Women Rights are Human Rights – A multidimensional perspective
Date of Meeting: 12 March 2018
Meeting Organizer: Lilith NGO
ISJC Staff Present: Captain Paula Mendes
Reporter: Captain Paula Mendes
Which SDG does this topic cover? 5 and 17
Type of meeting: CSW Parallel Event
Brief summary of presentation of information made
Hasna Maroudi is a Dutch-Moroccan writer and feminist activist. She is also a Muslin and as so, she shared the challenges of proposing an Islamic feminism. Some highlights:
- If we just know people from our culture, our religion and our background, we basically don’t know the world, but just our world.
- Liberty means something different for every person (do not judge the Islam culture and women in burkas – freedom for them is more than this)
- Our right cannot be determined by someone else. To be truly free is to be able to make our own choices.
- We need to learn to agree to disagree (Model of Dr. Amina Wadud)
- A new model: women leading prayers in mosques and including the LGBT community
- The Quran is basically written and interpreted by men and we should change that
- We need an intersectional feminism
- Make efforts to end misogyny but also islamophobia
Examples of this practices:
Feminism in India / Luchadoras (Mexico) / Lilith
What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
There is a movement for gender equality inside the Army, but it is still a challenge to accept this broadly and really go deep in the themes that feminist initiatives propose. We have few interfaith dialogues, and this could happen more because as the panelist said, “if we know just our world, we don’t know the world”. Gender equality is bigger then denomination, religion our other backgrounds that divide us.