By Wadzanai Mhute
Violence against women has been on the increase world wide. According to the Global Post “Not only do one in three women worldwide experience some form of physical violence, but one in three teenage girls has been sexually abused by a boyfriend. In 2008, 157 women were killed by their husbands or partners in France. That same year in Pakistan, out of 8,000 officially reported cases of violence against women, about 1,000 women ended up dead.”
This rise led to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to launch his Network of Men Leaders to bring attention to the prevalence of domestic violence to teach men to not oppress women. In Illinois Mohammad Khalil, a professor at the University of Illinois started the Muslim Men Against Domestic Abuse Group. His group have distributed anti-domestic packets at mosques to teach about the crime.
According to the Global Post:
A significant development came in November when U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched his Network of Men Leaders to combat violence against women, which includes South African Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu and Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. “Men must teach each other that real men do not violate or oppress women,” he said.
The campaign for men joining the fight against violence is growing. The last straw for Mohammad Khalil came in 2009 when the owner of a television company in Buffalo, N.Y., beheaded his wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, after she filed for divorce.
“I think it was a wake up call for the Muslim community,” said Khalil, a professor of religion at the University of Illinois who set up an organization called Muslim Men against Domestic Abuse.
Still in its initial stages, the Illinois-based group has prepared an anti-domestic violence packet for local imams to include in their sermons. “There is a stereotype that Muslim men are particularly abusive … more than any other,” Khalil said. “We wanted to address the problem in our community first.”
