Press Statement
Hizb ut-Tahrir Hosts Influential Women’s
Seminar Regarding the Economic Exploitation of Women in Indonesia and across
the Muslim World
Southeast Asia Main Flows of Undocumented Migration |
The Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir in
coordination with Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia have organised this important
seminar today, attended by influential women from across Indonesia to address
the deplorable state of economic exploitation and mass dehumanization of
millions of women in Indonesia and across the Muslim world. It is part of a
campaign launched by the Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir that will
culminate with an international women’s conference on the subject in Indonesia
in December 2012. In this seminar and
campaign, we make the following points:
(1) Endemic corruption, economic mismanagement, and
exploitative policies and laws, resulting from failed leaderships across the
Muslim world as well as the detrimental capitalist system implemented by
Indonesia and other governments in the region has generated widespread
desperate poverty in the Muslim lands. This has forced millions of women in
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world to leave their homes and children to seek
employment, or work under slave-like conditions in backbreaking jobs to feed
themselves and their families. These are women who are victims of both incompetent
governments who have failed to provide for them effectively and the
toxic capitalist system whose
defining characteristic is concentrating wealth in the hands of the few while
the masses go hungry and poor. The secular
capitalist system, along with all other man-made systems and current
leaderships of the Muslim world have failed the women of the region and need to
be replaced by an alternative model of governance.
(2) Governments
across the Muslim world, including in Indonesia have often presented the
billions of dollars of revenue from their female migrant workers as a proud
achievement and positive contribution to economic growth in their countries,
despite the fact that such revenue is tainted and generated from the economic
enslavement and abuse of their women. This is also the nature of the capitalist
system which views everything as a matter of supply and demand and securing
profit as the primary goal of society, dehumanizing women and men to nothing
but economic commodities that bring financial benefit to the country,
regardless of the harmful impact upon individuals or society, for it is system where government revenue speaks louder than human
suffering.
(3) Such a deplorable
state of financial hardship and exploitation cannot continue for the region’s
women. A few changes in labour or migrant laws are meaningless actions that
have no impact on alleviating this dire state of economic oppression. Every woman should be viewed and
treated as a human being, protected, cared for, and provided for at all times,
and NOT an object to generate wealth. However, this will only materialize under
a way of life and system that holds the correct view towards the woman and
truly cares for her wellbeing. This system is the Khilafah state that
implements ALL the Islamic principles and laws upon the society. Islam’s view
of the woman is that she is a human being, who should be financially provided
for always by her male relatives or by the state, while at the same time
permitting her to seek employment if she wishes. But Islam does NOT accept for
her to work under conditions of enslavement, humiliation and oppression but
rather in an environment of security and dignity, where her high status in
society is always preserved. It is the
Islamic Khilafah system alone that offers time-tested sound Islamic economic policies
that can lift the women of the Muslim world from their desperate poverty and
generate an environment of economic prosperity, alleviating their suffering and
bringing real change to their lives.
We call the
women of Indonesia and the Muslim world to engage in this noble Islamic
obligation to establish the Khilafah that will transform the women of the region from economic commodities to
dignified, protected, and respected human beings - for in Islam the woman
deserves no less.
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Central Media Representative, Hizb-ut
Tahrir