In recent times, the #MeToo movement has been a powerful force to reckon with, which has brought down many men in power who have abused innocent women in the USA and elsewhere. Although the U.S. is a democracy where women have many freedoms that women in the Muslim world can only dream of, the very fact that there is a group of women who are bringing down powerful men serves as a major symbol of what can be accomplished politically if female victims stand together in unity. But will the #MeToo movement emerge in the Muslim world as a force to challenge radical Islam and traditional patriarchy?
Indeed, some dissidents from the Muslim world have been inspired by the #MeToo movement. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Iranian journalist Neda Amin went public with the fact that she was raped by the mullah's regime and noted that repression of women was one of the reasons she was fighting for a free Iran. As Iranian political theorist Dr. Reza Parchizadeh noted, in Iran, the objectification of women is written into law, both religious and civil: "This is the worst kind of objectification because it leaves no room for free will. According to these laws, women are reduced to being delicate objects." In recent years, Iranian women have protested against this although their voices have been repressed by the regime.
Iran is not the only regressive state in the Muslim world that is being challenged in the wake of the #MeToo movement. In recent days, the world has focused on the courageous stance taken by a female protester in Sudan, Alaa Salah, who chanted against Omar al-Bashir, the country's brutal Islamist dictator, who was recently forced to step down by his own military after months of mass protests. Indeed, the Sudanese protests have already been labeled a "women's revolution" due to the high number of women who protested against the Islamist dictator, whose genocidal policies in the Darfur region led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and the mass rape of countless others.
Will others soon follow in the footsteps of the courageous women of Iran and Sudan? Just as the women of Sudan fought to remove the rapist Bashir from power, the Hindu and Christian women of Bangladesh and Pakistan should mobilize in a similar manner and protest for their rights. In recent days, the World Hindu Struggle Committee claimed that a Pakistani Christian girl had acid thrown in her face because she refused to convert to Islam and another Hindu girl was abducted in Bangladesh merely because she was born into the wrong faith. Shipan Kumer Basu, the president of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, claims that the rape and abduction of Hindu and Christian girls in Pakistan and Bangladesh is systematic. According to the Christian Post, 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are raped, abducted and forcefully converted to Islam in Pakistan every year. And Basu claims that Bangladesh is well on the road to being the next Pakistan. The Hindu and Christian women of Pakistan and Bangladesh should not have to endure this dismal fate.
Another group of victims in the Muslim world who should mobilize and demand their rights are the Yezidis. Recently, a protest rally was held in front of the White House to raise awareness about their plight. Not long ago, the Yezidi Human Rights Organizational International reported that the decapitated bodies of 50 Yezidi women and girls was discovered in a mass grave in Baghouz in eastern Syria, which was liberated from ISIS: "They all had been ISIS slaves for more than four years: tortured, raped repeatedly and sold. Those Yezidi girls were slaughtered by ISIS terrorists." But despite the fall of the caliphate, the Yezidi Human Rights Organization International reported that 3,000 Yezidis were still in ISIS captivity: "They are being hidden by ISIS families and their supporters in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and elsewhere in the region." According to Rudow News, a group of Yezidi activists is working with the Iraqi parliament to assure that the survivors get the assistance they need. However, much more must be done to liberate the 3,000 Yezidi women and girls who are still in ISIS captivity.
The plight of Christian women living in the Palestinian Authority is not much better. Christian Palestinian women also should be empowered to stand up for themselves. According to a Christian Palestinian source who asked to remain anonymous, "Christians in the Palestinian Authority are still living under Ottoman and Jordanian law. As a result, when we speak of inheritance, marriage and divorce, it is being done based on Islamic law and not church or secular law. There is no separation of church and state. This badly affects Christian women. There is a law that enables rapists to marry their victims. A boy or a man can be exonerated for murdering in the name of honor."
The source noted that this environment adversely affected her: "At the university, as a Christian, I was subject to discrimination in a Hamas populated department. I was the only one not wearing hijab and I was the only Christian in my department. It was hard. People comment if you wear a cross. Women in general are subject to sexual harassment. You cannot tell if it is connected to religion. As a result of these conditions, Bethlehem, which used to be 85% Christian when Israel first ruled the area, is now only 1.5% Christian. After the Second Intifada, the Christians saw that they had no future and they fled."
And Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey is only one step above the Palestinian Authority. According to Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut, "Ever since Erdoğan came to power in 2002, physical violence and even murder of women have increased. Last year alone, 440 women in Turkey were murdered by men." A Kurdish Iranian political refugee who wishes to remain anonymous noted that the plight of refugee women in Turkey was even worse. He claimed that refugee women were raped daily in Turkish cities by their employers and co-workers and they were too scared to complain because doing so would expose the fact that they were working illegally in the country.
The time has long since come for the #MeToo movement to rise up in the Muslim world. Women living in the Muslim world must stand up and say enough is enough. They must seize the power to stand up to the patriarchal and misogynist dictators that rule over them and make their lives a living hell. May what began in the U.S. not end in the U.S. The women living in the Muslim world also deserve to be free and to have a better life. They don't deserve to live under oppressive misogynist Islamist regimes. And just like the brave women of Sudan, the women of Iran, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh will have to fight and proclaim a revolution to liberate their homes from the forces of tyranny.
