WUNRN
Bahrain Women Association
for Human Development
BAHRAIN - INNOVATION PROSPECTIVE TO
WOMEN PROJECT
" Women: A New Paradigm" is a project considered as a continuation of the former conference titled “ Advancement of Women, a Humanistic Perspective” which was organized by the Bahrain Women Association for Human Development in November 2007 . This conference provided new dimensions to the role of women in life as ”God’s Caliph on Earth” focusing on her humanistic role and introducing a regenerative understanding for some traditions and misconceptions in relation to the position and role of women in Islamic Societies. During the former conference which began with a symbolic play entitled (Trail of the history), BWA managed to highlight the injustice and violence against women being practised in our Arab and Islamic societies through out history. This was through misquoted religious or traditional texts like “Women are deficient in brain and religion” or “Those who are lead by a woman shall never thrive”. The conference managed to refute those allegations by valid and strong arguments based on logical analysis and supported by verses from the Holy Quran. The symbolic play and the new concepts discussed during the conference had great impact noticed clearly by the positive interaction of the audience and the wide media coverage, as well as through the successes stories that emerged and reported after the conference.
In the context of the former
successful conference, Bahrain Women Association has decided to build upon and
complement on the progress done and initiated in 2009, the “An Innovated
Prospective to Women” project. This project will focus on the conflicting
issues of women and family to help resolve the situation that leads to
misunderstanding of the women status, their freedom , eligibility and
efficiency to carry out their humanistic roles. This will tend to reach an
innovative understanding to such issues and aid in restoring the rights of all
women. Effectively, the project will contribute to form a strong cultural
ground to promote and activate the application CEDAW convention provisions and
the adoption of laws and legislations that would reduce the violence against
women. The up scaling of the project will target a large group of all parties
involved in the cycle of concepts changing, laws initiating and stopping all forms
of violence against women.
Problem
Analysis
Women’s issues diversified and varied deepening the differences between the doctrine and legislations, and continue to keep wavering back-and-forth between women's rights activists and those pretending to be so without achieving a significant advancement. Doctrinal rigidity due the minor understanding or misinterpretation of the Holy Quran texts created problems in various situations related to women like: violence against women, unfair inheritance, woman's testimony is half of a man's in all matters, the dilemma of divorce, problems of custody, alimony, marriage issues, polygamy and many other injustice practices leading to the loss of women rights. Violence against woman continues to be exercised under the guise of law and religion. This erroneous perception became a common social culture affecting the role and status of women in the community. This is in addition to laws and legislations that emerge as a result of such culture which is filled with false religious beliefs. A clear example is that women are subjected to humiliation and blackmail in Islamic courts due to wrong implementation of the legislative text by the judges of predominately masculine point of view. Moreover, full dependence on personal diligence with absence of written well-known documented laws worsens the situation. This clearly explains why women consider psychological abuse and humiliation sometimes even more devastating than physical violence .
Purpose
The overall
goals to be achieved are as follows:
- Review the existing concerns on women’s
status and her eligibility to carry out her humanistic role.
- Present and discuss the innovative
doctrinal viewpoints regarding women and family.
- Highlight some of the factual current issues
that act as barriers facing women in achieving their human rights.
The project
will devise innovative solutions in
some of the pressing women’s issues and topics that are controversial and has a
direct impact on her role in life. The innovative concepts and solutions
which will be emerge from this project for many of the current issues and
problems concerning women’s role and status will enlighten the community and
contribute in building a culture that can act as an important stimulant to make
a change in the existing unjust laws and legislations on women.
In addition, it will aid to the issuance of laws to incriminate violence in all its forms as a result of termination of the cultural and religious.
Strategies
The
project aims to perform four seminars,
each includes several sessions to raise and discuss the following topics:
-First
seminar, slogan :“Combating violence against women”, topics to be
discussed are: insubordination, custody,
woman beating, and women obedience to her husband.
-Second
seminar, slogan:”women and men….discrimination or justice”, topics to be
discussed: custodianship, inheritance and Women testimony.
-Third
seminar , slogan :“Retained in honour or released in kindness” topics to be
discussed are: Alimony, housing and custody.
-Fourth
seminar, slogan : “Towards Successful Family Partnership” topics to be
discussed are: minimum marriage age and polygamy.
Expected
Results
- Disapproving and correcting
the problematic issues and the wrong cultural perception on the role and status
of women in society.
- Initiating a
multidimensional outcome (cultural, doctrinal, and legal) to resolve many of
the pending issues related to women in particular and family in general.
- Resolving the issues
regarding the reserved items of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women ( CEDAW ).This shall contribute to the mobilize
all segments of the community demanding the activation of the terms of the
agreement.
- Activate the terms of the
CEDAW agreement approved by the Kingdom of Bahrain to advance women’s current
situation and develop her role in society..
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