wfn.org | Religions should promote human rights of women, panel says

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 8, 2000	News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-21-23-71B{128}

UNITED NATIONS (UMNS) - The world's religions must do a better job of
promoting human rights for women, according to speakers at March 7 panel
discussion.

The panel was one of three being sponsored by Ecumenical Women 2000 and
Religion Counts during U.N. meetings of its Commission on the Status of
Women. United Methodists are among the churches represented in the
Ecumenical Women 2000 coalition.

Speaking from a Christian perspective, Battu Jambawai of the Women's Desk,
All Africa Conference of Churches, discussed the need for churches to better
assist women suffering from culturally approved traditions or outright
violence. Jambawai, a native of Sierra Leone, also is vice president of the
World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.

Prayer is good, but Jambawai noted that Jesus also took care of people's
physical needs. "The women (in Africa) are hurting every day," she said.
"They are sitting in the pews, they are bleeding, they are crying, but no
one is listening."

Causes of that suffering include domestic violence, incest and rape --
problems often shrouded by the cloak of cultural acceptability. In many
parts of Africa, for example, if a women's husband dies, she is expected to
marry another man in his family. If she refuses, according to Jambawai, she
must have sex with a man in the family, or even a hired substitute, as part
of a "cleansing" ritual. This ceremony "is one of the means through which
HIV/AIDS is spreading," she added.

The full acceptance of human rights for women in Africa has been stymied by
ignorance, poverty, economic dependence and a "culture of silence," Jambawai
said.

Churches are starting to tackle the issue by offering human rights education
at the conference and local church levels; producing training manuals on the
rights of the child and on violence against women; establishing centers for
abused women and training women in income-generating projects. 

Jambawai would like to see African churches develop a worship liturgy
recognizing the culturally imposed suffering of widows.

A Buddhist nun from Nepal, Ani Choying Drolma, told the group that while her
religion does not discriminate against women, some Buddhist societies are
patriarchal in nature. "Women in Buddhist society have not been given the
same opportunities in studies and expressing themselves," she said.

Admitting that she is not a "conventional" nun, Drolma has founded the Nuns'
Welfare Foundation of Nepal as a way of educating nuns and, eventually,
educating girls in the society.

Deonna Kelli -- an American woman who became a Muslim four years ago and is
associated with the International Institute of Islamic Thought - noted that
Muslim women suffer in the same ways that women in other societies do. She
also noted that contemporary Islamic views on gender roles vary from nation
to nation.

Blu Greenberg, a self-described "Orthodox feminist" and author of On Women
and Judaism: A View From Tradition, said she considers Judaism to be a
religion that protects and celebrates human rights, even if it resists
language commonly used in human rights circles.

She added that it is important to distinguish between actual violations of
rights - which is how some people regard Orthodox divorce law - and
patriarchal traditions, such as where women are seated in a synagogue.

Greenberg also said women must acknowledge the gains that have occurred.
Today, for example, Jewish women have access to religious texts "in a way
that was denied to them for centuries. There is a virtual explosion of
learning that is going on, especially in the Orthodox tradition." 

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