International

Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide

This book is a report on the prevalence of female circumcision and female genital mutilation (FC/FGM) and on the use of law and policy to address these practices. This work places FC/FGM firmly within a human rights and legal framework, although it does recognise and address the challenges inherent to this discourse. The authors look at the history of FC/FGM; its consequences for women’s health; the reasons used to justify it – i.e. culture, control over women’s sexuality, tradition, interpretation of religious directives; and the history of movement’s working to combat it.

Ending Violence Against Women: A Challenge for Development and Humanitarian Work

This book argues that all organisations involved in development should challenge violence against women, and work to end it. It does not, however, set out to offer a blueprint for this work. Rather it considers different views of why violence against women exists, and the various types of response to such violence that are open to development organisations.

Report of the Special Rapporteaur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

In Part (c) Corporal punishment, point 40, the document states with regards to stoning: “Between 2004 and 2007 the Special Rapporteur sent 13 joint communicationsconcerning 21 women sentenced to death by stoning and 2 sentenced to flogging under sharialaw.

“Crimes of Honor in Jordan and the Arab World”

In this article, the author argues that it is mostly societal traditions and customs that drive people to resort to ‘crimes of honour’ – which she describes as “shameful, irreligious acts”. She states that in Islam it is a sin to take people's lives in one's own hands. Crimes of honor are therefore social in the full sense of the word. Perpetrators see it as 'social cleansing of shame', and seeking the community's approval. The author uses the example of Jordan, one of the countries that has the highest rate of such crimes, to argue her point.

"Islamic Perspecitve on 'Honor Killings'"

The Muslim Women’s League argues that the notion of ‘honour killing’ is justified by a distorted and erroneous interpretation of religion, especially Islam. They state that theproblem of ‘honour killings’ is not a problem of morality or of ensuring that women maintain their own personal virtue; rather, it is a problem of domination, power and hatred of women who, in these instances, are viewed as nothing more than servants to the family, both physically and symbolically.

"An Islamic Perspective on Female Genital Mutilation"

The Muslim Women’s League argues that the circumcision of girls, in any form, predated Islam by many centuries. It was practiced in some parts of Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and was evidently a custom of the time that may have been a practice of some but not all of the local tribes. As a pre-established tradition, therefore, female circumcision was not introduced by the Prophet to the early Muslim community.

Abusing Women, Abusing Islam: Re-Examining Sharia Court Rulings in Contemporary Times

This brief paper is an effort to expose how patriarchal and distorted interpretations of Sharia have been used to subjugate women and rob them of their fundamental rights, in direct opposition to the central teachings of Islam. In this paper, the Muslim Public Affairs Council presents three case studies involving abuses of Muslim women worldwide in the name of Islam. These cases have been widely reported and have been used as precedence for exploitative laws against women throughout the Muslim world.

Violence in the Name of Honour: Theoretical and Political Challenges

This book contains the contributions of participants at a seminar, organised by the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, and titled ‘International Seminar on Violence in the Name of Honour’ (4-6 December 2003). The first section of the book – ‘Theoretical Explorations of Honour Killings’ – methodologically and theoretically examines honour violence, including considering prevention, short and long term intervention, post-colonial contexts and the need for contextualisation.

“‘Honour Killing’: Culture, Politics and Theory”

Beginning with a discussion of the Swedish case of Fadime Sahindal, this article then deliberates over honour killings of Kurdish women in general. The author includes the concepts of culture, patriarchy, nationalism, racism, education and religion in her analysis of the phenomenon of ‘honour killing’ of Kudish women and of how this phenomenon is approached and analysed by different parties.

“Women’s Equality and Culture in the Context of Identity Politics”

This paper seeks to distinguish culture as it is lived and practised in its fluid and contradictory forms from cultural identity projects that construct it in homogenous and static terms. Cultural projects hide issues of domination, othering and identities both within and amongst cultural groupings – complexities that must be revealed rather than concealed. By positing culture as hostile to women’s equality, cultural identity projects create a binary that simplifies and conceals complex issues of politics, power and representation.