Hera Diani, Jakarta – International women's rights activists called Monday for a reinterpretation of dogmas they said were trapping women in backwardness and poverty in regions with strong Islamic traditions.
They argued that the gender development index (GDI) – a measurement used by the UN and other organizations – as well as other indicators of gender empowerment are low in areas with entrenched patriarchal interpretations of Islam.
The comments were made at a seminar featuring politicians and Islamic activists and leaders from Indonesia and South Asia.
The indicators commonly used to measure women's welfare are life expectancy, literacy, schooling, participation in the labor force, participation in parliament and other forms of governance, and professional accomplishment.
Activists said the province of East Java, which has a strong pesantren (Islamic boarding school) tradition, scores low on measurements of women's development. They added that women appear to fare worse in more-developed areas.
"The higher the human development index (HDI), the lower the GDI. Sidoarjo, for instance, ranks second for HDI in the province, but the GDI ranks 14th, which shows that women lag behind," said legislator Eva Kusuma Sundari from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
The situation, she said, has been worsening with the issuance of 41 sharia-inspired bylaws in several regions that discriminate against women and limit their activities. Supporters of the bylaws argue they are designed to protect women and bolster morality.
Activists said the situation in South Asian countries from India to Nepal to Sri Lanka was more or less the same, whether Muslims were in the majority or the minority. Muslim women in these countries were less literate, less educated and less well-represented in the community.
Indian activist and scholar Haseena Hashia said that while Indian women in general faced many difficulties, Muslim women suffered more. Of India's total population of about 700 million, 13.4 percent are Muslim, making it the second largest religion after Hinduism. "They are the poorest of the poor," she said, addressing the seminar.
The challenges faced by Indian Muslim women, she said, included very low literacy and education rates, no political participation and no role in policy making, poor health conditions, polygamy and trafficking.
"The mindset of parents and the community is that a male child is considered better. Female children often can't go to school. And as far as work participation, only 14.1 percent of Muslim women work," Hashia said.
Activists said in Pakistan, where 98 percent of the population is Muslim, the problems of Muslim women are worsened by the existence of hadud, or Hudood Ordinances, which classify levels of crime and carry severe punishments. The ordinances include an adultery law which can cause female victims of rape to end up in jail.
"People are imposing morality on women. The implementation of hadud laws – which are misunderstood, misused and misapplied – has resulted in the imprisonment of a lot of innocent women," said Pakistani activist Salima Khalimi.
The speakers urged Muslim communities to push for what they called a correct interpretation of Islam as a religion that gives equal rights to men and women. They urged Muslims to adopt the concept that women's rights are human rights.
"The first command received by Prophet Muhammad was iqra or 'read', so how come we have the lowest illiteracy rate in the Muslim community?" said Hashia.