From Beena Sarwar - Some Links

Beena should get a blog of her own ~~t

A new political context for Juliet - my article for The News on Sunday, about women speaking out all over the country, attempting to exercise their rights to personal autonomy – in a post-colonial age that harks back to medieval times when women were considered family property http://tinyurl.com/tns-juliet

Women Defy Militancy, Patriarchy – story for IPS outlining the twin threats of militancy and patriarchy that women face in Pakistan http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46024

In both articles, I refer to a documentary, "Class Dismissed in Swat Valley" (NYT) that focuses on Malala, an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban close down her school. A must see – very moving and informative – profiling the great courage of ordinary people under adversity http://tinyurl.com/avq4c9

I learnt of this film through an article that Shabbir Imam in Peshawar forwarded from the Anchorage Daily News by Shehla Anjum, a Pakistan-born writer based in Alaska, "Taliban wages war against girls' education in Pakistan". The writer followed up the story in the documentary by contacting Malala and her father.http://tinyurl.com/dmxtld

The IPS website – www.ipsnews.net – contains a link to the other articles around Women's Day - http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/women/index.asp.

This link includes other articles worth looking up, from Palestine and Afghanistan, and ZOFEEN EBRAHIM'S article about child marriage in Pakistanhttp://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46022

KALPANA SHARMA in her column `The Other Half' in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 8, 2008, writes about the attacks women in India are facing – a chilling account of what looks like an Indian version of the Vice & Virtue dept of the Taliban that we are facing here in Pakistan...http://tinyurl.com/bql9vg

CASSANDRA BALCHIN – a three-part series on the challenges faced by Muslim women around the globe and the debates within the Muslim world to deal with these challenges, the demand for equality within the family, and more, in Open Democracy - http://www.opendemocracy.net

I've shortened the three URLs for easy reference here:Home truths in the Muslim family - The global pressure to reform Muslim family law is mounting http://tinyurl.com/bxhf8v

Musawah: there cannot be justice without equality - Muslim scholars and activists from 48 countries launch a global initiative for justice with equality between men and womenhttp://tinyurl.com/akg2q8

Musawah: solidarity in diversity - a global initiative to reform Muslim Family Law finds solidarity in diversity and a growing convergence around human rights values. http://tinyurl.com/bbvvhd

[thanks BS]