Communalism and Women

The victimisation of women in communal riots has become more acute in the past decade in India. Indian women suffer from terrorisation, humiliation, feeling of degradation and loss of dignity. «Nearly 15 women are lost, they arc neither in the relief camp nor in their native place,» reported a group of riot-affected women in Bhivandi nayi basti after 15 days of carnage. «We could never believe police can be so cruel and obscene. They did not spare even small girls from beating, abusing and assaulting. As a result of police brutality two women lost their lives and a couple of others are seriously injured,» stated a group of Muslim women in Chitacamp, India. Communal riots started during the second half of the 19th centuri but have become most pervasive in the past decade. In cities where the competition among Hindu and Muslim population is keen, communal riots are used to grab Muslim people's houses and shops, to marginalise the minority and to throw out Muslims from their jobs, slums and raid their dwelling places. In each of these incidents, women are the main casualty and the tension between the Hindu and Muslim women is intensified as well.

Information provided by:
Vibhuti Patcl, 2/72 ONGC flats. Reclamation Bandra (W), Bombay-4()0 050, India.

Women in the Calcutta Book Fair 1984

For the first time, several women's organisations in Calcutta, India, pooled their resources to take up a stall at the Annual Calcutta Book Fair 1984. It was called «Aajker Naari» (Today's Women). There were classics on women, posters and cards, novels by women writers and publications of women's groups such as Manushi, Sungharsh and Vimochana.

For more information, contact:
DEBACLE, 18B, Gariahat Road, (S) Calcutta 700 031, India.

Islamisation Jeopardises Status of Pakistani Women

In an emergency meeting in December 1984, a group of women in Pakistan denounced the misinterpretation of Islam imposed upon Pakistani women denouncing the imprisonment and denigration of women in all spheres of public life. They issued the following statement:

We agree with General Zia ul Haq's statement that Islam is no one's exclusive domain; that there is no priesthood in Islam and that Islam opens the door to Ijtihad. It is in this context that the women of Pakistan have been struggling for the last seven and a half years against narrow and bigotted interpretations of Islam which have been imposed on us by a handful of self-appointed guardians of Islam. The concerted efforts by these 'guardians' in these last years to denigrate Pakistani women, include the Hadood Ordinance, the Law of Evidence and the proposed law of Oisas and Diyat. These and other measures have negatively and retrogressively affected the rights and status of Pakistani women.

One such 'guardian' is the Government appointed Council of Islamic Ideology which has taken upon itself the role of a priest and has forced upon the Nation, and particularly on women, its own distorted view of Islam. In fact having totally failed to make any inroads into the basic issues facing any truely Islamic state such as rampant corruption and the widespread practice of interes(both at a national and international level) these priests have focused on. women, to the extent that Islamization seems only to be aimed at incarcerating and denigrating women and removing them from all spheres of public life. Most recently this body has proposed that the twin social evils of childbrides and dowry be encouraged. Moreover the CII has circulated a questionnaire on women's role in society and religion. Although this questionnaire supposedly seeks to elicit objective opinions, the questions themselves contain the answers which are discriminatory, prejudicial and anti-women. This is not only a distortion of social science methods since the questionnaire begins with the assumption that women are inferior, but it is a distortion of reality since it assumes that women do not already share economic responsibilities. The main thrust of the questionnaire though is its view that women can only be seen as sexual objects. This reflects not the actual situation of women but the mentality and the predilections of those men who conceived such a questionnaire.

If these same elements are allowed to continue propagating and enforcing this distortion of Islam, women's status will be further reduced to that of sub-humans and they will be further controlled in all aspects of their lives by the dictates of the State and the men who will be controlling society. This is in blatant contradiction to the injunctions and the spirit of Islam which ordains that each individual is responsible to God and to God alone. Since God does not belong to any class or group of individuals or person, we reject any individual or group deciding on how the women of Pakistan will live in this society as equal citizens of the state. Only the women themselves can decide this. Whether then they are good Muslims can only be decided by God.

Mexican Women: Guinea Pigs

Developed countries consider the women in the Third World as third class persons. The economic power that these countries have makes it possible for them to use no; only the material goods and labour force of the poor countries, but also to experiment on Mexican women's bodies as if they were guinea pigs and not human beings.

Maru, a university student, went to the National Institute of Nutrition of the SSA. Her testimony does not need explanation:

«...they told me that the experiment would last three months, that it wasn't dangerous and that they would pay me 12,000.00 pesos if I gave them permission to give me an injection of a substance that they were trying out as a contraceptive... I went with other fellow students because we needed the money for our studies. This occurred in October or November 1983 and from then on I haven't had my menstruation.

« In January I decided to leave the experiment because they used to take blood from me frequently and I felt very weak. Besides, the three months had already passed and I didn't feel like continuing. I went to let them know of my decision. The truth is that I was a bit annoyed since I had been thinking of all this and I didn't like how they were using us. They tried to convince me to continue, and the doctor got angry because according to her a lot of money would be wasted since my blood samples were sent to England and if I left, everything would have been useless. Besides they didn't want to pay me because the experiment wasn't over. The next day I went back more calm and they gave me my 12.000.00 pesos. They told me that the Institute had made no errors, that my problems, like the lack of menstruation, were due to personal errors...»

Maru's case is an example of what is happening to thousands of women in Third World countries who, because of need and lack of information, are used in experiments which can be dangerous to their health and which could never be done in developed countries.

Information from:
CIDHAL NOTICIAS, no. 11, January 1985. Apartado 579, Cuernavaca 62000, Morelos, Mexico.