By Maria Caspani
LONDON (TrustLaw) – Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood has strongly criticised a draft U.N. document aimed at combating violence against women, saying it clashes with Islamic law and values and is a threat to the institution of the family.
‘End Violence Against Women’ – a declaration being drafted by delegates at the 57th session of the United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) – would “lead to complete disintegration of society” if ratified, according to the conservative Brotherhood.
The Islamist movement called on leaders of Muslim nations and their U.N. representatives to strongly oppose the declaration and urged women’s rights groups not to be “deceived with misleading calls to decadent modernisation and paths of subversive immorality,” a statement on the movement’s English-language website said.
The movement reserved some of its strongest criticism for the document’s points about the rights of women and girls to access contraception and sexual and reproductive healthcare including abortion, the right to report their husbands for rape and denounce sexual harassment and gender equality within the family.
The Brotherhood also fiercely opposed points about allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men and the abolition of polygamy and the dowry as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and sex workers’ rights.
Hopes are high among women’s rights activists, diplomats and governments that the declaration will be signed after governments failed ten years ago to bridge cultural and religious differences and reach an agreement.
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