Newsletter of the Asian Women's Resource Centre for Culture and Theology
Vol. 11, No. 1, April 2006
Equal rights for Muslim women
“There is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women,” thus wrote Marina Mahathir, a feminist journalist and HIV/AIDS activist, on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
Comparing to the situation of apartheid in South Africa before 1990, she wrote, “We are unique in that we actively legally discriminate against women who are arguably the majority in this country, Muslim women. Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women.”
Mahathir, who is the daughter of the former Malaysian Prime Minister, cited a number of laws that have been beneficial to non-Muslim women but not to Muslim women in the country. The Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, banned polygamy among non-Muslims which customary laws previously allowed. It abolished men’s ability to unilaterally pronounce divorce on their wives. It now requires divorce by mutual consent or upon petition by either spouse in an equal process where the grounds are intolerable adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion of not less than two years, and living separately for not less than two years. But according to Mahathir, the lot of many Muslim women is such that they are abandoned but not divorced by their husbands.
Mahathir wrote that while the Guardianship of Infants Act of 1961 was amended to provide for equal guardianship for both father and mother, the Islamic Family Law (IFL) still names the father as the sole primary guardian of his children although the mother is now allowed to sign certain forms for her children under an administrative directive.
She continued that while the Distribution Act of 1958 was amended granting children the right to inherit from their mothers and fathers, under the newly proposed amendments to the IFL, the use of gender neutral language on the issue of matrimonial property is discriminatory to Muslim women when other provisions are not gender-neutral. Muslim men may still contract polygamous marriages, unilaterally divorce their wives for the most trivial of reasons (including by SMS, unique in the Muslim world) and are entitled to double shares of inheritance.
“Do we have two categories of citizenship in Malaysia, whereby most female citizens have lesser rights than others?” Mahathir asked. “As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards. We should also note that only in Malaysia are Muslim women regressing; in every other Muslim country in the world, women have been gaining rights, not losing them.”
On International Women's Day, only about 40% of Malaysian women could celebrate, she added, while the rest could only look at their Non-Muslim sisters in despair and envy.
Will Indian women remain victims forever?
Sex-selective abortion is responsible for the loss of 10 million unwanted baby girls in India. This was reported in the medical journal Lancet in January 2006. But many Indian analysts say this is only the top of the mountain of problems. At the root is Indian culture that places women in a state of complete inferiority.
Such a culture regards the birth of a daughter as a misfortune, and breeds situations of forced marriage, sexual exploitation, humiliation and suicide for many women who may be allowed to see the light of day but who remain vulnerable in the family, religious community, or in society.
Sex-selective abortion and amniocentesis to determine a fetus’ sex is the modern way to perform female infanticide, a custom that was regularly practiced 20 years ago throughout India. According to AsiaNews, in the past, female infanticide was carried out by choking the victim to death, forcing her to ingurgitate vast quantities of opium, or suffocating her by forcing rice into her mouth.
Although India has officially banned sex determination and selective abortion in 1994, amniocentesis remains popular among Indian women of all social classes. Many hospitals and clinics carry it out in secret. The result is an abnormally skewed male-female ratio which have serious social effects upon the population in the very near future.
Demands have been made for the Christian churches to take a more decisive stand for Indian women – through opposing abortion and campaigning against the dowry system and male-only land property rights. But many see the patriarchal churches as failing to contain the problem and as being part of the problem – i.e., defenders of men’s privileges.
Call for papers - In God's Image 2006
Once again, we would like to thank all the contributors and guest editors who kindly helped to put together our editions of In God's Image during the year 2005. We certainly look forward to hearing again from you. Please feel free to contact us -- suggesting topics, giving us names of other possible writers, or just passing on the themes we have for the next year to other women and like-minded men in Asia.
We would like you to consider contributing towards the following themes:
June – Women and Peacemaking
September – Caring for God’s Garden
December – Sri Lanka
For the June edition – “women and peacemaking” is the proposed theme to celebrate efforts that various women in Asia have done in order to bring about peace -- for themselves, their families, churches and communities. As we enter the second half of the Decade to Overcome Violence (2001-2010), it is important to highlight the efforts of women who are already doing something because we are always in the midst of old and continuing as well as new and emerging conflicts.
The “Decade to Overcome Violence” is an initiative of the World Council of Churches, parallel to the United Nations’ declaration of the same decade as “Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World.” Therefore, churches and states have agreed to commit themselves to help overcome violence.
 | So what then has happened so far during this ten-year campaign? Did the campaign reach the grassroots? Why or why not? |
| What are some changes (for good or otherwise) that are obvious in our churches and states in Asia as a result of the DOV campaign? What are some obstacles to doing something about the campaign? |
| How are women claiming their God-given right to peace/shalom, well-being, with or without the campaign? |
| How are women participating in peacemaking in their various contexts? Peacemaking of course can take many forms depending on the context of un-peace -- e.g. domestic abuse, communal conflict, religious conflicts, abuse of power in the church or society, etc. |
Deadline for the June edition: 1 May 2006
For the September edition – “caring for God's garden” is offered here as a theme to encourage us to re-visit our connectedness with God’s garden, the earth. In view of the many problems we face now related to environment or ecology (global warming, continuing pollution from industries and factories, profit-oriented development paradigm, and the various natural calamities that have killed so many people recently), it is important for us to assess our relationship to the rest of God’s creation.
| What are some efforts in your contexts that try to retrieve our connectedness with the land? We need to learn from Indigenous/tribal peoples about their connectedness with the land, earth, and the whole of creation. The small Mogun tribe, for example, in Thailand survived the devastating effect of the tsunami because they remembered a legend that taught them how to respond to the signs of a major calamity. |
| How are the survivors of calamities trying to put their lives together again? We have had a series of calamities -- floods, tsunami, etc. |
| What is the connection of the scary epidemics -- e.g. SARS, bird flu, mad cow disease -- to our way of life in God’s garden? |
| How are we taking seriously God’s mandate of stewardship of God’s garden? |
| How do we respond to the worsening problem of global warming? What can we learn from green groups in your contexts about protecting and sustaining the environment? |
Deadline for the September edition: 1 July 2006
For the December edition -- we are happy to have the women of Sri Lanka do a national edition. We are very sure that they have a lot to contribute and so we look forward to their stories and reflections.
Call for papers - In God's Image 2007 : IGI's 25th and AWRC 20th Anniversary
In the year 2007, we shall celebrate the 25th anniversary of our feminist theological journal in Asia, In God's Image (IGI) and the 20th anniversary of the Asian Women's Resource Centre for Culture and Theology (AWRC), which publishes IGI.
In view of these two significant anniversaries in the life-story of feminist theologizing in Asia, we are proposing that some of the editions of In God's Image in 2007 will be given to featuring the special and unique, but often unknown and untold her-stories of the women in Asia who are the foremothers and foresisters of Asian feminist theologizing. And even if you may already have written an article or a book about your life-story, surely, there must be something new about your life-journey to write about that others also can learn from you. We simply want to celebrate your stories, your struggles, your lives.
How we wish we could personally come to you and interview you, or simply listen to and record your stories! But given the many limitations that prevent us from doing that, we have decided to ask you to write those stories instead. Feel free to write your own personal stories in the way you like best.
You may wish to include something of the following suggested ideas:
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your coming to awareness about the woman question (even without the label of feminism, awareness could take the form of questioning the state of things, e.g. the oppression of women in general here in Asia) -- what were the circumstances that led you to that questioning? |
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your experience of questioning the status quo, especially on matters related to women's issues and gender equality; what was the issue that you questioned or opposed? how did others respond to you? who were with you in your struggle? |
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your struggle to improve the plight of women -- what particular aspect of the situation of women in Asia moved you into action? what did you do and how did you do it? who did you have for support? what were your pains and gains in the process? |
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how did feminist consciousness and feminist theologizing help you through all this? |
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what word of encouragement do you wish to give to those following you? |
Feel free also to write about someone -- another woman -- whose story is worth sharing and celebrating because she too is a foremother or a foresister of feminist consciousness in Asia. Indeed, there have been women who were “ahead of their time” -- they dared to risk by questioning the status quo when it was unthinkable for women to speak out; by voicing out against oppression of women and other vulnerable groups in society, and by clamoring for equality because everyone is made in the image of God. Some of these Asian women may have passed away. Or some are just too shy to write and share their stories. Please help us know them. Let us hear from them. Let us share their and our stories.
For those who have directly been related to AWRC and/or IGI one way or another, please include how and when you became connected and what it has meant for you.
We would be grateful if you send in your stories, along with a photo or two of you (perhaps then and now) by 31 December 2006. Please send them to our office in Kuala Lumpur c/o igi@awrc4ct.org or AWRC, 119C-2 Batu 3˝ Jalan Kelang Lama, 58000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
We look forward to hearing from you even before then.
Materials on womenet may be quoted and copied provided that womenet is acknowledged as source. Printed copies of womenet are available on request from the AWRC Office.
