Anhad’s founder Shabnam Hashmi receiving Woman of the Decade award
84th Global Edition of Annual Women Economic Forum 2022 (WEF) – G100 Meetings in Delhi, India was inaugurated on 27th and the deliberations will continue till 31st December 2022 at JW Marriott Hotel, New Delhi Aerocity. India.
The summit coincides with the Presidency of India at the G20.
Shabnam Hashmi , a well known social activist and founder of Anhad was invited to speak in the Plenary session on the second day of the summit on human rights .
Dr. Harbeen Arora Rai, Founder & President, G100 , ALL Ladies League (ALL) | Women Economic Forum (WEF), WICCI, Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry conferred on Shabnam Hashmi the “Woman of the Decade” award.*
The WEF together with participants hopes to influence and shape global policies in order to extend more support for women in all walks of life globally.
Presented by Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI), and held along with the G100 India meetings, the theme for this edition of the Women Economic Forum (WEF) is “Bridge the Gap: Agenda for G20.”
As an outcome, it will launch 100 recommendations that will be presented to the G20 leaders, UN bodies, governments and stakeholders globally to make gender equality a priority for all in this decade.
G100 is a group of influential global women leaders including Nobel Laureates and Heads of States who have come together with the purpose to make gender equality a reality in this decade and fulfil the vision of the UN SDGs by 2030. G100 is supported by the G100 Denim Club, group of leading 100 He for She champions from across the world who are supporting this epic endeavour.
The G100 is holding 100 global meetings worldwide. G100 missions have taken place in Switzerland (UN), Netherlands, Belgium, USA (UN-NY), UAE, UK, Spain, Romania, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and continue in 8 Balkan Countries, Ivy Leagues-USA, Turkey, France, Bangladesh, Egypt and the gala event in India.
source: http://www.muslimmirror.com / Muslim Mirror / Home> Indian Muslim> Positive Story / by Muslim Mirror Network / December 28th, 2022
The book “Resilience: Stories of Muslim Women” was released by noted journalist and author Sagarika Ghose at a function at the India International Center, New Delhi on Wednesday. — Photo: Caravan Daily
‘Resilience: Stories of Muslim women’ released in New Delhi
New Delhi :
At a time when her stereotypes as meek and submissive entity are used by a political class to further its agenda, a new book catches Muslim woman in her multidimensional persona and in the process blasts many a myth surrounding her. In each of the varied fields of human endeavour, these Muslim women have come out in flying colours.
The book “Resilience: Stories of Muslim Women” was released by noted journalist and author Sagarika Ghose at a function at the India International Center here on Wednesday in the presence of many woman activists.
Speaking on the occasion, Ghose said the book negated the stereotype image of Muslim women as it illustrates that no matter what the economic impediments or social taboo, given the means and empathy Muslim women could also scale the height of success.
The book explores the lives of 11 resilient Muslim women who fought against all odds and got the opportunity to study in a tiny adult education centre. She congratulated these women and lamented in the scientific age woman have to face many odds and discrimination in every community.
The book release ceremony was followed by a discussion on the condition of women moderated by Nazia Erum, author and media advocacy head of Amnesty International India.
Social activist Shabnam Hashmi, the spirit behind the success of these women, said the book is like fresh air in the present political environment of the country in an oblique reference to the Modi Government’s push for enacting controversial Triple Talaq law which seeks to criminalise a civil matter like marriage.
She claimed stereotypical images of Muslim women are being used to further marginalise the minority community.
In early 1980, we started teaching the Nizamuddin Basti girls but it was a bumpy journey as girls had to struggle against severe hostility from the Basti residents whom Muslim girls going to study was “ anti-Islam or anti-Deen”, she added.
Shubha Menon, author, who documented the life of girls and women of Nizamuddin Basti, Delhi, said these were mostly dropouts or had not studied at all. She said she was touched by their stories and decided to bring the brighter side of the Muslim women.
On the occasion, many of these women narrated their stories of struggles.
Farida, who is a daughter of a Maulvi attached to Tablighi Jamaat, said she fought patriarchy, gender bias, poverty, and triple talaq to become a graduate. She said there was no discrimination on the basis of gender at home as her father loved her much but did not in favour of sending her to school. She told she was made to wear a burqa at 9, married off at 13 abandoned with two children at 16.
Farida, who now runs an NGO, has a sister Syeda whose story is also the same. “Both the sisters married to two brothers, unpaid labour in their matrimonial home, sloggers, beaten at the whims of a cruel matriarch, bearing children and hardship in one go. Their father, a Maulvi of Tablighi Jamaat, caught between the demands of his fellow Jamaatis and love for his daughters. The two sisters return home with meager belongings plus four pairs of mouths to feed. Then from rock bottom poverty, they extricate themselves. Their horizon widens and they rise and thanks to Seher Study Centre”.
Ayesha said she not only fought for her education but brought up her son to be an MBA and her daughter a Master in Science. Mussarrat, who now works for an international NGO, told that her grandmother kept her locked at home.
Other women Asma, Ishrat, Parveen, Shahjahan, Farhat, Parveen, and Najma’s stories are similar but not identical.
Shabnam said the mentors of Seher Study Centre in the Basti; teaching, counselling, chatting, encouraging the oppressed girls to break out of their fetters and manacles and ultimately from their cloisters.
From verbal threats to lathis, they not only bore them but spun them around to give great leverage to the girls they were grooming, she said.
The book, which chronicles the stories of successful women, also highlights the Markaz versus the Dargah which is another contradiction of the Basti. Stories of the Dargah dot the entire book. For example, Nizamuddin’s disdain for power is a poignant anecdote. Rulers of the Sultanate, Tughlaqs and Khiljis were not permitted to enter the Pir’s Khanqah. The Saint’s priority was not to pay obeisance to the ruler but to feed the poor and indigent no matter of what faith or of what caste while the Markaz propagates orthodox Islam. The author does not deride one practice at the cost of the other. Their parallel existence may occasionally clash but seldom becomes a major eruption.
She makes the reader a partner in her adventure as a reader is taken through the winding gulleys, narrow stairs, tottering houses, all the time surrounded by a mass of humanity; namely Muslims who live and breathe Nizamuddin. There is a constellation of girls who were transformed by the Seher Adult Education Centre. The stories unfold one by one.
The author Menon concludes that Seher comes out as a unique experiment, which not only transformed all those women who studied there but their future generations as well.
source: http://www.caravandaily.com / Caravan Daily / Home> Books / by Abdul Bari Masoud, Caravan Daily / August 29th, 2019
