Bill Gates foundation donated a huge lot of money to
improve prostituted women’s health in India.
Now, the son and daughter-in-law of Warren Buffet
have come to India to help the organizations that are
working for the abolition of sexual slavery. Finally!
Some sane people!
The idea of making buffet family visit some of India’s
prostitutions came from feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
She also believes sex trafficking and sex slavery must
be abolished.
There are more slaves today than any time in human
history.
Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal indu-
stry in the world today. The Indian government says,
there are more than 3 million prostitutes in India.
Human Rights Watch says, there are more than 20
million prostitutes in India. I believe there are more
than 20 million prostitutes in India.
In India, like many other countries, most people are
for legalization of prostitution. They call prostituted
women sex workers, sex slavery sex work.
But sane people do not call prostituted women sex
workers, because sex is not ‘work’. 2.5 million people
are being trafficked around the world, 80% of them
women and children.
The sex industry generates billions of dollars. Will it
ever be possible to abolish prostitution? Actually it is
not difficult to abolish prostitution. Criminalize clients.
Where there is no demand, there will be no supply.
Swedish abolitionist law is working very well in Scandi-
navia. You can sell body, but you can not buy body.
People all over the world believe in some lies about
prostitution but they should know the truth. After
research on prostitution for years, we now know the
truth.
Lie 1. Prostitution is an oldest profession.
Truth 1. Prostitution is the oldest form of patriarchal
oppression, not oldest profession.
Lie2. Prostitution is sexual freedom. /Prostitution is sex.
Truth 2. Prostitution is sexual exploitation./ Prostition is
not sex, it is sexual violence.
Lie 3. Legalizing prostitution gets rid of sex traffickers
and pimps.
Truth 3. Legalizing prostitution benefits sex traffickers,
pimps,clients,sex industries.
Lie 4. Men need sex therefore prostitution must exist.
Prostitution is a natural form of human sexuality.
Truth 4. The sex of prostitution is not “sex” for women
in it. Most men who use women in prostitution have
other sexual partners.
Lie 5. Women choose to enter prostitution.
Truth 5. Prostitution is not an acceptable job for women.
They are forced to enter prostitution. Prostitution is an
abusive institution and women stay poor in prostitution.
It is not a vocation choice, it is human rights abuse.
Lie 6. Legal prostitution protects women in prostitution.
Truth 6. Legal prostitution does not protect women in
prostitution from harm. All prostitution , legal or illegal,
harm women.
Lie7. Social Stigma is most harmful aspect of prostitution
Truth 7. Not social stigma, Harmful aspects are rape,
beatings, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and other
violence from clients and pimps.
Lie 8. Prostitution is deterrent to sex crimes.
Truth 8. Prostitution is associated with increased rate of
sex crimes.
Lie 9. Legalization of prostitution is an entirely separate
issue from human trafficking.
Truth 9. Prostitution is the destination point for traffick-
ing.
Lie 10. Legalized prostitution would control the sex
industry.
Truth 10. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution
expands the sex industry.
Lie11. Opposing prostitution means prostitutes would
be arrested.
True 11. We have to decriminalize poor prostituted
women but arrest their predators: clients, pimps,
traffickers.
1 Comment :Let’s Burn The Burqa April 8, 2012 at 9:44
am taslima (I feel so honored, so grateful to Free thought
Bloggers for giving me a warm hearted welcome.
I truly feel at home. A million thanks to everyone for
showing support and solidarity)
My mother used to wear a burqa with a net over her face.
It reminded me of the meat safes in my grandmother’s
house.
Meat safe’s net was made of metal, my mother’s net was
made of linen. But the objective was the same: keeping
the meat safe.
My mother was put under a burqa by her family. They
told her that wearing a burqa would mean obeying Allah.
If you obeyed Allah, He would be happy with you and not
let you burn in hellfire.
My mother was afraid of Allah and also of her father. He
would threaten her with grave consequences if she did not
wear the burqa.
My mother was also afraid of the men in the neighborhood;
even her husband was a source of fear, for he could do
anything to her if she disobeyed him.
As a young girl, I used to nag her: ‘Mother, don’t you
suffocate in this? Don’t you feel all dark inside? Don’t
you feel breathless? Don’t you ever feel like throwing it
off?’
My mother kept quite. She couldn’t do anything about it.
But I could. When I was sixteen, I was presented a burqa
by one of my relatives. I threw it out.
The custom of veil is not new. It goes as far back as 13th
century B.C.E in Assyria. The women of aristocratic
Assyrian families used veil. Ordinary women and prostitutes
were not allowed to wear veil.
In the middle ages, even Anglo-Saxon women used to cover
their hair and chin and hide their faces behind a curtain.
This veil system was not religious. The religious veil was
used by Catholic nuns and Mormons, though for the latter
only during religious ceremonies and rituals.
For Muslim women, however, such religious veil is not
limited to rituals, but mandatory for their daily lives.
There are people who say that the Quran doesn’t say
anything about wearing a burqa. They are mistaken.
This is what the Quran says:
”And command the Muslim women to keep their gaze
low and to protect their chastity, and not to reveal their
adornment except what is apparent, and to keep the cover
wrapped over their bosoms; and not to reveal their
adornment except to their own husbands or fathers or
husbands’ fathers, or their sons or their husbands’
sons, or their brothers or their brothers’ sons or sisters’ sons,
or women of their religion, or the bondwomen they possess,
or male servants provided they do not have manliness, or
such children who do not know of women’s nakedness, and
not to stamp their feet on the ground in order that their
hidden adornment be known; and O Muslims, all of you turn
in repentance together towards Allah, in the hope of attaining
success. (It is incumbent upon women to cover themselves
properly.) ”(Sura Al Noor 24:31)
O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the
women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part]
of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will
be known and not be abused.
And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.’[Surah Al Ahzab
33:59] Even the Hadith –a collection of the words of Prophet
Muhammed, his opinion on various subjects and words about
his work, written by those close to him– speaks extensively
of the veil.
Women must cover their body before going out, they should
not go before strangers, they should not go to the mosque to
pray, they should not attend any funeral, they should not go
to the graveyards!
There are many views on why and how the Islamic veil started.
One view has it that Prophet Muhammed became very poor
after spending all the wealth of Khadija, his first wife. At that
time, in Arabia, the poor had to go to the open desert for
relieving themselves, and even for sexual needs.
The Prophet’s wives, too, had to do the same. He had told his
wives : “You are allowed to go out to answer the call of nature.’
’(Bukhari Hadith first volume book 4 No. 149).
Accordingly, this is what his wives started doing. One day,
Prophet Muhammed’s disciple, Umar, complained that these
women were very uncomfortable because they were instantly
recognizable while relieving themselves.
Umar proposed a cover but Prophet Muhammed ignored it.
Then the Prophet asked Allah for advice and he laid down the
verse (33:59) (Sahih Muslim Book 026 No. 5397).
This is the history of the veil, according to the Hadith. But the
question is: as Arab men, too, relieved themselves in the open,
why didn’t Allah start the veil for men?
Clearly, Allah doesn’t treat men and women as equals, else
there would be veil for both!
Men are considered superior to women. So women have to be
made walking prisons.
Another view is that the veil was introduced to separate women
from slaves. This originates from stories in the Hadith. One
story in the Hadith goes thus: After the fall of Khyber, people
described the beauty of Safia Bint Hui, the new bride of a slain
enemy soldier.
The Prophet chose her for himself. On the way to Madina he
stopped and had intercourse with her. His companions did not
know if she was a wife or a concubine/slave.
Later, a veil was drawn between her and the men-folk and they
came to know that she was a wife (Bukhari, Book of Sales and
Book of Nikah 3:59).
The third view comes from this story.
Prophet Muhammed’s wife Ayesha was very beautiful. His
friends were often found staring at her with admiration. This
clearly upset the Prophet. So the Quran has an verse that says,
“Oh friends of the prophet, never go to the prophet’s house
without an invitation. And if you do go, don’t look at his wives
or ask them for any favour.”
It was to resist friends, and disciples that the veil system came
into being.
First it was applicable to only the wives of the prophet, and later
it was extended to all Muslim women.
Now, some women practice the veil by only covering their hair.
That is not what is written in the Quran and in the Hadith:
covering just the hair is not Islamic veil.
Why are women covered? Because they are objects for sex.
Because when men see unveiled women, they are aroused. But
men are not covered for this.
Why should women have to be penalized for men’s sexual
problems? Women also have sexual urges! But men are not
penalized for it.
In no religion created by men are women thought of as human
beings. The rules of veil humiliate not only women but also men.
If women walk about without veil, it’s as if men will look at them
with lustful eyes, or pounce on them, or rape them. Do men lose
all their senses when they see any women without a burqa?
My question to people who argue that the Quran says nothing
about veil is:
If the Quran advises women to wear veil, should they do so?
Really, No. Irrespective of which book says it, which person
advises it, whoever commands it, women should not wear veil,
no veil, no chador, no hijab, no burqa, no headscarf, not any of
them!
They are instruments of no respect. These are symbols of women
’s imprisonment. Through them, women are told that they are but
the property of men and society: things.
These coverings are used to keep women passive, submissive.
Women are told to wear them so that they cannot exist with their
honor, confidence, separate identity, respect – with their own
opinions and ideals – intact; and so that they cannot stand with
their heads held high and their spines strong and erect.
Some 1,500 years ago, it was decided for an individual’s personal
reasons that women should wear veil, since then millions of
Muslim women have had to suffer it. So many old customs have
died a natural death, but not veil. Instead, of late, there has been
a mad craze to revive it.
Covering a woman’s head means covering her brain to ensure that
it will not work. If women were not massively brainwashed or their
brains worked properly, they would have long ago thrown off these
veils imposed on them by a religious and patriarchal regime.
What should women do? They should proclaim a war against the
ill-treatment meted out to them. They should snatch back from the
men their freedom and their rights; they should throw their head-
scarves out.
They should take off their burqas and burn them.
There are many who utter the names of Salman Rushdie &
Taslima Nasreen truly in the same breath. However, if there are
great differences between one individual and the other, this co-
vocalization may naturally become a matter of discomfiture.
When I am referred to as the ‘Female Rushdie’, these days I ask
back, why aren’t you calling Salman Rushdie the ‘Male Nasreen’
instead? Barring the fatwa, everything else is different between us
– I know that very well.
Rushdie is a man; I’m a woman. This is a huge dissimilarity. He
enjoys certain advantages by virtue of being a man; I, on the other
hand, am always at a disadvantage because I am a woman.
After the fatwa was issued, Rushdie had begged the fundamenta-
lists for forgiveness, and declared that he had become a born-again
Muslim. I never asked for a pardon. I didn’t even want to become
a Muslim.
I have been an atheist since childhood – I held my head high to
remain one, weathering all tumultuous storms. Rushdie never lived
in Iran, the country that brought out the fatwa in his name.
In contrast, the country where extremists have marched year after
year demanding that I be hanged till death, the country in which
intolerant Muslims went berserk trying to silence me forever, the
country which took out an arrest warrant in my name because of
a lawsuit filed by the government – because of which I was forced
to go into hiding for months on end, the country where the funda-
mentalist terrorists would have torn me apart if they could lay a
hand on me –
I have been physically present in that country during those
harrowing times. I, alone, had to bear the brunt of all the torture
meted out by the fundamentalists and the government alike.
No one expelled Rushdie from his country as a result of the fatwa;
he didn’t have to suffer banishment. England is his country; he lived
there, and still does. Rushdie had only a single fatwa against him;
there were, against me, three fatwas from Bangladesh, five from
India, each with a price on my head. Rushdie never had to budge;
I was thrown out from two countries because of my writings.
Rushdie had one of his books (The Satanic Verses) banned; I had
five – Lajja (Shame), Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood), Utol Haowa
(The Tempest), Dwikhondito (Split in Two), and Sei Sob Andhokar
(All Those Darkness). Rushdie may criticize religion, but he is not
associated with any atheist-humanist group or Human Rights orga-
nization – whereas I am, actively.
In his personal life, Rushdie is highly conceited; I am its exact
opposite. Rushdie is gallivanting with one young woman after
another, his playthings many years his junior. His senile pranks
are not considered pranks; rather, he is regarded as a strong,
virile, bodacious lover-boy – an object of envy to many younger
men.
In contrast, despite my spending life without a male companion,
there is no dearth of people calling me a ‘whore’ or a ‘deviant
woman’, and whipping up various sex scandals involving me.
Only a man has the right to enjoy a sex life.
If a woman does so or talks or writes about women’s equal right
to enjoy a sex life, she is labeled a whore.
Ever since I started writing, I have received criticism and contempt
from people: advocating sexual freedom for women, I am apparently
destroying the society.
Even though I believe Sexual freedom is not about saying YES to
sex always. It is also about saying NO to sex. There is another
excellent similarity or difference between Rushdie and me.
Many of those who consider Rushdie a good writer have not read
his books.
Many of those who call me a bad writer have not read a word of
my writings. I took risks of my life to support Rushdie publicly in
1989 in Bangladesh, a Muslim majority country.
Rushdie’s name has been associated with mine since 1993.
Following the fatwa from Iran, Rushdie became a much-discussed
and famous name.
My name, on the other hand, crossed the boundaries of Bangladesh
and India after a price was set on my head. Rushdie was amongst
other European authors who wrote an open letter for me during
those desperate period when I was forced to live in hiding after the
Bangladesh government filed a case against me on the charges of
blasphemy.
Finally, when I was expelled and living in exile, I heard that Rushdie
apparently got furious after reading my opinion about him published
in Das Spiegel, a German magazine.
In that piece, I expressed my disappointment at Rushdie’s begging
for forgiveness to Mullahs in response to the fatwa, which I thought
was decidedly cowardly. Rushdie lived in New York City in 2008-2010,
as did I.
But there was no possibility of us meeting. He was the president of the
Pen Club, a large organization of authors and poets of America. For
a couple of years, the Pen Club had been organizing massive demons-
trations in support of freedom of expression in New York City.
Various authors from Asia and Africa, almost all little known, have
been brought over. But I was not welcomed to tell my story how my
freedom of expression was violated over the years and how I was
fighting religious fundamentalists and the powerful governments
alone without any compromise.
Salman Rushdie was well aware that I have been recently thrown
out of India; there were loathsome and incredible attacks against
my freedom of expression.
Almost all of my books have been banned in Bangladesh, either
officially or socially. Not just Bangladesh, even West Bengal
banned my book and threw me out of the state.
Not only that, I was kept under house arrest in Kolkata and Delhi
for a long seven months during the process of banishment.
Eventually, I have been ousted from India. Salman Rushdie was
celebrating freedom of speech by cunningly ignoring my glowing
history.
He can do whatever he wants. One of his security guards wrote
an unflattering book about him; he made arrangements with
publishers so that the book would not see the light of the day.
Yes, he is celebrating freedom of speech. He is a man, people
think nothing of it when he chases after much younger women,
even at sixty plus.
Even if women have complained that Rushdie doesn’t consider
them anything more than sex objects, people don’t dislike him.
This epitome of male chauvinism, this author has garnered
immense name and fame; I am glad that I don’t have any
similarities with him beyond the fatwa.
To be honest, it irritates me no end to have my name joined
with his.
Another name is being entangled with mine for the past couple
of years. He is Maqbul Fida Hussein, a great artist. His
paintings fetch the highest price in India. He is considered by
many as India’s top painter.
He has recently hurt Hindu religious sentiments by painting
Saraswati (the Hindu Goddess of Learning) in the nude. Hindu
fundamentalists have destroyed his paintings, threatened him,
and forced him to leave the country.
I believe in one hundred percent freedom of speech of human
beings. I firmly believe that Maqbul Fida Hussein should have
the freedom of drawing whatever he wants.
No one has the right to persecute him for this reason. However,
it still makes me uncomfortable if my insignificant name is linked
with that of as great an artist as Fida Hussein. Because, despite
my insignificance, I hold my principles very dear; I have no
favorable disposition towards someone, however world-famous
for any reason, whose values don’t measure up to mine.
I don’t feel gratified to have my name uttered along with that
of such a person. When a controversy has broken out in India
over Maqbul Fida Hussein’s painting a nude Saraswati, I have
very naturally sided with the freedom of the artist.
Since atheists are rare amongst Muslims, I find it heartening
to find a Muslim turn secular or atheist. Thereafter, I went
through all of Hussein’s paintings minutely, seeking to find if
he had ever mocked any religion other than Hinduism, especially
his own, Islam.
I found zilch. Instead, he has used the word ‘Allah’, written in
Arabic, on his canvas with much respect and care. I saw clearly
that he had a great faith in and regard for Islam.
He did not believe in any religion other than Islam! His painting
of Lakshmi and Saraswati in the nude stemmed from his disre-
gard for Hinduism!
Would he ever draw Muhammad in the nude? I am certain he
won’t.
I have no problem drawing naked pictures of gods and goddesses
or prophets of any religion.
I am equitable in my lack of belief in all religions of the world.
Putting one religion over another, hating one and loving or
believing in another – I have no such issues.
All religions say, your religion is the best and true and correct,
your god is the only true god; all other religions are erroneous,
all other gods, false! Having been indoctrinated thus, extremists
blinded by faith are able to easily attack others who do not belong
to their faith.
Christian extremists have once wreaked havoc in Europe; even
now, they are driven to violence against abortion.
Hindu extremists have recently been on a rampage in Ayodhya
of India, and in Gujarat.
Attacks by Muslim extremists time and again have shaken up the
world, let alone India. Fida Hussein is similar to those religious
individuals, who put faith in their own religion while criticizing others’.
I have no reason for any interest in having my name linked with
Fida Hussein’s – even though he may be a great tree to my
inconsequential twig of grass; because I am an atheist, and he…
Not only is he a theist, but he is a theist only in respect of his own
god. When it comes to believing in many other gods in the world,
he has no faith. The only similarity that I have with Fida Hussein
is that almost around the same time, we both had to leave India
following a barrage of attacks from irrational religionists.
This apart, everything else is dissimilar. The prime difference is
that his exile was finally his choice, while mine was not. I was
evicted not only from my Kolkata residence, but from India as
well by the authorities.
No, those responsible were not some random individuals or groups
blinded by faith, but the government. Fida Hussein has houses to
stay in foreign lands, I don’t.
The Indian government has been trying to repatriate Hussein; I
have been barred from entry by both Bangladesh & India
governments.
After being ousted from India, whenever I have re-entered with
the intention of taking up residence, I have been immediately
pushed away. Fida Hussein has but mocked one religion; I,
discussing women’s rights, castigate the misogynistic thesis of
all religions, always making the following points – let there be
laws promulgated on the basis of equal rights, let the misogynistic
laws and traditions perish.
I criticize all religions equitably, not leaving out my family’s religion,
Islam. I don’t have the name, fame and clout of Rushdie or Fida
Hussein. However, even then, I don’t want my name associated
with theirs in any way.
The way I have been tormented for years by religious governments
in power, they have not had to face even a fraction of that. The
manner in which I am compelled to live abroad, in the darkness of
uncertainty, with no place to call home, and to fend for myself in
for my beliefs and principles, is not inconsequential.
Rushdie or Hussain never had to encounter such an intolerable
situation. My utmost respect for their craft notwithstanding, I think
it’s unfair to put in the same bracket as those two men. However
people may perceive my incessant struggle for a society free of
religion and discrimination, a society with equality and equal rights,
those men, regardless of their stature as artists of renown, cannot
come even close to my principles.
The Fight Is Not Between Between The East And The West .
Let alone ‘Western feminism’, I had no idea about ‘Eastern feminism’.
Without any familiarity with these concepts, I have since childhood
questioned a lot of diktat, advice and proscriptions from the family
and from society at large.
When I, unlike my brothers, wasn’t allowed to play outside; when I
was called ‘impure’ during my menstrual periods; or when I was told
I had grown up and must cover myself in a black burqa if I wanted to
step out, I questioned, I didn’t give in readily.
When strange boys would hurl abuses at me, snatch my scarf or pinch
my breasts as I walked by, I protested.
I couldn’t stomach it when I saw husbands beating their wives, young
mothers weeping in anxiety and fear of being divorced after having
given birth to a female baby.
Upon observing the shame on the faces of raped women, I felt their
pain acutely; I broke down after hearing about women being trafficked
from city to city, from one country to another in order to be forced
into sexual slavery.
No logic, no intellect could make me accept the torture of women by
the men, the society, the state. But no one witnessed my pain, my
tears, the non-acquiescence, the non-acceptance, the speechlessness,
the inability to tolerate, the screams – that is, until I started writing.
The society that I grew up in engendered questions in the minds of
many. They were forced to accept the answers given by the leaders
of the patriarchy. I didn’t give in to that coercion.
No one taught me to be disobedient. I didn’t learn defiance from a
book. It is not necessary to read thick and heavy books to be aware;
one just needs eyes to observe. No one helps build courage either.
In order to demand rights for women, one doesn’t need to internalize
Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem; one’s own awareness is often good
enough.
If I’m hungry, I shall eat; if I am lashed, I shall wrest away the lash;
if I am oppressed, I shall stand up – these feelings are universal.
Feminism is not a property of the West. It is the arduous struggle by
abused, oppressed, tortured, disrespected, exploited women coming
together, putting their lives at stake, for the sake of their rights.
I learned that women of the West also had no less than their share
of tribulations. Abused and bloodied, they had their backs to the wall.
They have screamed; centuries upon centuries they have been victims
of patriarchy, religion, misogynistic traditions and culture, just like
their Eastern counterparts.
Religious fanatics have burnt them alive, misogynistic traditions forced
them to wear metal cage around their pelvis in the name of chastity,
they have been turned into sex slaves.
East or West, North or South, women still suffer for the ‘crime’ of
being women. Human rights are universal.
Those, who talk about separate human rights for the East and seek
to distance themselves from the universal human rights, assuming
that this stance represents a victory over the prolonged oppression
by the West, actually end up harming the East more than the West.
A recurrent question that is often raised claims that I have hurt
religious sentiments of people. Feminism has long opposed religion;
whoever has even the slightest knowledge of women’s rights knows
this.
Religion is patriarchal through and through. I shall follow a religion
and I shall acknowledge women’s rights – this stance is akin to
saying I shall drink poison along with honey.
In order to wrest women’s rights, immediately the slogan “Religious
sentiments must not be hurt” has been raised by those that are anti-
democracy, anti-free speech, and opposed to women’s freedom.
I, however, don’t refer to any kind of barbarism as culture. Alleging
I have hurt Muslim religious sentiments, a few ignorant and insular
conservatives pass the verdict that my statements are statements
from the West, statements of observing the East with Western eyes.
This meaningless, illogical claim by the Islamic fundamentalists is
often supported by so-called liberal folk in the name of tolerance. I
have criticized Christianity, Judaism and other misogynistic religions.
But usually no one complains about it thereafter. No one takes out a
fatwa to murder me if I hurt the religious sentiments of non-Muslims.
But there is no dearth of people who, without any problem, accept the
intolerance, and respect the ‘religious sentiments’ of those who do
take out a fatwa; such people label me ‘intolerant’ without a hint of
doubt.
Possibly, they see me as a Muslim, and view my actions of hurting
Muslim religious sentiments as arrogance. But the truth is, if one
believes in women’s rights, one has to first cast away one’s religious
identity.
I have been free of that since my childhood. When I was but a child,
I was unjustly shackled with a religious identity in the same way as
other children are.
We don’t feel uncomfortable in labelling a two year old child as
Hindu, Muslim or Christian.
When the child grows up, he/she may choose his/her parents’ religion,
or some other religion, or none at all. That’s how it should be. I
have successfully implemented this principle in my life.
I have chosen humanism as my ideal. I should not be mistaken for
a ‘Muslim reformer’. Neither am I a reformer, nor do I belong to
any religious community.
My community is that of secular humanism, free from religion.
TASLIMA
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