Press Release
International Women's Day is an Annual Reminder of the Failure of Secularism to Solve Women's Problems

The 8th of March 2013 marks the 102nd anniversary of the International Women's Day (IWD) - a day on which many women's rights activists across the world celebrate the progress that women have made in their fight for rights and respect, and reflect on the continuing struggles ahead. This year, the UN's theme for the day is preventing violence against women, under the slogan, "A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women" - a theme that the UN has adopted as a focus in many previous years. Earlier this week, the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women was held at the UN Headquarters in New York, with attention also placed on this subject.

Instead of being a day for celebration, IWD should be a day for commiserations and reflection on the mountain of broken promises made to women by the secular system that has dominated the globe over the last century but failed to secure basic rights, security, and respect for women the world-over. After more than 100 years of IWD and struggle for gender equality; the founding of countless women's rights organisations; and innumerable UN women's empowerment initiatives across the globe - violence, desperate poverty, political repression, exploitation, illiteracy, oppressive traditional practices, and poor access to good quality education and healthcare continue to plague the lives of hundreds of millions of women under secular or other man-made models of governance in the East and West. IWD is therefore a stark annual reminder of how these debilitating women's problems remain unsolved under this system that has detached God and religion from the affairs of states and left it to the limited, flawed and weak minds of men or women to organise the affairs of humanity.

Other than expressing rhetoric against injustice and oppression, secular governments and institutions such as the UN and their agreements such as CEDAW have proven utterly redundant and clueless in providing a clear strategy to elevate the status of women, secure their rights, and protect them from abuse. This is hardly surprising as it is the capitalist system they promote that has impoverished nations and sanctioned support to dictatorships for financial gain. And it is the liberal freedoms and ideals of gender equality they celebrate that have created promiscuous societies, fractured the family unit, led to the abandonment of the guardianship and maintenance of women, and sanctioned the sexualisation and devaluing of women, exacerbating their exploitation and abuse. IWD should therefore turn world attention upon the lack of credibility of secular democracy in taking care of the needs of women or in offering sound solutions to women's problems.

This March also marks another anniversary - one year on from the historical International Women's Conference in Tunisia organised by the women of Hizb ut Tahrir. This conference, entitled, "The Khilafah "Caliphate": A Shining Model for Women's Rights and Political Role" gathered hundreds of women from across the world to present the vision of the Khilafah "Caliphate" state that is built purely upon the Islamic principles and laws. In contrast to the faulty secular democratic system, the Khilafah "Caliphate" embodies a unique clear strategy by which to secure the dignity and rights of women, which has been detailed extensively in the methodology of Hizb ut Tahrir and its draft constitution for the state. It is a state whose political system is based upon taking care of the needs of the masses rather than the elite few; whose economic system is based upon fair distribution of wealth and prioritising fighting poverty; and whose values and laws at every level of society, including its prohibition of the sexualisation of women and oppressive traditional practices, and its severe punishments for any acts of harm against women ensures that their high status and dignified treatment is maintained at all times. We therefore call all Muslim women to work to establish the Khilafah "Caliphate" that will bring real improvement to their lives and be a true cause for celebration rather than continuing along the road of marking annual reminders of the failure in solving women's problems.

(أَلَا يَعۡلَمُ مَنۡ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلۡخَبِيرُ)

"Should not He Who has created know? And He is the Most Kind and Courteous, All-Aware (of everything)." [TMQ 67:14]

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office
of Hizb ut Tahrir