Noted legal scholar Flavia Agnes on Tuesday said Muslim women’s rights should be protected under both gender and minority categories.
She was speaking at an international seminar on ‘Understanding Equal Opportunity- Concepts and Practice’ at Maulana Azad National Urdu University on Tuesday. She said inclusion and exclusion established under the law for Muslim women must be carried out carefully to ensures fairness.
Later, during a panel discussion, Nazia Erum, author of Mothering A Muslim , spoke of how Muslim students in ‘elite’ schools were bullied as they were called ‘terrorist’, ‘Baghdadi’, ‘Bangaldeshi’ or ‘Pakistani’. “How did we, as a nation, miss this?” she wondered.
While on one hand she underscored how bullying affects children, and on the other she said the problem of ‘rabid Islamisation’ too should be addressed. She opined that what constitutes a religious practice in the Arabia peninsula, need not necessarily be so in India.
Touching upon the backwardness of the Muslim community, Commissioner of Inquiry chairperson G. Sudhir said the representation of Muslim boys and girls in education continues to be low as the dropout rate was high. This, he opined, was on account of ‘economic factors’.
On Muslim representation in employment, he said, “Muslims in government jobs are 7.3% while their population is 12.8%. There is a need to bridge this gap,” he said.
A panelist, Sangeeta Kamat, from the University of Massachusetts spoke of the difference between equity and equality.
“To ensure equal opportunity, we must first understand equity and equality. Equality aims at promoting fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and gets the same help. Equity appears unfair, but it actively moves everyone closer to success by levelling the playing field,” she said.
Meera Shenoy, founder of Youth4Jobs, pointed out the importance of linking vulnerable youth to jobs. She said her organisation has trained as many as 11,900 youth with disabilities.
Others who spoke include professor Abu Saleh Shariff, Assam-Meghalaya cade IPS officer G.H.P. Raju and MANUU Pro-Vice Chancellor Shakeel Ahmad.
