South East Asia

Thematic report on article 16, Muslim Family Law and Muslim Women's Rights in Singapore

This report examines Singaporean laws and practices that enforce de jure and de facto discrimination against women in the following areas: reform of Muslim family law to guarantee equality for Muslim women, male-only positions under AMLA, women’s equal capacity to enter into marriage, child and early marriage, polygamy and divorce rights.

I am a woman, and I am afraid

A week ago, All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) and DAP Damansara Utama assemblywoman Yeo Bee Yin launched a rape awareness campaign with the tagline “No Excuse For Rape”. It didn’t take long before the topic of marital rape came up, and to my dismay, there were people defending it in the name of Islam.

Day 1/16 Women at risk as Brunei introduces stoning

Naureen Shameem

It is a scandal that in 2013 women still risk death by stoning in 15 countries. Incredibly, that number is now set to rise as the southeast Asian kingdom of Brunei prepares to introduce this brutal punishment.

Last month, the Sultan of Brunei announced a harsh new penal code based on an interpretation of sharia law. Along with flogging and amputation for certain crimes, the code introduces death by stoning as a punishment for adultery.

Let’s be clear. Stoning is a heinous and protracted form of torture, and one of the cruellest kinds of violence perpetrated against women to control and punish them for the exercise of their basic freedoms and control over their own bodies.

A Pakistani born Canadian Victim's Appeal for Help!

This is an urgent appeal to help a 14-year old Pakistani-Canadian girl who's father will stand in court for molesting and sexually violating her for two consecutive years. There is a Facebook page that was created yesterday.Please see here:

http://www.facebook.com/CanadianVictimsAppealForHelp

ASEAN Progressive Muslim Movement (APMM)

The VNC Campaign was involved in the creation of the ASEAN Progressive Muslim Movement (APMM) in Year 1 of the WRRC Programme, and supported the attendance of the VNC Campaign Manager and a delegate from the SCN-CREST in Indonesia.

Women’s Rights Club, a project with Foundation of Solidarity for Justice, Afghanistan

This project was implemented by the Foundation of Solidarity for Justice (FSJ), an organisation that has been working in Afghanistan to promote human rights, especially the rights of victims from the conflicts of the past three decades. Women’s Rights Club is FSJ’s new initiative to bring together people from different sectors of society to discuss controversial issues related to Afghan women’s rights within tradition and religion, and to raise public awareness about their rights, including rights to inheritance and property.

WRRC projects with Semarak Cerlang Nusa, Indonesia

Semarak Cerlang Nusa had three projects under the Women's Inheritance and Property Rights working group:

“Land policy and tenure in South East Asia, 1995-2005”

This paper argues that land administration systems are now businesses. At one end of a wide spectrum land systems are being re=engineered engaging in business strategies, competition policies, and formal professional standards. At the other end, developing countries in Asia Pacific are being advised on large international funded projects about the building blocks required to establish some of the basic operations of a land administration system.

“Innovations in rural land policy and tenure in Southeast Asia”

Since the early 1980s land administration system projects have revolved around delivering and formalizing ‘old type’ tenures derived from stable legal orders and institutional recognition. Land administration designs and conventional tenure typologies are often engineered to suit assimilation of land arrangement into formal property markets. However, in developing countries in Southeast Asia the majority of the rural poor rely on systems of access to land sourced in social practice not law or government.

اندونيسيا: الضوابط الجديدة التي تحرم النساء من ارتداء "الملابس الضيقة" تتعرض للانتهاك

إن الحملة العالمية "أوقفوا قتل ورجم النساء" والشبكة العالمية للتضامن "النساء في ظل قوانين المسلمين" قلقان بشأن إصدار ضوابط جديدة في مقاطعة "غرب أتشيا" في اندونيسيا والذي يحرم المسلمين وخاصة النساء من إرتداء ملابس ضيقة. هذه الضوابط صدرت الخميس 27 مايو 2010 من قبل رئيس مقاطعة "غرب أتشيا". وسكان هذه المقاطعة من غير المسلمين، أوالذين يقطنون بصورة مؤقتة، مطالبون بإحترام وتبني هذه الضوابط الجديدة. وتعد "غرب أتشيا" أول مقاطعة في أندونسيا تطبق وبصرامة "الزي الإسلامي". وإذا وقعت هذه الضوابط من قبل السلطة الإقليمية ستكون المقاطعة بأكملها مجبرة على تطبيق الضوابط الجديدة.