Friday Links | April 19, 2013

Friday Links | April 19, 2013 April 19, 2013

Nausheen Tobassum, a 17-year-old Indian girl, shares her horrific story as an “one month wife,” and reveals the scope of the sex tourism business in Hyderabad, India.

More and more young Afghan men and women meet each other on Facebook; in a society where dating is strictly prohibited, many young men and women have (multiple) relationships online.

Syrian members of a closed female Islamic movement, Qubeysiat, which works to advance the education of women and girls, are embarassed by their leader’s allegiance to the Assad regime.

According to a study in India, more Muslim women go online to find their spouse, but the vast majority of the female profiles are claimed to be posted by family members.

Legendary Taraab singer Fatma binti Baraka, better known as Bi Kidude, has died at her home on the island of Zanzibar at the age of over a hundred years old. She started her career as a singer in 1920s and she was known for breaking many Muslim taboos, such as drinking alcohol and smoking in public.

Many Chechen children learn to dance at a very young age. These young dancers are training at the Bashlam dance club in Grozny, Chechnya. Image by Musa Saidulayev/ RFE/RL

Three Kyrgyz women are in custody, after the police searched ten residences in the Kyrgyz village of Uch-Kurgan and found large quantities of materials that are linked to Hizb-ul-Tahrir.

Last year, a man armed with a knife ordered several Muslim women in Bristol, UK to remove their hijab; the case is now in court and the perpetrator claims he does not remember anything, as he was drunk at the time.

The Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa, Soyata Maiga, has released a statement in which she declares that gender-based violence has taken a criminal dimension in northern Mali.

The Kerala, India High Court has ruled that the marriage of a minor Muslim girl is valid, if the couple is still married when she turns eighteen.

About 75% of girls of fourteen years of age and younger in northern Somalia are not circumcised, according to figures by Unicef; if this trend continues, female circumcision in northern Somalia could become history relatively soon.

For the first time in the history of Pakistan, transgender Pakistanis are running for election.

Last Friday the police in Aceh, Indonesia, have ticketed 35 women for straddling motorcycles.

The Russian university in Siberia, which had expelled a medical student for wearing the hijab, has lifted the ban on religious clothing, including the headscarf.

Aid workers who work with Syrian refugees warn that child marriage among the refugees is on the rise.

Sumi Abedin is one of the Bangladeshi factory workers who survived the deadly fire in the Tazreen factory last November; she traveled to the USA to lobby for better working conditions in Bangladesh and to seek compensation.

The Canadian sexual assault case involving a complainant wearing the face veil is back in court; the decision whether or not N.S. can wear the niqab in court for this case, will further argued later this month.

Thirty traditional female circumcisers in Gambia have vowed to “drop the knife” during a ceremony earlier this week.

The decision by Hamas to segregate schools in Gaza, starting this year, gives critics reason to accuse Hamas of imposing a hard-line agenda; many Gazans, however, say that they are comfortable with the new regulation.

Female workers in textile factories in Morocco face gruesome work conditions, which affects their health and family and all for a meager pay.

Business is booming in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, and the local sex trade is as well.

25 female sports clubs in Saudi Arabia are beginning the procedures to obtain operating licenses; it is yet unclear if women’s clubs will be allowed an operating license by the government.

The management of a school in Assam, India, has threatened to expel four-year-old Fatima Beevi for wearing the hijab to school.

Earlier this week, the charred body of a pregnant woman and her foetus were found in a dumpster in Jordan; a neighbor admitted killing the 17-year-old in order to terminate the pregnancy.

What would a belieber give up in return for concert tickets to see Justin Bieber? A Norwegian television show answered this question which aired last Tuesday depicted teenage fans who allegedly converted to Islam, donned the headscarf and removed all make-up.


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