The Islamic Charter of HUman Rights

The Charter of Human Rights granted by Islam is that a woman's chastity has to be respected and protected under all circumstances, whether she belongs to our own nation or to the nation of an enemy, whether we find her in the wild forest or in a conquered city; whether she is our co-religionist or belongs to some other religion or has no religion at all. A majority of women are not aware of their conjugal and marital rights with regard to the provisions in the Holy Quran. If only women knew how much protection and security Islam had given them, most of the problems they faced as wives, daughters and sisters would not rise. The right of a Muslim woman is to be respected for her mind and for being her own person.

If women’s rights are to be protected

If women’s rights are to be protected, they must become a respected part of the culture and traditions of our society. The institution of marriage was introduced so that man and woman could live together in a social, legal and religious bond. However, it is never as simple as it sounds, because married women, particularly young girls, often do not turn out to be cognizant of their rights as wives. Despite the fact that slavery is illegal in Pakistan, girls and women are regularly traded to settle debts and conflicts. Forced marriages of young girls continue to be reported despite a legal minimum age of 16. In Sukkur, in 2000, a six-year-old girl was married to a 60-year-old man when her family was unable to repay a debt. Last year, the decision of an unauthorized forum in the city Mianwali to give away eight girls in marriage to settle a murder case between rival families revealed an accelerated process of descent into barbarism. In a statement, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that such decisions violated the laws of the land, the laws of all religions, including Islam, and indeed the norms of civilized behavior anywhere in the world. It is still more shocking that the authorities appear to have stood by and permitted the terms contained in the settlement to be carried out without intervention until orders were issued following the publicizing of the terrible sequence of events. Though, the Pakistan Constitution also guarantees fundamental rights, including the rights to life and personal liberty, safeguards on arrest and detention and a prohibition on slavery. It also secures the rights to equality before the law, equal protection of the law, and the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sex or religion.

Concept of Women's Human Rights Around the World

The concept of women's human rights has opened the way for women around the world to ask hard questions about the official inattention and general indifference to the widespread discrimination and violence that women experience everyday. While women have raised questions for a long time about why their rights are seen as ancillary to human rights, a coordinated effort to change this attitude using a human rights framework gained particular momentum in the early part of the 1990s. As women's activities developed globally during and following the United Nations' Decade for Women, more and more women raised the question of why "women's rights" and women's lives have been deemed secondary to the "human rights" and lives of men. Over the past decade, a movement around women's human rights has emerged to challenge limited notions of human rights, and it has focused particularly on violence against women as a prime example of the bias against women in human rights practice and theory.

The concept of Human Rights and Violence Against Women

The concept of human rights has been rearticulated and reformulated throughout the ages and is continually evolving to deal with all attacks on human dignity and self esteem, no matter how these attacks are justified. Legal systems in most countries recognize that it is the duty of the State to enforce criminal law. Since the State clearly has a duty to enforce this law, there should be no debate about whether violence against women is a criminal offence and therefore within the jurisdiction of the State to intervene. Violence against women is always a crime, but some legal systems either fail to recognize this or fail to adequately deal with it. Such failures are violations of women’s human rights.

The Phrase "Women Rights"

The phrase “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” is far more than a catchy slogan. The underlining thesis of this essay is women rights that are always denied and that violence against women is human rights violation and is unacceptable. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Article 2 (e) stipulates that States Parties will undertake “all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women by any person, organization or enterprise” [emphasis added]. Subsequent articles deal with such matters as eliminating discrimination in access to education, health and employment as well as ensuring equality in matters pertaining to family, nationality and related areas

Human Rights trivilized concept in some countries

Human rights are a concept that is still trivialized in countries like India and Pakistan (prevailing notion is as an urban and western agenda). Although much has been done, especially through the donor agencies and by some NGOs, to promote a rights-based mentality, there remains a great need to build an awareness that human rights is a collective term used to cover all manners of violations against persons, especially the powerless masses. It is having opportunities and choices to fully develop their potentials and live with dignity. Still, there are young people who are willing to contribute towards building a society where human rights are respected. It is very unfortunate that our current young generation has grown up without developing a sense of collective responsibility for social change. Many young people, especially women, in Pakistan today desire an opportunity to better understand the socio-political power dynamics of our country. We need to respect not only collective rights, but individual rights of people also. Especially with respect to women in cases of karo kari, vani, swara and other honour killings when individuals’ rights are sacrificed at the altar perceived of collective rights of tribes, clans, families and communities.

Indivisibility of Human Rights

The indivisibility of human rights means that none of the rights that are considered to be fundamental human rights is more important than any of the others more specifically, that they are inter-related. Human rights encompass civil, political, social, economic and cultural facets of human existence; the indivisibility premise highlights that the ability of people to live their lives in dignity and to exercise their human rights fully depends upon the recognition that these aspects are all interdependent.

Pakistani Society and Human Rights

In the Pakistani society, human rights are frequently seen through a very narrow lens. Our tendency is to think of rights as a litigation tool for individuals and not as a force for broader social change. We focus on a few civil and political rights, ignoring the full set of human rights that also encompasses economic, social and cultural rights. In addition, we think about human rights in their ‘negative’ sense only – as a check on the abuse of state power, forgetting that they also have an important ‘positive’ dimension, empowering people to reach their potential and live life to the full. As the consequence of a failure to understand that human rights are centrally relevant to many challenges we face at home, include discrimination, poverty and increasing political disengagement from formal political processes.

human righst and social order

Today, human rights had become a form of social order, which no one could ignore. Human rights standards and commitments have been a key feature of international life for half a century now. It has become a form of social order, which no one could ignore. Human rights belong to everyone, it more focus on what unites us, rather than what divides us. The fight for justice and human rights is unending. They are principally about the relationships between people and the state. They are not only about protecting us from the abuses of state power and preventing violation by non-state actors, but are also about the state having positive duties to promote and help fulfill people’s rights. But human rights can also help to create binding ties between people through the notion that everyone has a responsibility to respect each other’s rights.

Islam and Human Rights

Islam took a different course by granting these rights from its very advent. In fact, it is mandatory on every Muslim ruler to enforce these rights in accordance with the provisions of Islam. The first and the foremost basic right is the right to live and respect human life. The Holy Quran lays down: Whosoever kills a human being without (any reason like) man slaughter, or corruption on earth, it is as though he had killed all mankind ... (5:32). Islam has prescribed a general principle of paramount importance and universal application saying: "Co-operate with one another for virtue and heedfulness and do not co-operate with one another for the purpose of vice and aggression" (5:2).

West and concept of Human Rights in Islam

It is, unfortunately, believed in the West that the values and ideals prescribed by Islam are contrary to the norms of human rights. This wrong concept has taken root not only due to the West's ignorance of the Quran and the Traditions, but also due to the irresponsible, at times even outrageous, attitude of some Muslims. It is an established principle that the right of one is the duty of another, and vice versa. Islam not only lays down duties owed to God, but it also defines duties owed to individuals. In fact, Islam recognized and enforced the principles of human rights centuries before their acknowledgment by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was in the 16th and 17th centuries that the masses in the West were made aware of fundamental rights and civil liberties by their political thinkers and jurists. An in-depth study of ancient civilizations shows that although vast efforts were made to promote studies in the arts and sciences, in most cases, there was no consistent development or the promotion of human rights.

Uneven Global development

Dignity of humans is not only enshrined in the major religions but also in a universal moral principle embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. As, Article 1 of the Declaration states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Uneven global development during the past 40 years has resulted in more uncertainties affecting world peace, development and harmony. In Asian countries at large, governments are keen to advocate cultural factors playing a role in universal rights, acting on the principle that the individual's rights conflict with a wider social harmony and stability, citing Asian values as contradictory to a western notion of universality.
Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, States and activists alike have debated and argued about how human rights should be interpreted— individual versus collective, Western versus other, duties versus rights. As a result, the human rights system, intended to ensure the maximum protection and promotion of rights, is in a state of evolution. In some instances, the system expands as new needs emerge and, in others, some States focus their efforts on restricting the space in which the system may work.