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The Network 'Women Living Under Muslim Laws' was created to break women’s isolation and to provide linkages and support to all women whose lives may be affected by Muslim laws.
The use of 'Muslim Laws' in our name reflects two equally important issues. First, laws formally considered Muslim vary, sometimes radically, from one cultural context to another.
Second, a plurality of legal codes co-exist in each cultural, social and political context. At the very least, each society has a formal, codified legal system and a parallel system in which customary laws and practices combine. Further sub-divisions can also occur - for example, some countries may have two formal codes, religious and civil. Similarly, customary laws are diverse.
The Network recognises that these parallel systems are of vital importance to women - because the maximum combined impact is felt in family and personal matters. These affect women disproportionately and usually in a manner that undermines their rights and autonomy.
Despite the diversity - within and between social, political, economic and cultural environments - all too often the whole system is presented and internalised as being "Islamic" with many effects on society at large and women in particular.
The Network’s name 'Women Living Under Muslim Laws' (WLUML) is an acknowledgement of the complexity and diversity of women’s realities in Muslim countries and communities. Our choice of name also recognises that women affected by Muslim laws may not be Muslim, as they may have chosen another marker of political or personal identity.
WLUML therefore extends to:
* women living in countries or states where Islam is the state religion, as well as those from Muslim communities ruled by minority religious laws;
* women in secular states where there is a political presence of Muslims making a demand for religious law;
* women in migrant Muslim communities in Europe, the Americas, and around the world;
* and non-Muslim women who may have Muslim laws applied to them directly or through their children.
WLUML was formed in response to situations that required urgent action, during the years 1984-85. These included:
* The case of three feminists in Algeria, arrested, jailed without trial, and kept incommunicado for seven months, for having discussed with other women the project of law known as the "Family Code", which was highly unfavorable to women.
* The case of an Indian sunni woman who filed a petition in the Supreme Court arguing that the Muslim minority law applied to her in her divorce denied her the rights otherwise guaranteed by the Constitution of India to all citizens, and called for support.
* The case of a woman in Abu Dhabi, charged with adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death after delivering and feeding her child for two months.
* The case of the "Mothers of Algiers" who fought for custody of their children after divorce.
The campaigns that have been launched on these occasions, amongst others, received full support both from women and men within Muslim countries and communities, and from progressive and feminist groups elsewhere.
Taking the opportunity of meeting at the international feminist gathering "Tribunal on Reproductive Rights" held in Amsterdam, Holland, in July 1984, nine women from Muslim countries and communities: Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Mauritius, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Pakistan, came together and formed the Action Committee of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, in support of women's struggles in the concerned contexts. This Committee later evolved into the present network.
WLUML’s purpose is to facilitate access to information and to each other.
Its existence therefore depends on our links and not on the specific activities undertaken or positions held by any group or individual involved in this process.
WLUML believes that the seeming helplessness of a majority of women in the Muslim world in effectively mobilizing against and overcoming adverse laws and customs stems only in part from being economically and politically less powerful. It also stems from the erroneous belief that the only existence possible for a Muslim woman that allows her to maintain her identity (however that may be defined) is the dominant one delineated for her in her own national context.
In fact, the common presumption both within and outside the Muslim world that there exists one homogenous Muslim world is a fallacy. Interaction between women from different Muslim societies has shown us that while some similarities may stretch across cultures, classes, sects, schools and continents, the diversities are at least equally striking.
The different realities of women living under Muslim laws, range from being strictly closeted, isolated and voiceless within four walls, subjected to public floggings and condemned to death for presumed adultery (which is considered a crime against the state) and forcibly given in marriage as a child, to situations where women have a far greater degree of freedom of movement and interaction, the right to work, to participate in public affairs and also exercise a far greater control over their own lives.
WLUML's objectives are:
* To break isolation and to create and reinforce linkages between women and women's groups within Muslim countries and communities;
* To increase women's knowledge about both their common and diverse situations in various contexts;
* To strengthen their struggles and to create the means to support them internationally from within and outside the Muslim world;
* In essence, the purpose of WLUML is to increase the autonomy of women affected by Muslim laws by encouraging them to reflect, analyse and reformulate the identity imposed on them through the application of Muslim laws and by doing so, to assume greater control over their lives.
These objectives are fulfilled through:
* building a network of mutual solidarity and information flow;
* facilitating interaction and contact between women from Muslim countries and communities and between them and progressive and feminist groups at large;
* promoting the exposure of women from one geographical area to another in and outside the Muslim world;
* and by undertaking common projects identified by and executed through network participants.
In October 1997, 35 active networkers from 18 countries met in Dhaka to develop the third WLUML Plan of Action, which can be accessed at http://www.wluml.org/english/pubs/rtf/poa/dhakapoa.rtf
Sources
http://www.whrnet.org/fundamentalisms/docs/focus-wluml-0311.html
http://wluml.org
128.135.24.54 (talk) 02:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Declined. The proposed article is not suitable for Wikipedia. Tiptoety talk 02:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]