Friday Links — January 8, 2010

• The Yemen Observer profiles Dr. Nadiah Al-Kokabany.

• A 20-year-old girl was auctioned in a Pakistani village last week. Let me repeat that: AUCTIONED. May Allah keep her.

• The Age examines the Lebanese magazine Jasad.

• Dia Diwan interviews Kinda Hibrawi.

• A Dubai couple is facing jail if convicted of issuing forged marriage certificates to sex workers.

• Ms. Mehdi goes to the White House.

• More Jordanian women are leaving unhappy or bad marriages.

• Mideast Youth looks at the history of Iraqi women.

• The Khaleej Times reports that The Victim Care Programme initiated by the Dubai Police assisted as many as 9,320 women in October and November of 2009.

• Saudi women are checking up on their domestic workers.

• On transgender activism in Pakistan.

• France drafts a bill to fine women wearing the niqab.  O RLY?

• Bahrain plans on building a women’s only park.

• A Massachusetts pharmacy college that drew flak for banning face coverings, including the veils worn by some Muslim women, has amended its policy to allow for a religious exemption. More here.

• On the socio-cultural impediments to Indian Muslim women’s struggles for justice.

• In Saudi Arabia, the Humanitarian Women Teachers Campaign demand pay equity for female teachers.

• One Iraqi writes about her experience having to cover her hair in her country.

• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown hops on the burqa-banning bandwagon. In other news, alliteration is great.

• The Bahrain Women’s Association for Human Development discussed ways for women to emerge from divorces with alimony, rightful custody of their children and a roof over their heads. More here.

• Muslim women in Godhra, India, claim that they have been sexually assaulted by local police.

• Headscarves will not be banned in Swiss schools. Via Islam in Europe.

• More on the polygamy article heard ’round the Arab world. More here and here.

• In Australia, a Muslim woman received a $2000 grant to run the Girls Only Gym program at the Ashburton YMCA to give young Muslim women an opportunity to exercise comfortably.

• Hamas encourages women to follow a specific dress code.

• The National profiles Fatima Shama.

• An Egyptian court upheld a ruling by the education ministry to ban women from wearing the full face veil in university examination halls.

• The Huffington Post‘s Nosheen Abbas believes that women’s progress in Pakistan is a mirage.

• elan also discusses how the Arabic Fiction Prize Shortlist comes up very short indeed when it comes to women.

• On how the 2004 tsunami created devastating conditions for Indonesian women.

• The Globe and Mail reports that more Afghan women are committing suicide.

• A 23-year-old Muslim woman in The Netherlands who says she was not allowed into a first aid clinic on Christmas Day with her three-month old baby because she was wearing a burqa has submitted a complaint to the equal opportunities committee. Via Euro-Islam.

• Women are a growing force in West Asian business.

• Dr. Amal al Ghaferi is the first Emirati faculty member at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

• Mansoureh Shojaee, an activist who is being held in Evin prison, has been allowed to contact her family.

• A Michigan woman was singled out for a pat-down at an airport because of her hijab.

• The National reports that more than half of women in the U.A.E. would not report a rape to police.

• In Egypt, a new law has recommended tough punishments in an effort to combat sexual harassment.

• One woman’s struggle to get her husband a green card.

• A disgusting account of one woman’s sexual harassment by her doctor.

Editor’s Note: Readers, as always, if there are any news stories about Muslim women that we’ve missed, please feel free to post them in the comments.

However, I’ve noticed that our Friday links have become very Middle East-centric. We want to cover what’s going on with Muslim women all over the world! We’d like your help: if you use del.icio.us, you can send us news stories at fatemehmmw. You can also Tweet news stories to us on our Twitter account (@mmwtweets), email them to us at [email protected]. Or, like always, post them in the comments. We’d appreciate your help in keeping MMW international. Thanks!