Nuriyah laments Islamic women's groups

YOGYAKARTA (JP): A Muslim woman activist has lamented the failure of Islamic women's organizations to address issues such as gender equality, leading to ignorance among activists.

Nuriyah Abdurrahman of Fatayat -- the women's wing of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama -- told an international workshop on the role of Muslim women in the antidiscrimination campaign here on Tuesday that most programs offered by existing organizations barely touched women's need for empowerment.

Some 87 percent of Indonesians are Muslims, of which more than 50 percent are women, she said. However, despite this majority, programs have not been implemented to address the empowerment of women, gender issues awareness, gender equality, and the improvement of the status and position of women in society, she said.

Most of the existing women's organizations provide only Koranic reading classes and practical training on household matters.

Nuriyah emphasized that Muslim organizations need highly intelligent women to join the campaign against gender discrimination.

"Most intelligent women here are busy working and therefore do not have time to join organizations. On the other hand, the ones actively joining such organizations are housewives who do not have sufficient educations," said Nuriyah, who is the wife of NU chairman Abdurrahman Wahid.

"It is now time to involve intelligent women in the strategic policy-making processes in Muslim organizations," she said.

The four-day workshop was held by the Ford Foundation and Fatayat, featuring women's rights activists from various countries such as Yasmin Busran-Loa of the Philippines and Nabil Abdel Fatah of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt and activists from prominent Muhammadiyah and Ahmadiyah organizations. (23/edt)