telephone.
Educated and financially self-sufficient, she cannot even pop to the shops without a male relative, leaving her frequently couped up at home for hours, waiting for a suitable escort to become available.
‘You cannot imagine how I manage to get to school, practically every day I think about leaving the job and sitting at home.’
‘Life bores us to tears. There is no entertainment. We can’t even think about cable TV, cinema, film and music. Imagine I can’t even go shopping or to the bazaar as women are banned by Taliban.’
Salma Javed, 35, is a nurse at a local hospital, where women – however sick – can only be admitted if accompanied by a male relative.
‘Every woman fears she will be killed if she comes out, so even sick and pregnant women have to visit hospital with their husbands.’…
