Muslim women face ‘crisis’ over violence, inequality: UN official

KUALA LUMPUR: Muslim women around the world are facing a “growing crisis” as Islamic governments fail to honour commitments to end inequality and violence against them, a senior UN official has warned.

Yakin Erturk, the UN’s rapporteur on violence against women, said at a weekend conference that women must demand their governments carry out pledges to grant equal rights and ensure their safety. “There is no time left to lose any more as this is a growing crisis,” she told after a speech, which dealt with the issue at an international conference on “Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family.

“In these countries, those who speak on behalf of Islam still justify things like stoning or killing a woman for this or that reason as being part of their religion. I have heard this at the most official of levels,” Erturk said without specifying which countries were to blame. “Of course violence against women is not limited to Islamic countries but Islamic countries have become stigmatised as being mysogynist societies which are inherently anti-women.”