United Nations: Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that the Taliban government in Afghanistan has deeply disappointed Muslims around the world. They did it by placing restrictions on women’s access to education and employment.
Speaking at the first-ever UN-sponsored conference on “women in Islam,” Bilawal claimed that radicals had twisted the image of faith. Image that favored women’s active participation in all spheres of life.
“It is only appropriate for Pakistan—and other OIC countries—to express our great dissatisfaction. The limitations imposed on the human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, particularly their right to education and employment is not satisfactory at all,” he said.
“These limitations go against what Islam commands. I earnestly implore the Afghan interim administration to lift these restrictions. They must allow Afghan women to fully and significantly contribute to the growth and advancement of their nation.
Bilawal, who is also the chair of the OIC Council of Ministers at the UN, spoke on behalf of all. OIC is the second-largest international organization after the United Nations, with 57 member states.
On the fringes of the 67th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Mr. Bhutto-Zardari presided over a high-level section of the one-day meeting held at the UN headquarters in New York.
Delegates agreed that Muslim women still face numerous difficulties. Noting that the OIC countries’ gender progress index is still lower than the global average of 0.94, at 0.87.
FM said the group convened the meeting to “dispel the grave misperception about the rights, roles, and identity of women “.
Extremism
He added the ‘caricature’ that dominates the perception of Muslim women, particularly in the West, was “based on ignorance of our past, ignorance of our cultural, historical norms and roles that women have performed” in Muslim nations.
“Extremists who do not represent our faith have mainly stolen the perception of our religion since 9/11. I feel a unique obligation to refute this propaganda and impression,” he said.
The foreign minister pleaded with the West to make a distinction between Islamic social norms and those upheld by some patriarchal societies. “Xenophobes, Islamophobes, and obscurantists would prefer not to draw this distinction because they support prejudice. Also, he noted that discrimination is a prerequisite for despotism.
A woman “has an own social and legal identity and enjoys civil, political, economic, and cultural rights,” the speaker claimed in reference to Islam. Islam established a woman’s right to inherit, divorce, receive alimony, and have custody of her children before many other religions.
He emphasised that there were many notable women in Islamic history, including Hazrat Khadija, Hazrat Ayesha, Hazrat Zainab bint Ali, and Hazrat Rabia Basri.
Millions of Muslim women still rule numerous professions today, including politics, education, health, research, and commerce, he claimed. Bilawal mentioned Anousheh Ansari, a computer scientist, along with Malala Yousufzai, the youngest Nobel winner, as well as the first Muslim woman to hold the office of president (of Indonesia).
He claimed that Pakistani women had also distinguished themselves throughout the country’s history.
“The sister of the Quaid-i-Azam was a leader in the fight for democracy and for our country’s freedom.
The International Day to Against Islamophobia will be recognised on March 10 with another high-level event that will be hosted by the foreign minister.
