Siraj urges women to raise voice for rights

LAHORE : Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq Saturday urged women to raise their voice for their rights.

Addressing a meeting of JI women wing office-bearers and workers at Mansoorah, the JI chief said previous rulers had been making tall claims for women welfare but actually they kept them deprived from their rights. Siraj said women and children were the worst sufferers of all kinds of natural and man-triggered disasters like wars, economic meltdown and inflation, etc. He said inflation had badly affected millions of women who were lone earners of bread and butter for their families. He said women felt unprotected due to deteriorating law and order situation prevailing in the country. The JI leader said the customs of wani and marriages with the Holy Quran were not eliminated in the presence of feudal culture in different areas. He said women must be given their share from inheritance instead of dowry. He said Islam guarantees all rights to women and it was the need of the hour that Quran-and Sunnah-based system should be introduced in the country.

He asked the JI women to spread the message of Islam among female community in society. Siraj stressed the state must ensure free education and health facilities to women to enable them to become useful members of society and not be a liability for their menfolk. The JI leader said thousands of women and their children died because of lack of health facilities in rural areas. He said the government must build separate universities for women education at district or division levels. He said there must be laws with their strict implementation to stop rape and harassment incidents. The JI leader said culprits behind the incidents of rape should be hanged in public. He demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan ensure registration of all eligible women voters in the country. He said the family system had been attacked in the country under a conspiracy. Pakistani women, he said, should compete western propaganda and culture with the power of arguments mentioned in the Holy Quran and Sunnah regarding women rights. He said media should play its role to protect the Islamic culture in the country. He expressed regret over incidents of forced marriages and disappearances of women, saying there was no concept of forced marriage in Islam. He expressed concern over the silence of international community and Pakistani rulers over women rights abuses in Illegally Indian-Occupied Kashmir.