“The world is waging war on women,” said Pragna Patel many years ago, at that time director of Southall Black Sisters. Her words were judicious. As time has passed, as more and more evidence across the globe has been gathered, the numerous ways in which women are restricted, subjugated and murdered have come to be documented and made visible. From the womb to the home, from female foeticide to domestic violence, it seems nowhere is safe for women.

Religion is the foundational and globally pervasive pathway for characterising, teaching and informing that women are inferior and secondary to men. Not just one religion. All the world’s major religions create, embed and propagate in subtle, direct and nuanced ways this great, false divide between the genders. Literally manifested in theological hierarchies, with men dominating positions of power in religious institutions. Whether it’s Christianity, Islam or Hinduism their ideas on the role of women, are presented as deriving from God, thereby projecting them as sacred and obligatory, and are employed in the world to stifle women’s equality, worth and dignity, to denigrate their intelligence and voices. From the morality police of Iran, to the Taliban of Afghanistan, and the architects of Project 2025 in the U.S. interpreters of religion invariably target women’s bodies, and reduce their access to education, employment and participation in politics and public discourse.

In Iran the battle over mandatory wearing of hijabs has cost many women their freedom and their lives. In September 2022, the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini in police custody, sparked demonstrations across Iran, violently suppressed by the authorities. Amini had been arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab according to government standards.

Hours after her arrest, credible reports arose that the “morality” police had subjected her to torture and other ill-treatment inside the police van, including through beatings to her head. She fell into a coma, and was transferred in an ambulance to Kasra hospital in Tehran. Mahsa Amini died three days later, in custody, on 16^th September 2022.

Her tombstone bears the following inscription in Kurdish: “Beloved Žina [Mahsa], you will not die. Your name will become a code”

(The word ‘code’ has also been translated as ‘rallying cry’ or ‘symbol’). And so, it’s come to be. Amini’s death led to the Woman, Life, Freedom, movement and continues to resonate in the protests and resistance against Iran’s mandatory hijab rules. Women continue to be arrested and punished: from being lashed in public to prison sentences and arbitrary violence. A young woman was shot in her genital area by a riot squad officer with a paintball gun, a moment later he aimed a second shot, directly at her left eye, making it ‘pop’ and go blind. In January 2024 Roya Heshmati was punished with 74 lashes. The Mizan website of the judiciary reported:  “Her penalty of 74 strokes of the lash was carried out in accordance with the law and with sharia,” and “for violating public morals.’ What was Roya’s crime? She’d published a photo of herself on social media without wearing the hijab. The authorities are now installing cameras in public spaces to identify and penalise the increasing numbers of women defying the compulsory dress code. 

In December 2023, Members of the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to Jina (Zina) Mahsa Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom, movement.  “By choosing them as laureates for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2023, this House remembers their struggle and continues to honour all those who have paid the ultimate price for liberty. ʺ  (President Metsola)

The Taliban in Afghanistan have no need to inconvenience themselves by installing surveillance cameras to monitor whether women are adhering to their even stricter dress code. Women have been essentially erased from public spaces and institutions. Immured in their homes, they must be mindful not to allow their voices to be heard outside, or be glimpsed through the windows.

One of the latest decrees from the Taliban government says new buildings must not be constructed with windows through which women can be seen. Existing buildings with windows must be walled up or covered. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the government has said that “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”

Heather Barr, from Human Rights Watch has commented: “They have already ordered that women’s voices shouldn’t be heard in public, and now they are essentially stopping women from even looking out of the window. … They are stopping women from being seen. They are stopping women from seeing the world. It’s a total annihilation of women’s personhood and it is clearly ongoing. We don’t have any idea where this will end.”

The Taliban’s unrelenting war on women has impelled the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek arrest warrants for Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity on gender grounds. “These applications recognise that Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban. Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not  acceptable. Afghan survivors, in particular women and girls, deserve accountability before a court of law. …. My Office further submits that the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia should not, and may not be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights or the related commission of Rome Statute crimes.”    ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC .  (The Rome Statute defines the ICC’s structure and areas of jurisdiction.)

Whilst the ICC’s application for arrest warrants may not change anything for Afghan women and girls in the near future, it does provide some hope of justice against those engendering this inhumane persecution.

 In the United States of America, Project 2025 is beginning its assault on women’s rights and starting to eviscerate their choices and independence, through ideological undermining and removal of financial support wherever it can. Although the U.S. may still be classified as a democracy, nonetheless theocracy’s influence is permeating through the slew of executive orders and decision-making. “Project 2025 is Christian nationalism,” Andrew Seidel, who works for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State says, “They sanitised and laundered it, in some places tried to dial it down [but] the biblically based definition of marriage and family, that extends to individuals; these ideas are coming out of a Christian nationalist worldview.”

The spectre raised by Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale may not be as fantastical, impossible or as far removed from reality as most of us would wish it to be. In the novel, America is re-named as the Republic of Gilead, a patriarchal, fundamentalist Christian state, where women are powerless, the lowest in society and forbidden from owning property, money or receiving an education. Mechanisms of suppression that already exist in some theocratic states. Where one religion goes, others may follow.

Traditional heterosexual marriage is the norm promoted by Project 2025. The Christian fundamentalist idea of a “biblically” based marriage is where the man is the breadwinner and head of the family, the woman is subordinate and her role is to be a mother and a housewife. The project decries single motherhood and same-sex partners, and advocates the withdrawal of support programmes for single mothers and their children.

Project 2025 further proposes diverting funding away from reproductive healthcare and changing the role of healthcare workers to influence and channel single mothers and single fathers into marriage by providing “information to customers about the importance of marriage to family and personal well-being.” Prioritising funding for home-based childcare is recommended, as is eliminating Head Start, “a federal program that promotes the school readiness of children ages birth to five from low-income families by enhancing their cognitive, social and emotional development.

Further, Project 2025 shreds women’s rights to equal pay in employment. In line with its dismantling of progressive values the project offers no recourse for women facing domestic violence.

I firmly support the principle of freedom of belief, however, the separation between religion and state must be clear and constitutionally established. The following is an extract from a speech by the late President Carter to the World Parliament of Religions:

“This view that the Almighty considers women to be inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or tradition. Its influence does not stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified.”

“The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

“Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions.”

 “The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God, gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo.”   President Carter. October 1^st 1924 – December 29^th 2024. 39^thPresident of the U.S.A.

Kofi Annan Secretary-General of the United Nations, declared in a 2006 report posted on the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) website:   “Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime with the abuser usually someone known to her.”

In the United Kingdom: February 2018, Jessie Laverack committed suicide in her home, having been the victim of years of domestic abuse. “Jessie felt that she had no escape from the domestic abuse she was suffering and this had a terrible effect on her mental health,” said her mother.

At least two women a week are killed through domestic violence. Suicides related to domestic abuse are now also being counted, revealing the true extent of the consequences of these assaults against women. The Independent newspaper has been running a campaign, Be a Brick, Buy a Brick, to raise awareness of the terrible prevalence of domestic violence and to gather funds to build a refuge. The following information is taken from a video created by The Independent: “Why didn’t she just leave?” is one of the questions routinely asked by people when hearing of domestic violence fatalities. It’s not so easy, is the answer: 1. Their abuser may be constantly threatening to kill them if they leave, creating terror and fear. 2.The greatest danger is in the first month or the first year after leaving; women are routinely killed during this period. 3. They can’t afford to leave because of financial abuse. 4. Not enough refuges exist; therefore, not enough spaces are available. 5. Their partner may have destroyed their links with family and friends. 6. Even if they’re in contact with family, they cannot go to them, as their partner will know where they are. 7. Would have to leave their job and the children their school. 8. All devices will need to be dealt with to prevent the abuser tracking them. 9. They may have been so badly abused, they don’t even recognise it, and be so worn down, their mental health and self-esteem have been shattered.

Apart from the constant trauma and fear inflicted on women, domestic violence has consequences beyond the individual: it ruptures familial relationships, impacts children and can lead to generational violence. Until domestic violence is recognised as a corrosive force acting behind closed doors, it will continue to blight lives and poison society.

Karen Ingala Smith counts dead women: day by day month by month, year by year. Her tabulations make harrowing reading. For 2024 she writes: “We have recorded at least 100 UK women and girls aged 13 and over who have been killed in circumstances in which a man or men are primary suspect in 2024. We know that over the course of the next weeks and month, this figure will increase as cases that received little media coverage go to trial and Femicide Census FOIs to police forces reveal further deaths, or even more women’s deaths are identified as homicides.”

Our ubiquitous acceptance of violence, generally perpetrated by men, in films, books and tv programmes, including the glorification of battles and wars in history, creates a false legitimacy and continues to fuel attacks on women in the domestic and public sphere.

Violence behind closed doors, by the male partners of women, isn’t a personal issue but a social responsibility; firstly to provide help and support for the victims and secondly to question and change the ideas which perpetuate inequality. Religious power, particularly where it dictates the political and legal structures must be held to account. Everyone is entitled to the same universal human rights, inclusive of: the right to life and liberty, freedom of opinion and expression, work and education, freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (such as serious physical assault and psychological abuse). Women’s rights are human rights.