The Declaration of Gender Justice in Islam, Research and Findings

Around the world today, girls are more than twice as likely as boys to drop out of education when conflict or wars break out. If women could simply complete a primary education, maternal deaths could be reduced by 66 per cent. Women are paid 24 per cent less than men on average for the same work because of their gender. Thirty-five per cent of women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence and 71 per cent of all human trafficking victims are girls and women.²

The current systems and structures of power around the world have marginalised or oppressed the voices, agency and participation of women in both private and public spaces. As a result, in almost every situation of inequality, exploitation or suffering, women and girls of various diversities are the worst affected. There also exists a silent undercurrent of unconscious biases, emerging particularly in relation to women’s authority. For women, these harmful biases are real and present: women are judged more harshly but taken less seriously, with their expertise often overlooked. These biases are exacerbated for women of colour.

Gender injustices also impact the physical, mental and spiritual health of men and boys of various diversities. For example, sexual violence perpetrated against men and boys in conflicts is rampant yet frequently goes unaddressed due to harmful gender norms that silence survivors.³ Moreover, more men than women die by suicide every year globally,⁴ and again, stereotypes around masculinity commonly prevent men from seeking support. In the pursuit of balance and justice for all, these are important areas for further research, investigation and action.

In 2015, 188 countries declared their commitment to working together to transform our world through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There has never before been a commitment of this scale and ambition, with the potential to change our future so drastically within one generation. Whilst one of these crucial goals is SDG 5, ‘Gender Equality and Empowering all Women and Girls’, gender justice cuts across all 17 goals because it is undeniably a fundamental ingredient in ensuring a sustainable future, free of poverty, for all.

The Declaration therefore aims to complement and build on important preceding declarations, frameworks and goals towards which many Muslim-majority countries, as well as stakeholders who work with Muslim communities, have commitments. These include the Sustainable Development Goals, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women and peace and security and its succeeding resolutions, as well as the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC)⁵ that was set up by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 2011, with a Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women (OPAAW)⁶ by 2016. These and other such commitments prove the timely and critical need for collective action by Muslims all over the world and across different sectors, cultures and societies.

This Declaration recognises that in order to achieve meaningful gender justice for Muslim women and men , gender justice narratives and work need to be grounded in Islamic principles such as the maqasid al-shari’ah⁷. To achieve this, the gender justice narrative and language used in the declaration has been developed through engaging and consulting with faith stakeholders and Muslim voices, as well as through deconstructing the influence and impact that colonialism and cultural practices have had and continue to have on ideas and practices around gender in the lives of Muslim women and men around the world. To identify the areas of work and calls to action, consultations were held with national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academia, and Islamic scholarship – including Muslim female scholars, activists and women’s groups, local communities and UN bodies.

2. All statistics quoted are from UNICEF’s ‘The State of the World’s Children 2017’ report.
3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297696937_Male_rape_and_human_…
4. World Health Organisation (WHO), 2018, ‘Mental Health ATLAS 2017’.
5. https://www.oic-iphrc.org/en/about
6. https://www.oic-oci.org/subweb/woman/6/en/docs/final/6wom_opaaw_en.pdf
7. The objectives of Islamic law.