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Pakistan: Infanticide on the rise
Islam may have abolished female infanticide 1,400
years ago, but the crime still continues in some countries that claim to be
‘Islamic’. A report published last month in The Herald (Karachi)
estimated that about 14 newly born babies are either throttled or poisoned to
death and dumped in various parts of Karachi every month. Most cases are not
even registered by the police and the bodies are usually buried without an
autopsy, the report stated. According to one police officer, the police avoids
registering such cases as "we have many more important and urgent issues to deal
with during the course of a day and we have no time to spend on these cases.
Moreover, the absence of adequate leads makes such murders almost impossible to
investigate." Another reason, which the police does not speak about, is that
each police station tries to keep its record of heinous crimes down to a bare
minimum — ignoring infanticide is relatively easy as no pressure for a follow–up
comes from an aggrieved quarter.
Though some are simply cases of an unwanted or an illegitimate
child, gender does account for most of the infanticide cases. Figures of
abandoned babies show that one boy is found for every 18 girls. And the
incidents are constantly on the increase. As against 52 infants found killed in
Karachi in the first eight months of 1996, the count up to August 1998, was 113
infants. Ahmed Ali, still traumatised at finding a dead baby girl in a gunny
bag, said, "As far as the authorities are concerned, the bodies of these newborn
babies are nothing more than garbage, which only needs to be swept aside and
conveniently forgotten. And most ordinary people either don’t know about this
ongoing tragedy, or just don’t want to think about it."
India: Bigotry brooks no peace
Over 130 million children, of which 40 million are in
India, grow up without any access to primary education, says the latest UNICEF
report. The report comes in the face of the current government’s dismissive
declaration that they alone cannot take sole responsibility for the education of
children below 11 years. The UNICEF report warns, "On a society–wide scale, the
denial of education harms the cause of democracy and social progress— and by
extension, international peace and security." The report also asserts that the
only thing that stands in the way is lack of political will and initiatives to
mobilise resources to extend educational facilities to children. In the midst of
this bleak scenario, the US–based American Federation of Muslims of India (AFMI)
has mooted a proposal to set up "modal committees" all over India in
order to spread literacy amongst the poorest sections of the Indian Muslim
community whose problems, they felt, could not be solved without raising
literacy levels. The AFMI has called upon mullahs to use the pulpit to
stress the importance of education and also for madrassas to introduce a
minimal level of formal education, including technical education. A.S Nakadar,
secretary–general, said the AFMI also intends to help various humanitarian and
social projects which could contribute to the overall progress of the country,
as the problems of Indian Muslims could not be solved in isolation, he asserted.
"Bigotry has no place in the world of peace", he said.
Egypt: The right to hookah
Women in Egypt have claimed their right over one
of the enduring symbols of patriarchy — the hookah. Women have finally
penetrated Cairo’s traditionally male–only cafes to puff away at ‘waterpipes’,
preferably with molasses–flavoured tobacco. Nahla, a University student said,
"Girls smoke shishas (hookahs), less than men, but it is a fun way
to spend a few hours with friends". She added, "Our society looks down on girls
who smoke cigarettes in the street, but we couldn’t care less about criticism we
face when we smoke a shisha with friends."
Obviously the men have not taken too kindly to their new fellow
café smokers. Khaled Ragab, a café owner, voices contempt for women smokers.
"They are trying to show men that they are not inferior to them. Some have
picked up our secrets and demand that we provide them with cool embers so as not
to burn up the tobacco too quickly."
While women may assert their right to the hookah, the
Egyptian health ministry is a little conerned about the rise in consumption of
tobacco in the country as Shisha smokers numbering 8,30,000 people, burn
up 16,000 tonnes of moassal per year.
USA: Racial bias persists
Rreport on racial violence, ‘Audit of violence against
Asian Pacific Americans: Continuing the campaign against hate crimes’, brought
out by the National Pacific American Legal Consortium (a Washington D.C. based
group), indicates that though anti–Asian violence has dipped on a national
plane, two states — California and New Jersey —have shown an alarming rise in
such cases. The report shows that while 534 anti–Asian incidents were recorded
in 1996, 481 such cases were reported in 1997, of which three per cent were
directed at South Asians, down from 11 per cent in 1996. The strengthening of
the US economy has led to reducing anti–immigrant sentiments in the US by 10 per
cent. The drop in anti–Asian violence comes at a time when national crime rates
in general are falling.
Hate crimes in New Jersey, however, had risen by 60 per cent,
the highest in the country. California recorded an increase of 20 per cent in
such crimes. Margaret Fung, the executive director of the the Asian American
Legal Defence and Education Fund (AALDEF), a local affiliate of the consortium,
attributed the increase partly to more people reporting bias attacks. The report
however, was incomplete as statistics from Massachussetts, which had the third
largest number of bias attacks in 1996, had been unavailable at the time of
printing the report. Eleven other states also failed to collect statistics. The
federal government estimates that 40 to 60 per cent of all such incidents go
unreported. The report has also called on states to pass more strident anti-bias
legislation. They cite the case of New York, which, despite great political
pressure, has not passed a bias crime bill.
Sweden: Controversy over conversions
India does not seem to be the only country facing a
debate on ‘forced conversions’. In Sweden, a national debate on conversions
began in mid-January. Only the debate there seems to be justifiable. The
controversy over conversions broke out following the case of an Iranian Muslim
immigrant Jaghoob Mullazai, who was converted without his own knowledge in
Boras.
Mullazai was asked to sign a ‘contract’ when he was appointed
for a cleaning job in a church in Boras. The contract, he later learned, was a
form declaring that he was renouncing his religion and accepting conversion to
the Swedish church. Rev. Kurt Ryden, the priest who hired Mullazai, said,he was
simply following orders and that the church clearly stipulated not to employ
anyone that is not a member of the (Swedish) church.
Most Swedes, it was reported, were appalled to hear that such
regulations existed in what they considered to be a liberal, tolerant and
secular country.Margareta Wadstein, the Discrimination Ombudsman (DO), said,
"The law on ethnic discrimination also covers and safeguards religious beliefs.
The Swedish church, after this policy governing their employment criteria has
come to light, faces charges of violating the law. It has never before been
brought up in court, but is certainly criminal. He (Muallazai) will surely be
entitled to compensation."
Belgium: Hail Virgin Mary!
Single mothers in the Belgian town of Deerlijk, recently used
a rather novel method to prove their point. Members of the Association for
Consciously Single Mothers, ‘kidnapped’ statues of Joseph from nine cribs at
various spots in the town. Two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, these
mothers removed Joseph — who is the conventional stand–in father for Jesus,
though Mary is called the Virgin Mother — in order to assert their right to
single motherhood. A note on their demands found in each of the cribs included
right to voluntary single motherhood, artificial insemination and … the right to
immaculate conception! |
