The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 17, Number 4.
We, the undersigned, believe that the oppression of women is a grave offense against all of humanity and that such offense is an impediment to social and moral progress throughout the world.
We therefore cannot ignore the oppression of women by orthodox and fundamentalist religions. We cannot deny history, which shows that these religions were devised and enforced by men who claimed divine justification for the subordination of women to men. We cannot forget that the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Koran as their respective holy texts, consider women inferior in every way to men: physically, morally, and intellectually.
We also note that, whereas women in the Christian West and Israel have ameliorated their lot considerably through their own heroic efforts, their sisters in the Islamic world, and even within Islamic communities in the West, have been thwarted in their valiant attempts to rise above the inferior position imposed upon them by centuries of Islamic custom and law.
We have watched as official Islamization programs in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, the Sudan, and Afghanistan, among others, have led to serious violations of the human rights of women. Muslim conservatives in all Muslim countries, and even in nominally secular India, have refused to recognize women as full, equal human beings who deserve the same rights and freedoms as men.
Women in many Islamic societies are expected to marry, obey their husbands, bring up children, stay at home, and avoid participation in public life. At every stage of their lives, they are denied free choice and the fundamental right of autonomy. They are forbidden to acquire an education, prevented from getting a job, and thwarted from exploring their full potential as members of the human community.
We therefore declare that ...
Islam may not be the sole factor in the repression of women. Local, social, economic, political, and educational forces as well as the prevalence of pre-Islamic customs must also be taken into consideration. But Islam and the application of the sharia, Islamic law, remain a major obstacle to the evolution of the position of women.
To achieve these basic human rights for women, we advocate that the question of women's status be removed from the religious sphere altogether, that governments institute a separation of religion and state, and that authorities enact a uniform civil code under which all are equal.
In the name of justice, for the sake of human progress, and for the benefit of all the wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers of the world, we call for all societies to respect the human rights of women.
Identifications include countries of origin and current residence. Affiliations listed for identification only.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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