The French burqa ban took effect today and already two women have been detained for protesting at Notre Dame Cathedral.
Police arrested two veiled women just hours after the country’s new ban on wearing the burqa in public was enforced.
The banning of full face veils is a first in Europe. Any women wearing the Muslim niqab or burqa in public is subject to a 150 euro ($216) fine. The niqāb is a veil which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women, while the burqa covers the whole body from the top of the head to the ground.
The French government has not only alienated Muslim women by enforcing this new law, but has joined the list of countries who unfairly judge and persecute women for being women. In the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, women’s health care, well being and rights are completely stripped.
Now that the French government has taken these measures to ensure no woman’s face is hidden, they have paradoxically added their names to the list of countries that are unfavorable to women.
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Papua New Guinea
Starting at a young age, women only get five years of formal education before going to work meanwhile they are four times more likely than men to contract HIV/AIDS.
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Nepal
The women of Nepal face many atrocities in thier formative years. Teenage women are usually married off in thier teens and if their not most likley they’ll be sold by their families to sex traffickers.
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Sierra Leone
Like many nations in Africa Sierra Leone makes the list of countries that does not provide proper education and health care for their women.
According to the Human Development Report only 24 percent of women are literate while one in eight die during pregnancy or childbirth.
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Afghanistan
With war, poverty and a deprivation of many of their rights, Afghan women fail to find progress. Many are illiterate do to lack of education and more than half of all brides are under 16.
Domestic violence adds to the hardships considering over 80% of women admit to experiencing it.
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Sudan
Living in a lawless land, the women in Darfur particularly in western Sudan face rape, abduction and displacement on a daily basis. Not to mention the Janjaweed militias who torture, rape and commit violent acts against the women everyday.
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Mali
The practice of genital mutilation, which severs a woman’s genital tissue to curve a woman’s libido, in order to help her resist “illicit” sexual acts, is still allowed in many middle eastern countries but in Mali the practice continues.
