Is it really just religion that has many Muslim women living behind the veil?
13 November 2006
Mary Akrami lives in Kabul where she runs a refuge for Afghan women who have been subjected to domestic violence. She is from Afghanistan herself but has spent some of the thirty years of her life as a refugee when the Taliban ran that country. From a family background that prized education for women as well as men she completed high school when she was in Kabul, and when she was a refugee in Pakistan she learned English and computer skills.
Since Mary set up her refuge it has been constantly full to overflowing - thirty or more in a place for twenty. This is exactly what happened when Women's Aid set up refuges in Ireland, domestic violence being international. The women who come, as well as having suffered violence within their families, know that in Afghanistan such affairs are traditionally settled within the family. There are no women-friendly laws which may be used by a woman to protect herself. "Women's rights violation is taken as a family issue and the interference of law enforcement agencies are considered a scratch of family honour", to quote from her presentation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, where I met her.
"Women's rights are given little or no attention by social units, institutions or government. The formal legal system is simply not the rule governing the lives of the majority of the population. The culture defines the status and role of women, constrains the possibilities that can be achieved to take them (women) out of stagnation and underdevelopment." Mary spoke of "several meaningless cultural and traditional practices against women as a result of which they are not permitted to play their desired role in the family and society."
I'm no Islamic scholar but I have frequently been confused by the dress many Muslim women seem to have no choice but to wear; for example, the burka in Afghanistan. In the Koran I have found references to women being instructed to cover their bosoms and to dress in a manner which we would now describe as modest and distinctive but I cannot find the place where they were told they must cover their faces.
Having listened to Mary it seems that culture in various parts of the world affects women often more than the religion practised there does. As I said, domestic violence is international. We have plenty of it here and it is only in recent years that it is taken really seriously. Nearer to Afghanistan it took until 2005 for the Indian Parliament to pass legislation regarding domestic violence there, despite the fact that for at least thirty years Indian women have been seeking laws to protect brides whose dowries are not considered satisfactory by the bridegrooms' families and who are victims of "accidental kitchen fires".
Mary sat before our committee and told tales of women from forced marriages or engagements who have fled to her refuge, who had been raped or otherwise violated. To my great relief she told us she had been to see Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop, the director of the Rape Crisis Centre in Dublin, who had told Mary that if she wanted someone trained to work in Kabul all that Mary needed to do was to send the person to Dublin and she would be trained here.
Mary was not looking primarily for money, although I'm sure some would be useful. The Chair of the Committee, Deputy Michael Woods, said he would contact Irish Aid on her behalf. The main thing she asked for was moral support. That she will have in plenty from Irish people I know, but when I finished speaking I did say I hoped and prayed for her safety because Afghanistan is a dangerous place particularly for women who speak out as she does.
During my life I have known many Muslim women mainly from medical or parliamentary work. None wore face-covering veils although several covered their heads.
Recently in England a school assistant insisted she be allowed to cover her face when teaching children if any man was near. After a court case she was dismissed because to act in such a manner was considered incompatible with her job.
Communication, after all, is much more than just the words we say. Our facial expressions can mean everything. If Muslim women here are assured that in our culture we like to be able to see people's faces would they feel they had to preserve the culture of another country which in fact is not part of their religion?
There was a documentary on Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme on 30 October 2006 called "Women only Jihad" and it featured British Muslim women who wanted more integration into the Muslim religious life in Britain. At present only 60 percent of British mosques allow women to pray therein although the Prophet Mohamed in his teachings had said women could pray in the mosque. It was a fascinating programme addressing other issues Mary had touched on, too.
Dressing modestly is interpreted differently all over the world. Only 5 percent of Muslim women cover their faces, some now doing so in dangerous areas for protection. One woman said that when she married, her husband wanted her to cover her face. When she demurred, her father said to him "she is yours she will do as you say".
There was a letter from a lady on multiculturalism and integration in The Irish Times the same day as the documentary. The lady had worked in Saudi Arabia for five years in the 1990s and had obeyed all the rules there regarding head covering, being segregated on the basis of sex into different rooms, even at family gatherings, the driving restrictions and so forth. She queried whether it helped Muslim women here for us to change our culture to suit some of their restrictive practices. For example, she said she had read that in a Tallaght school separate parent-teacher meetings were arranged for Muslim women who were uncomfortable in the same room as other men. "What next" she asked "separate waiting rooms in hospitals, doctors' clinics, dentists' clinics, etcetera?"
I suspect Mary Akrami would agree with her. Separation of women is not likely to give them equal human rights. I have heard Turkish women parliamentarians, one of them an obstetrician/gynaecologist, speak very strongly on the integration of women in society. We may give Mary Akrami moral support by doing that right here.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
