Religion and rights

EVERY YEAR, the United Nations convenes the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), consisting of delegations from the member-states (which may be composed of a mix of government and nongovernment representatives) to discuss and agree on issues related to gender equality and rights.

By tradition, the CSW meets in March, to mark International Women’s Day.

At the same time, the CSW meeting attracts women and men from around the world who take advantage of the occasion to highlight specific concerns and reach out to both delegates and observers. These “side events” are held at either the various meeting rooms at the UN headquarters or in spaces at the UN Church Center, across from the United Nations along First Avenue, which has hosted NGO offices and events for many years. Other CSW-related events may also be held in nearby venues such as colleges or universities.

Two side events were what brought me the past week to New York, to present a paper on “religious fundamentalism” sponsored by the NGO Arrow, or Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Arrow is a regional nonprofit women’s NGO founded in 1993 “working to advance women’s health, affirmative sexuality and rights, and empower women through information and knowledge, engagement, advocacy and mobilization.”

A few years ago, Arrow set out on a research project on the impact of “religious fundamentalism” on reproductive health policy in countries like Bangladesh, India, Morocco and the Philippines. The project was carried out in the Philippines by Likhaan, which has collaborated with Arrow on a number of research, advocacy and service delivery projects, and whose projects here I have written about several times.

I have been part of the board of Likhaan for several years now, so when Likhaan asked me to present the local study for the CSW side event, I agreed immediately. A side motivation, of course, was that it would give me a chance to meet up with my daughter Miya, who has been a New York resident for some years now.

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“FUNDAMENTALISM” in the Arrow-convened study covers broader ground than the common concept of religious ultraconservatism. Mangala Namasivayam, senior programme officer of Arrow, defined it as “the rigid interpretation of religion forced upon others” that results in the creation of “intolerant communities.” At the same time, she said, it also connotes the “use of religion by political partners and players” as well as the use of “authoritarian police powers.”

In the context of sexual and reproductive health and rights, which is the particular concern of Arrow and its partners, Namasivayam said that fundamentalism often results in the “routine denial of these rights” to all asserting their sexuality and reproductive health and rights, particularly to women. In the Philippines, but also in other countries, this denial of rights can take the form of undue influence on the crafting of national laws and policies.

We all know, of course, of the more-than-a-decade struggle here to get the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law passed, as well as the continuing barriers, in law and implementation, to its complete realization.

At the heart of the intersection between fundamentalism and reproductive health and rights is “the individual’s right to decide for him/herself what is right or wrong.”

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AN important part of the research project was the creation of what Namasivayam called “evidence-based analysis of the links between SRHR and religious fundamentalism.”

The Likhaan study consisted of two parts: a study of documents outlining the history and doctrinal origins of the Catholic (but mostly conservative) position on sexuality and the status of women; and interviews with “nonfundamentalist” Catholics including a former health secretary, a medical doctor, a lawyer, a “concerned laywoman,” and a woman religious.

According to the research, the Catholic Church here is dominant not only in terms of number of followers and status, but also in such parameters as its influence on policymaking and on public discourse.

But the same could be said for a country like Morocco. Fadoua Bakhadda, executive director of the Moroccan Family Planning Association, discussed how adherence to the most conservative interpretations of the Koran has severely limited women’s access to abortion in her country. She thus called for the adoption of more liberal and humanist interpretations of Islam, as well as a broadened discussion of women’s reproductive rights.

In Bangladesh, said Habibun Nessa, a human rights lawyer and member of the NGO Naripokkho, fundamentalist influence in the conduct and content of sexuality education in public schools in her country has severely limited the scope of such education, despite increasing demand for information and services from young people themselves.

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BALASUBRAMANIAN, a social scientist and demographer by training from India, spoke of so many remaining issues that stand in the way of Indian women’s full enjoyment of their reproductive health and rights. These include the prevalence of unsafe abortion, child marriages, arranged marriages, and domestic violence.

There is a view, he said, that asserting women’s reproductive rights is often seen as “going against Indian culture,” when in truth it is not so much Indian culture as it is the culture of dominance and privilege enjoyed by Indian men.