Syrian Women don’t Need Gender Parity but they Need Islamic Policy

News:

On the 14th of March, the Baker Institute issues a brief relating to Women’s Rights, and Human Rights in Syria. It discusses the current analysis regarding the situation of women since the 2011 war began. It reviewed the civil war that disproportionately impacted women and girls.

According to several reports published in the last few years, while Syrians of all religious and ethnic backgrounds have been affected by the unrest, a 2024 United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) report noted that the deterioration of conditions in Syria, as well as the dwindling of donor aid have put more than 11 million Syrian girls and women at risk of “violence, exploitation, and lack of access to essential services,” including forced child marriages for girls of reproductive age.

The challenges and hardships faced by Syrian women have not stopped many of the women-led organizations in and outside of Syria outside of Syria; however, in some areas, such as Idlib, many educational and capacity-building programs have been targeted, threatened, or shut-down in recent years. Many of these organizations began as volunteer efforts and gradually morphed into nongovernmental organizations with funding. There has also been a growing Rise of the Syrian Women’s Political Movements (SWPM).

This is a well known example of the emergence of women-led groups within Syria. Officially launched in 2017, it has been growing since the early days of the revolution in 2011 and 2012. SWPM not only helped sustain many women’s groups and organisations, both within Syria and in host countries but also developed a vision and strategy for the Syrian state they hope to return to and live in.

In an interview with the author Khawla Yusuf Barghouth, a leading member of SWPM, it was noted that their work is focused on educating both women and men — the latter also members of their movement — on “feminist thinking” and how it applies to future laws and practices in Syria. Cultivating feminist mindsets, she emphasised, is an important building block for creating an inclusive, pluralistic civic state — one where women are included in decision-making at all levels of the political transition and in future governing bodies.

Comment:

The colonialist agenda against Muslim women is a global one that has its origins in the destruction of the Khilafah over 100 years ago.

It was understood that Muslim women are the ones who train the Mujahids and future mothers who develop strong leaders and minds of Taqwa. Feminism was a Western invention to answer the oppression faced by the Capitalist exploitative ideology - that still dominates the world today.

Accepting the “freedoms” given to women to disregard Islam and their traditional social roles only secured their enslavement to the agendas of the tax collection needs of governments, as women and men both worked.

Today we see women still struggling for their rights in the West with all of their freedoms and excesses to “do what they want”. They have to work overtime to pay for childcare and live lives where the broken society cares not for the community or honouring women. Men leave their women with children in their homes and women die alone in elderly business centres.

This is exactly what the women of Syria can look forward to as they sink deeper into the implementation of “fake feminist policies” that have never delivered on their promises of empowerment.

Muslim women can only have their suffering ended with a return to the Khilafah and implementation of the Khilafah, which never needed a Women’s rights movement. Philosopher Nancy Fraser criticizes how neoliberalism has co-opted feminist ideals, turning empowerment into a marketable concept that often reinforces consumerism rather than addressing systemic inequalities. "Feminism has become capitalism’s handmaiden. It’s been co-opted to serve the needs of capitalism, not the struggle for equality.”

Allah (swt) knows the needs of women and society better than any man-made agenda, and this is reflected in the guidance of the Quran and Sunnah with the economic, educational and judicial right of women secured comprehensively.

[يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اتَّقُواْ رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَخَلَقَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا وَبَثَّ مِنْهُمَا رِجَالاً كَثِيرًا وَنِسَاء وَاتَّقُواْ اللّهَ الَّذِي تَسَاءلُونَ بِهِ وَالأَرْحَامَ إِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ عَلَيْكُمْ رَقِيبًا]

“O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord Who created you from a single soul, and from it He created its mate, and through both He spread countless men and women. And be mindful of Allah—in Whose Name you appeal to one another—and ˹honour˺ family ties. Surely Allah is ever Watchful over you.” [Al-Nissa’;1]

It is only a return to these noble values that the women of Syria will know peace and security.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir