Sunday, June 08, 2008

PAKISTAN: MUSLIM WOMEN SUFFERING UPPED

J. Grant Swank, Jr.


Katie Falkenberg of The Washington Times reports on the increase of atrocities leveled against females in Pakistan.


It is quite a way into her article that the mentioning of Islam is stated.


That is because media hesitates to use the “I” or the “M” words—“Islam” and “Muslim.” It could offend someone who is a follower of Allah and devotee of the Koran. Therefore, the secular press likes to sideline the source of these vicious attacks against women.


However, in order for the world to be knowledgeable concerning the violence rife in Islam, the secular press should adhere to reason and print the words “Islam” and “Muslim” in bold relief.


To sideline those words is to aid those attacking the innocent.


The truth is that the Koran is laden with orders given to Muslim males as to how to downgrade their women. One is the ever popular “honor killing” in order to preserve the name of the clan. Any male may murder or torture a woman who is accused of
“dishonoring” the clan. Many times that male is the woman’s husband.


Falkenberg points out various women by name and personal violence stapled upon them. Her article is replete with these references.


She reports: “The deepening humanitarian crisis, mostly unnoticed by the Western world, is laid bare by the numbers:


“Between 70 percent and 90 percent of the 83 million women in Pakistan have been attacked or suffered other forms of domestic abuse by husbands, future husbands or other family members, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).


“More than 4,100 ‘honor’ killings - the slaying of a woman by relatives who think she has shamed the family - occurred in the country between 2001 and 2004, according to Pakistan's Interior Ministry.”


Christianity on the other hand lifts women’s status. Jesus lifted females’ place in society.


When women were brought to him, accused for instance of committing adultery, he noted in one case that the adulterous male had been set free by the accusing men.


Therefore, Jesus started writing something in the sand. It is believed by scholars that he could have been listing the sins of the accusing men. Whatever, they dispersed, beginning with the oldest to the youngest.


Then Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Looking at the woman, He said, “Where are your accusers?” They had slunk away.


“Go and sin no more,” He kindly counseled her.


That is only one example in the Gospels focusing on Jesus treating women on an equal with men.


The Bible itself records the first person to witness the resurrected Christ as a woman—Mary of Magdala.


Other women came to the empty tomb, all that specifically recorded in the scriptural account. That mentioning of women in prominent situations was unthought of in that first century.


Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit overruled the culture in favor of God being free of any bias against any gender. When the Holy Spirit moved the writers to pen what was to become holy writ, they recorded the facts, that including the place of females in significant locations in Jesus’ ministry.


Yet in Pakistan, as one exemplary country, women under Islam suffer deeply.


“A woman spends a quiet moment covered and huddled in the prayer room of the shelter.


“The practice of honor killing, though not limited to Islam, retains support in Muslim countries, where the majority of such attacks take place and where their numbers are on the rise.


“The attacks also occur in immigrant communities in the West: HRW reports cases in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.


“A rape victim could be prosecuted for adultery under those laws if she could not produce four male witnesses to the assault. The maximum punishment for a victim accused of this crime: death by stoning.”

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