International Women's Day

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, I would like to add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for yet again initiating this debate. I had the great pleasure of serving under her leadership when she was the chair of the Women’s National Commission when I was a commissioner, which I must say was a wonderful experience.

I congratulate our new noble Baronesses, who are clearly good feminists and fantastic additions. In particular, I would like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady King, who was once one of my students. I am basking in the reflected glory of her excellent speech.

I would also like to declare an interest. I am the honorary president of the Muslim Women’s Network, which only exists thanks to the great care and support given to it by the Women’s National Commission. Our network spent two years helping a very disparate group of Muslim women to get together to find ways of becoming an organisation which is now working effectively right through the UK, and it is a matter of great regret that other organisations such as ours will not find their feet because there is no WNC to help them.

I want to speak about the experiences of Muslim women in this country and, in particular, about the problem that the hijab or niqab—the covering—has been seen as an emblem of subordination that has been used to identify Muslim women as a category as submissive, as if women were forced to cover because some bloke told them to do so. As a third-generation Muslim feminist, I can assure your Lordships that I am not likely ever to cover, because my grandmother fought against the veil. However, I feel that it is right for women to choose how they dress and to be respected for the way that they dress. To reply to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, many Muslim women cover in order not to be the object of the gaze or to be assessed as pretty, ugly, naked or dressed. It is a way for them—I am talking about young women born and raised in this country—to make a public statement about denying the right of all women to be sex objects. They do not want it. This ought to be giving respect to that rather than otherising a particular category of women because of their dress code.

This otherisation also, I might say, hides a vibrant conversation going on among Muslim women about their Islamic rights and entitlements. That debate is raging not only across the internet; I have supervised three British-born girls who were initially non-Muslim—I did not convert any of them—who looked at the question of Islam and feminism. There are now three theses on the subject at the University of York, among many others. The importance of recognising and understanding Muslim women’s contribution to changing Islamic law has been ignored and not understood because of the label that is given to Muslims who cover.

To help Muslim women in this country, I shall ask the Minister something that I have asked about before in this House. Would it be possible to ban the arrival of concubines from other parts of the world as wives of men who are already married to Muslim British citizens in this country? The second wife has no status but is a threat to the first wife. Secondly, is it possible that all Islamic marriages should be registered and recognised as civil marriages, so that if the marriage fails women have a comeback in law to defend their position and their children? Such registration would also protect those who are vulnerable to unilateral divorce because divorce would be subject to the courts.