The Sudanese Muslim women's rights activist Lubna Hussein, famous for her battle against the Islamic fundamentalist oppression of women in her country, in specific as concerns the ban on female trouser-wearing, has traveled to Europe to raise awareness of the plight of her co-religionists.
A political powerhouse and journalist, Ms. Hussein gained famed when she refused to stop wearing pants, in the face of harsh punishment, in her native country of Sudan, known for its human rights abuses, including appalling enslavement of both non-Muslims and black Muslims alike. Hussein has remained defiant in the face of brutality and death threats, and has essentially escaped to Europe. She has stated that she may not return to Sudan. I know I wouldn't!
Ironically, her manner of escape was the "full Islamic veil," presumably the niqab.
Sudan reporter might not return home
Sudanese law stipulates a maximum of 40 lashes for wearing indecent clothing. Women in trousers are not a rare sight in Sudan but officials can take offence at trousers which reveal too much of a woman's shape.
The Islamic mentality expressed in this prohibition reveals just how completely and utterly misogynistic it is. A woman's shape is not something that needs to be hidden in a sane and balanced society where the men are not so sex crazed that they can't control themselves.
Sources & Further Reading
Lubna Hussein slips out of Sudan to fight against trouser ban
..."Thousands of women have been whipped," she said. "They suffer in silence. They go away with heads lowered in shame."
Men, by contrast, were treated with extraordinary leniency. "A teacher caught raping a boy was sentenced to only one month in prison,” she said, “the same sentence a woman can get for wearing trousers."
She has received thousands of messages of support from all over the world and hopes that oppressed women everywhere will be inspired to take action.
"What will happen if 100 Saudi women, who are forbidden by law to drive a car, join forces to break this rule, getting behind the wheel like they do in London or Beirut, demonstrating in a convoy through the streets of Jeddah or Riyadh? Only shocks like this can bring about change."
Another outrage, she believes, is the practice of female circumcision. In Sudan it is carried out on children between the ages of four and eight without anaesthetic. Deaths from infections and bleeding are common.
Hussein was seven when a so-called "purifier" with no medical training operated on her. A few days later it was the turn of her friend, but the operation went wrong. "A month later my friend was dead," said Hussein....
Sudan teen lashed for "indecent" skirt
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A 16-year-old south Sudanese girl was lashed 50 times after a judge ruled her knee-length skirt was indecent, her lawyer and family said in the latest case to push Sudan's Islamic law into the spotlight.
The mother of teenager Silva Kashif told Reuters on Friday she was planning to sue the police who made the arrest and the judge who imposed the sentence, as her daughter was underage and a Christian....
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|2009-11-29 16:11:14 josephine publicThe punishment needs to fit the crime. The judges and all parties involved, including those who physically carried out the sentence should receive 50 lashes also.
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|2011-01-19 05:26:01 Larish50 lashes? I personally think it's too much punishment for something as little a mistake as wearing a knee-length skirt. It might be against religion but as the girl's mother said, the teen was Christian, so she might not know about that rule. The judges should impose this type of punishment to hardened criminals or violent teens who have done very big crimes. Just my two cents.
Larish
Turning Winds
I hope all these women survivors of Islamic barbarity are getting organised and on the same page.