WUNRN
This article was also listed as a
reference in the UNAMA - OHCHR Report - 12/10 on Harmful Traditional
Practices & Implementation of the Law on the Elimination of Violence
Against Women in Afghanistan:
AFGHANISTAN-CLERICS ISSUE FATWA
RESTRICTIONS ON WOMEN'S TRAVEL
Women
could work outside of their homes only if they were properly dressed and wore
no makeup, he said, suggesting short skirts and cosmetics attracted men’s
attention.
Ahmad Qureshi - May 26, 2010
HERAT CITY: A council of Afghan clerics
has issued a fatwa, banning women from traveling without a father, brother or
other approved escort, even during the Hajj.The ruling by the Herat Religious
Council also said Islam prohibited women, engaged in activities out of home, from
wearing makeup.
Announcing the fatwa, tens of religious
scholars asked the government to implement their advice. The clerics said they
could not shut their eyes to the current situation.
Maulavi Muhammad Kababeyane, deputy
head of the council, said travel without a mahram, or unmarriageable relative,
raised "questions about a womans piety".
The legal opinion also applied to
womens business trips, he said. Even going to Hajj without such a companion was
a sin under Islamic Shariah, the scholar explained.
Although he supported female education,
Kababeyane said women attending education programmes abroad without being
accompanied by mahrams was against Islam.
Women could work outside of their homes
only if they were properly dressed and wore no makeup, he said, suggesting
short skirts and cosmetics attracted men’s attention.
The council urged the government to
prioritise the implementation of the issues raised in the fatwa.
But Herat-based women organisations
said the ruling ran counter to gender equality. "The fatwa is
illogical," said Bahar Joya, who plans to go to India to study.
She said neither could her family
afford to send with her a companion to India, nor could the host country
sponsor the expenses of such a person.
Joya, who works in Herat, said piety
was a personal issue and a Muslim woman could maintain it anywhere. Joya's
husband said he had no problem with his wife going abroad alone.
Supportive of the Islamic hijab, social
worker Muhammad Rafiq Shaheer believed the fatwa could not be enforced in the
current situation.