Sec 3 IP English: Feminism Essay Readings

Victory for Israel's women of the wall after 25 year campaign by Phoebe Greenwood in Jerusalem for guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 June 2013 18.46 BST
Long-awaited triumph for feminist group campaigning for right to pray on equal terms to men at Western Wall since 1988

A member of Women of the Wall wears phylacteries and the 'tallit' shawl, traditional Jewish prayer apparel for men. Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

The first women arrived at the Western Wall as the dawn mist cleared, deftly binding their arms with black leather straps that fixed Torah scrolls to their fingers and heads. By 7am, there were 300 women clad in white prayer shawls and skull caps drawing stares of amazement as their singing swelled in a loud chorus. A group of teenage schoolgirls praying nearby burst into fits of giggles. One wailed tunelessly, mimicking the women's enthusiastic songs. Another shook her head at the group of women praying like men. "You're crazy!" she shouted across a line policewomen, half amused, half outraged. "This is against the Torah!" Sunday's service celebrating the first day of the Jewish month of Tamuz marked an historic moment in modern Jewish history. Since Israel reclaimed the Western Wall in 1967, one of the most sacred sites in Judaism has been run in strict accordance to ultra-Orthodox protocol. Women and men have been segregated. Only men have been allowed to sing from the Torah, don white prayer shawls and apply the black leather t'filin straps. Sunday marked a victory for Women of the Wall, a feminist group which has been campaigning for the right to pray on equal terms to men at the site since 1988. The activists argue that Jewish law does not prohibit women from praying as men do. International support for their cause rocketed earlier this year, when 10 members including the sister of the US comedian Sarah Silverman were arrested for illegally wearing prayer shawls. In April, Israel's supreme court finally conceded their case and ruled that the Women of the Wall should be allowed to pray freely at the site. The decision has outraged Israel's largely conservative religious community.

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Sec 3 IP English: Feminism Essay Readings

Years of tension erupted in violent clashes and multiple arrests during prayers at the wall last month. On Friday, a teenage settler was arrested for inquiring on Facebook if it was permissible under Jewish law to shoot Women of the Wall members. But on Sunday, a police force that only weeks ago had arrested Women of the Wall supporters flanked them at every side. Dozens of armed officers ensured they were bussed directly to the entrance of a segregated corridor leading into a pen in front of but not touching the Western Wall. Ella Rembrand, a 33-year-old car mechanic, was among several women who refused to be "caged". She crossed the barricades into the open women's section wearing a kippeh and attempted to embrace the ultra-orthodox women praying loudly beside her. The women recoiled, denouncing Rembrand and her fellow worshipers as "an abomination to God". From the far side of the wall, men poked their heads caped with tefillin boxes and broad-brimmed hats over the fence into the women's section. A young mother spat across her pram into the Women of the Wall enclosure. "Take your trousers and go pray elsewhere," another yelled. Undeterred, Rembrand argued that this hostile reaction proved her point. "We are trying to be inclusive, to encourage pluralism, and they are determined to stay in their own ghettos, both mental and physical," she said. "The Kotel [the Western Wall] has been an ultra-Orthodox synagogue for years but now things are changing. I wear a kippeh because I am Jewish more Jewish than [those ultra-Orthodox] are." Sunday's ultra-Orthodox counter-protest was smaller than anticipated, with around 200 men, women and children gathered to protest against the controversial female worshipers, holding banners that read: "Provocative women! You have made up a new religion. Go ahead, build a new modern wall!" Sara Rigler was among them. "Women's singing is offensive here. Men who don't want to hear women singing can't close their ears. It's sexually provocative and violates local mores," she said. "This issue has been cast in terms of freedom. But it's not about the freedom of women to worship this is violating the freedom of men not to hear women singing." Acknowledging the angry chants echoing across from the men's section, Women of the Wall supporter Lior Nevo cradled her two-month daughter Netta and smiled: "It's the price of our success at least they notice us now." Praying within a barricade of police was strange, she said, but Sunday's service was undoubtedly a leap in the right direction. "I was arrested here when I was eight-months pregnant. Last month, I came with my baby and the violence really scared me. Now the rabbinate has realised there
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Sec 3 IP English: Feminism Essay Readings

is no sense in arresting us. In 12 years, Netta may have her batmitzva here,'' she smiled. "Israeli attitudes are changing.

Afghan women's rights under threat by Razeshta Sethna for guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 June 2013 14.55 BST
Opposition to a draft law aimed at curbing violence against women bodes ill for human rights in Afghanistan

Afghan women demonstrate in front of parliament in Kabul in support of passing the elimination of violence against women law. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

The situation for women in Afghanistan improved significantly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, but recent protests against the country's landmark elimination of violence against women (Evaw) law has raised concerns that these gains will be short-lived and limited. Human Rights Watch reported last month that more than 400 women had been imprisoned for the "moral crime" of running away from home or having sex outside marriage, noting a 50% increase in the past 18 months. Efforts by women's rights activists and parliamentarians to ensure the 2009 Evaw law signed as a decree by president Hamed Karzai but not yet ratified by parliament is passed were thwarted by conservatives objecting that it was "unIslamic". Criticism of the law was so strong that, on 18 May, the speaker stopped the parliamentary debate after 15 minutes and sent the law back to the joint commission of parliament, which prepares draft laws for further scrutiny. While the law can still be implemented, because it has been signed by the president, it must be passed by parliament to give it legitimacy. Among the violations banned in the law are child and forced marriage, and rape. A previous draft of the law had allowed the first two and rape within marriage. It also said wives would need permission from their husbands to leave the house, and recommended that beating a woman should be punishable by law only if the woman is seriously injured. Following the fracas in parliament, Kabul University students came out in protest against the law and against democracy.

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Sec 3 IP English: Feminism Essay Readings

Heather Barr, from Human Rights Watch, said the parliamentary debate was unhelpful. "This law has changed the whole tone of human rights violations and made a huge difference," she said. "Rape, underage marriage and forced marriages were not even recognised as crimes until this law was passed by presidential decree, which is as valid now as it was before the parliamentary debate. "But what happened in parliament was a negative development when the focus should really have been on the enforcement of the law by police, prosecutors and judges. There is no political will to follow up on implementation." Barr believes that the international community has lost interest in Afghan women and that Karzai, who might have relented under international pressure to support women's rights, will backtrack on his commitments by aligning with conservatives. According to Barr, the president last month told a group of about 30 female activists that he'd done all he could for them, that the law was against Islam, and they should stop campaigning for it. There is now a huge risk that women's rights will drop off the agenda as international forces withdraw next year. Barr, who has lived in Afghanistan since 2007, questioned why protecting women and girls after the 2014 transition period was not mentioned at last year's Nato summit on security. "If at the 2012 Nato summit the international community came together to make a 10-year plan for supporting the Afghan security forces, then why hasn't it also come up with a similar roadmap supporting women's rights in Afghanistan? Making sure that Afghanistan continues to have an army seems important to other countries because of their own national security concerns and women's rights just don't matter to them as much." Last week, a group of British MPs said in a report that "ending violence against women and girls is the litmus test" for whether development policy is working in Afghanistan. They stressed that previous UK government commitments to Afghan women should be monitored and that the status of women after 2014 would show whether international military and development funding has improved the lives of people. In March, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) said tackling violence against women and girls would be a "strategic priority" in its country plan. However, the status of Afghan women is among the worst in the world, according to the UN's latest gender inequality index. As demonstrated by the reaction in parliament, violence against women and girls is justified by tradition and religion. Shukria Khaliqi, a lawyer, works with the legal team at Women for Afghan Women, a human rights group that runs a women's shelter in Kabul. The shelter has given refuge to women who have been attacked by husbands or other family members, and has represented in court hundreds of women who have experienced abuse or want a divorce.
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Sec 3 IP English: Feminism Essay Readings

Khaliqi says she lived in a refugee camp in Peshawar during the Taliban regime but came back to Kabul when the Americans arrived. She has won all her court cases. Because the Taliban know who she is, her life is in danger. "If they make it into government next year that is bad, because I have made sure male perpetrators are imprisoned when they commit violent crimes," she said. On Tuesday, the US said it would begin direct peace talks with the Taliban, although a diplomatic row about the Taliban's new Qatar office has delayed preliminary discussions. Some observers believe violence against women can be reduced by strengthening systems within the police and the judiciary. But these structures remain weak and inaccessible for most women requiring assistance. And, judging by the reaction in parliament, there is unlikely to be much change soon. Razeshta Sethna is a senior assistant editor at the Herald in Karachi,

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