Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said the Pakistani nation, with resilience and determination, would effectively overcome the current challenges including the economic crisis.
“Pakistan has seen tough times in the past and fought them bravely. This time too, the nation will overcome the difficult situation,” he told reporters here in New York on Tuesday.
Bilawal arrived in New York Tuesday morning to begin a 5-day visit during which he will preside over a conference on ‘Women in Islam’, which is set to take place Wednesday on the sidelines of the 67th Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
The foreign minister said Pakistan from the platform of Council of Foreign Ministers is hosting an event on Islamophobia to shun negative perceptions regarding the human rights, particularly of women and minorities.
Islam, he said, is the religion which grants rights to women and promotes their emancipation in all fields of life.
Asked about the pro-women approach of his party, he termed women as the strength of Pakistan Peoples Party who championed the rights of the women of the country.
Earlier, Bilawal welcomed the adoption of national action plans by more than 90 countries around the world, which have empowered women and girls and helped them respond to violence and conflict.
He joined others in voicing concern that women and girls continue to be the primary victims of crimes and conflict.
Expressing disappointment over restrictions imposed on women in Afghanistan including their right to access work and education at all levels and urging their reversal, he said the most egregious hypocrisies and crimes occur in foreign occupations and places where the right to self-determination is violated. Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Wednesday opened a Pakistan-sponsored conference on ‘Women in Islam’, with a spirited call to Islamic countries to lead the way in building a common future for humanity where the empowerment of women and gender parity underwrite a new peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive world order.
“We have convened this conference to dispel the deep misperceptions that exist about the rights, roles and identity of women in Islam,” he told ministers and senior officials from around the world participating in the conference being held on the sidelines of the Commission on Status of Women (CSW) at the UN headquarters in New York.
The foreign minister said the caricature that dominates the perception of women in Islam and the Muslim society was one painted on the ignorance of the Islamic history and roles that women had played. “This caricature is a result that the perception of our religion has largely been hijacked after 9/11 by extremists who do not represent our faith and I feel a special responsibility to counter this propaganda and perception.
“It offends me as a Muslim and a Pakistani to the core of my heart that the face of Islam unfortunately in much of western public perception are the likes of Osama Bin Laden and not of the likes of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto,” he added.
For a fuller understanding, FM Bilawal said, it was essential to distinguish between Islamic principles and law, and social practices espoused by some patriarchal societies. It was a distinction that xenophobes, Islamophobes and obscurantists would not like to make because “they believe in discrimination, a first step towards tyranny”. He said,”Islam forbids injustice against people, nations, women. It shuns race, colour and gender as a basis of distinction among persons.”
“Islam treats women as human beings in their own right, not as chattel,” FM Bilawal said as the world celebrated International Women’s Day. Under Islamic law and tradition – the Sharia, he said a woman had an independent social and legal identity and enjoys civil, political, economic, and cultural rights as well as inherit, divorce, receive alimony and child custody.
During the opening session, the President of the UN General Assembly, Csaba Korosi, made his opening remarks followed by the Executive Director of the UN-Women, Sima Bahous, the Chairperson of the CSW, Ambassador Mathu Joyini and Ambassador Hameed Ajibaiye Opeloyeru, OIC Observer Mission to the UN, who delivered a message on behalf of Secretary-General of OIC, Ambassador Hissein Braham Taha. A recorded message of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed was also played. She conveyed her greetings to the conference on behalf of herself and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. In his keynote address, FM Bilawal said,”Islamic history attests to the outstanding role played by Muslim women in all walks of life – education, enterprise, economics, politics and governance.”
He pointed out that Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) declared that the pursuit of knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim, male and female. In that regard, he said, Fatima al-Fihri founded the world’s oldest continuously operating educational institution in 859 AD. “Muslim women have been agents of change in their societies. Islamic history is replete with examples of illustrious women: Hazrat Khadija (R.A.), a women business entrepreneur; Hazrat Ayesha (R.A.), a scholar and preacher; Hazrat Zainab Bint Ali (R.A.), a brave fighter, participant and survivor of the battle of Karbala; Hazrat Rabia Basri, a Sufi mystic; Shuhdah al-Baghdadiyyah, a scholar and calligrapher; Fatima al-Samarqandi, a scholar and jurist.”
