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People & Their Problems
New Delhi, 11 April 2008
Women’s
Rights
CURB
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE
By Dhurjati
Mukherjee
Since
end-90s women’s rights have become one of the major themes on the agenda of the
United Nations and other international organizations. This is not to say that
the UN had earlier completely ignored women as its Charter did contain the
principle of equality of rights for both men and women. The need for gender
equality and ensuring women their due rights has become a major challenge
today, specially in Third World countries, where education and awareness levels are low
affecting them the most.
Significant
gender disparities continue to exist in three basic regions – South Asia, Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the
constraints of conservative, patriarchal practices, often reinforced by
religious values are increasingly recognized as a drag on development,
empowering women is still considered a subversive proposition. In some
societies, women’s rights are at the frontline of a protracted battle between
religious extremists and those with moderate progressive views. Deep tensions
have been evident in Pakistan,
Nigeria and Indonesia.
In
the 20th century, the UN has sponsored four global conferences on
women – at Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi
(1985) and Beijing
(2000) and used the deliberations to help shape its agenda of action to foster
gender equality. In 1993, the General Assembly passed the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women. In 1999 it adopted the Optional Protocol
to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. At the
dawn of the new millennium, the UN demonstrated its priority towards women’s rights
by making empowerment of women and promotion of goals of gender equality as one
of the eight Millennium Development Goals proclaimed at the Summit in September 2000.
The
respect for religious liberty and for basic human rights has been at variance
and, in most cases, governments are pressurized by religious leaders not to
give women their due place in society. Often government authorities pretend to engage
with the problem thus trying to satisfy religious groups as they are more
powerful than women. However, in the same breadth assuring that something needs
to be done for women’s rights. It’s like one cannot but agree that religions
threaten basic human rights, especially of women, but that religious discourse
has been the source of support for human rights world over.
Although
it is difficult to distinguish between a religion and the cultural traditions
that surround it, the Hindu, Islamic and Confucian traditions have all with
some plausibility been accused of denigrating the value of female life. In the
name of religion, women’s rights have been at the centre of attack. While Hindu
fundamentalists have not allowed women their social and economic rights, in the
case of other religions it is possibly worse. Imams have been opposing women’s
rights to maintenance in the name of shariat,
while a section of the Church opposes reforms relating to marriage, divorce and
property rights for Christian women. Similarly, Sikh fundamentalists demand a
personal law to deprive Sikh women from inheriting property.
An
investigation from a social and cultural standpoint would reveal political
influences in shaping and re-shaping religious tradition. For example, the
Islamic fundamentalists espoused by the Iranian regime have little in common
with the tolerant and pluralistic form of Islam found in the writings of Al
Beruni, who traveled in India
in the 11th century or with what was preached by the Mughal emperor,
Akbar in the 16th century. Islam contains fundamentalists who are
virtually intolerant of other religions but it also contains some of the earliest
expressions of toleration and transcendence of sectarian boundaries. In the
South Asian sub-continent, Muslims include liberals and conservatives, but with
the latter in majority and more vocal.
Nothing
is more important to women’s life than education. With literacy and social
consciousness, a woman becomes enlightened enough to take her own decisions and
to some extent shape her future. In India,
the adult female literacy is around 52 per cent, which is much more than the neighbouring
countries but less than China
where it’s about 75 per cent. It is only in recent times that education of the
opposite sex is being encouraged in a big way, in urban and rural areas to make
women self-reliant, aware of their rights, have an understanding of social
issues, including religion, and discard whatever has no scientific basis.
While
Christians have always a given lot of emphasis on girl’s education, Hinduism too
talks of the need for such education. But Muslims in India
as also in countries like Afghanistan,
Iran, Saudi Arabia continue
to neglect women’s education, if not at the secondary level but definitely at
the higher levels.
Let’s
take another issue. The question of a uniform civil code in the country has for
long been the subject of much discussion and debate though its enforcement has yet
not been possible. By placing the directive that the State shall “endeavour to
secure” a uniform civil code in Article 44 of the Indian Constitution among the
unenforceable Directives of State Policy, the framers expressed an opinion that
it would be unwise to move against existing personal laws hastily. In
Constitutional debates, Muslim leaders had repeatedly held that retention of
the personal laws is “a part of the fundamental right to religious freedom”.
The words “endeavour to secure” were chosen deliberately. The idea being the State
should gradually prepare the people to accept a uniform code at a future date.
No
religious group can possibly maintain a separate system of law that either
violates the basic rights of the citizens or involves religions in asymmetry viz
another. And, if this is guaranteed then the case for “permitting religions
some latitude in areas such as marriage and divorce may at least be argued”.
One can no doubt conclude that all religions are plural, contain argument, dissent
and also the voice of women in varying degrees, which invariably hasn’t been
heard.
In
a statement in July 1998 to the UN Economic and Social Council (and also
several times later), the World Bank questioned whether there were ways in
which an adjustment process could be designed and complimented to minimize the
difficulties experienced by low-income and deprived groups, such as women and emphasized
the need to pay more attention to their health. With statistics in hand --that women
represent 50 per cent of the world population, one-third of the official labour
force, perform two-third of all working hours for which they receive only
one-third of world income and own less than one per cent of world property—the
Bank statement observed that “development cannot advance far if women are left
significantly behind”.
If
education and awareness among women can be improved, religious commitment would
automatically then be examined from a scientific and realistic perspective as well
as from the obligations of citizens in a liberal democracy. Women need to be
given a proper place in society and allowed to live a dignified existence that
would ensure her all basic human rights. In most developed countries, women
have through education and equal opportunities become equal partners in society,
whereas in the Third World this can become a
reality only if the religious groups shed their fundamentalist moorings and
create the right atmosphere. Remember, in the coming years, the women’s role
will become increasingly important in the sphere of real development. --INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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