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Women in Islamic Society
By
Nazia Jabeen
ISLAM is a balanced
religion and presented a unique set of values in every walk of life. Before
Islam women had no respectable place in society. They remained deprived of
their rights in terms of inheritance, wealth, dignity etc.
It was the greatness of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) who introduced “Woman” as an
important part of the society, a respected human being and made it sure that
woman has her distinguish place in society not only by words but he showed
practical examples in this regard whether she is daughter, mother, wife,
sister and so on. His love for his daughter Fatima was the glittering
example for those non-Muslims who buried their newborn daughters considering
them as a punishment from God and felt proud of it. He strongly forbade
those who burnt the wives when their husbands died and gave the examples by
his good and equal behaviour with his wives.
He is the one who showed the way to heaven in the will and pleasure of
mother, and gave the importance to mother by saying that heaven lies under
the feet of the mother.
In short Islam being a complete code of life gave remarkable importance for
women rights. Now the question arises here that in spite of having such a
wonderful system of values, virtues and moral ethics, why are we unable to
ensure peace in our country?
Why everyday around us such unethical happenings to women occurred and why
violence against them is on the rise? The crux of such problems is that we
are going far from our religious, moral and cultural values, blind
adaptation of Sestern culture without knowing the reality that it is just a
betrayal and nothing else. We just feel proud of being Muslims and never try
to understand the real meanings of Islam.
It is seen that women are actively participating in almost each and every
field whether it is medicines, teaching, banking, etc., on the other hand
violence against women is on the rise whether it is domestic violence or
insecurity outside their homes. Most of them keep mum on such inequalities
and those who raise their voice compelled to keep quite. There is a worst
situation of women rights in jails and today I take the opportunity to bring
the attention of the authorities towards this sensitive issue.
According to a study in Islamic Republic of Pakistan nearly 2,000 women were
estimated to be held in jails across the country, the majority of them in
the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. This population included under trial
completed long periods in detention, although they had not been found guilty
of any offence.
Females in our society are suffering from more depression as compared to
males. The reason is that women are expected to conform to the norms of the
society, they have more societal pressures, stresses of marriages,
expectations from family members although these are against the teachings of
our religion which gives the lesson of equality of rights in every walk of
life.
In our country there seems to be an inequality of women’s rights and
violence against them everywhere but in jails the situation is worst because
the voices of the detainees at jails neither reach to the Assemblies nor the
humanitarian activists have time to visit then. Most of their policies
remain confined to the files and are not implemented.
Women prisoners in Adiala Jail are reportedly suffering from tuberculosis
because of the congestion of space. The women barracks have a capacity of 50
female inmates but there are at present 159 women and 26 children, report
added. According to a study about 7,000 women and children are languishing
in jails. These include women undertrial prisoners and convicts women in 75
jails across the country.
Out of 1,249 women under trail prisoners, 745 are in Punjab, 236 in the NWFP,
236 in Sindh, 19 in Balochistan, 12 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern
Areas. For having a peaceful society the need of the hour is that the NGOs
should work for the cause of women prisoners and look into their problems as
they are also part of our society.
First of all give them justice and mould them into responsible and
respectable citizens so that they can also take active part into the
development of our country. This will definitely bring relief to the women
who are deprived of their rights.●
© 2005 Nazia Jabeen
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