The society in which we are living is not a society which our Prophet (SAW) brought a message to, it’s not a society for which our forefathers struggled, it’s not the society which Dr Allama Iqbal had dreamed of! It’s a society where there are no rules or obligations, everyone can do whatever they want. There are many important issues but I think that the issue dealing with our women is also  most important. In the Hindu culture women are treated as second class citizens, below their husbands, brothers, fathers and other male members and after living in close proximity we have imported their culture and forgotten our religion.
Women have been facing problems since the beginning of the world but Islam gave women respect and many rights. Our Prophet (SAW) proclaimed men and women equal, no one is inferior or superior to others but our society has forgotten the teachings of Islam. There is a lot of discrimination in our society it has become a gender-biased society, where there are people who believe that men and women are equal there are also people who thinks that women have no value .
Gender discrimination is not limited to rural areas but it can be seen in urban areas. Women face many problems if they decide to work. They need a male member’s permission, generally a father and then they have to be accompanied by a male member! I don’t blame parents as we have a lot of crime against women, if nothing else they are harassed on the roads.
Stories of girls being married to the Quran in Sindh, to save property, they have been buried alive at birth and are also burned alive if they give birth to a female baby. In short women are victims at large, paying for the sins of their brothers or father by being given in exchange for a crime a male member has committed. We are all silent spectators to all these crimes. The laws protecting women are lying in the waste paper baskets of our Assemblies, it seems as if the women who reach these Assemblies forget their poor unprotected sisters! We as an Islamic society should take the required steps to abolish this discrimination and this violence against women.
HAMNA SUHAIL,
Lahore, April 19.