Rights of Women
February 17, 2010
Women rights are violated in almost all the societies with diverse patterns, which are mostly according to the traditions followed by the men of societies. It is mostly debated upon by women, men try to avoid it. The legal representation is also very rare as women are not allowed the freedom of thought and action. Women have due share of equal rights along men in all the religions but Islam is the only one which give them a complete framework of rights and responsibilities. However this framework is not mostly implemented in Islamic states. Other religions also deny many rights to women and women suffer there even more.
Women rights basically mean the rights or privileges given to women, for their protection and proper development. Women in this world are treated as inferior to men; this makes them a subordinate member of the society and its everyday issues and hence their rights are not well protected. Women human rights movements, beginning in 1980s and 1990s, spread like a wildfire and made women more conscious about their lack of rights and dignity in the society. These rights were duly given by UN in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that privileges, independence and justice should be applied to all humans. But women were marginalized from this open grant of rights due to the prejudiced attitude of men towards them. This created a reservation between the private and public rights. Private rights were those which were not under any regulation by the government and the public rights were regulated and guarded by them. Men play a critical role in society so their rights, like freedom of action and speech, were considered public and so they were regulated. But women rights were suppressed and compartmentalized into private rights and much regulation was not rendered. Women rights violation occurring in the name of religion, culture and family were ignored by the state and international governing bodies and no legal action was made effective to protect womenfolk.
During the United Nations Decade for Women (1976-1985), women from many geographical, racial, religious, cultural, and class backgrounds considered actions to improve the status of women worldwide. The UN-sponsored Women Conferences help to plan out these efforts and women gradually began learning to bridge differences to create a global movement. In looking at the human rights framework from the perspectives of women, women have shown how current human rights definitions and practices fail to account for the ways in which already recognized human rights abuses often affect women differently because of their gender. The core of their demands was to have an equal position of women in the society as it is their birthright and it was also declared by UN.
The concept of women’s human rights has opened the way for questions about the official lack of attention and general indifference to the discrimination that women and girls experienced around the world. Whether used in political lobbying, in legal cases, in mobilization, or in educational efforts, the idea of women’s human rights has been taken up across many boundaries and has helped in international networking and the creation of strategies for the progress of women.
However it took around thirty years for international community to commit for this issue and this commitment came in the face of CEDAW ( Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination Against Women) adopted by UN General Assembly in 1979. This bill put forward development in all those areas which needed attention from the state governments. This also encouraged the notions to eliminate gender discrimination in different states. But the weak structure of many UN agencies and ineffective enforcement of agencies has been the major constraint in the coherence for the protection of women issues. Cultural traditions in developing countries create the most stubborn obstacle to the essential steps towards women’s equality. The belief that girls should work in the home and in the fields rather than go to school, and the presumption that a woman acquires no right to property on marriage are deeply entrenched in many societies and the agencies have to respect a local tradition. Legal issues to eradicate discrimination against women are most problematic in Islamic countries where elements of Sharia law governing the behavior of women are unchangeable.
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