03 October 2004	Sunday	17 Shaban 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 2: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad warned on Saturday that Western culture was threatening to undermine the family system and called on the Muslim men and women to make the family system more stronger.

While speaking at a three-day Jamaat-i-Islami women congregation at Azakhel Park, some 24 kilometres from here Qazi said that women and men in an Islamic society had equal rights and both should exercise them.

He stressed the need for protecting and strengthening the family unit in Muslim society.

A Muslim man and a woman should practice Islamic teachings and make the family more stronger to fight evils of vulgarity and negative propaganda of the West, he said.

Significantly enough, the Jamaat chief, who professed equal rights for men and women, declined to talk to women journalists present on the occasion.

On the second day of the JI congregation, the main event was the women's conference entitled,"Strong family system and our survival."

Sixteen members of National and provincial assemblies hailing from JI, representatives of different Islamic movements from Afghanistan, Norway, Glasgow, Denmark and Abu Dhabi and JI women from the NWFP, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan participated in the conference on women's rights.

JI's Member of the National Assembly, Ms Ayesha Munnawar, said that women had made good use of their political rights. JI women parliamentarians had raised women's issues on the floor of the house during the last one-and-a-half years' time.

Women parliamentarians had tabled a bill on the women's development and social welfare in the National Assembly. Under this bill, she said, compulsory and free primary education, a separate women's university in each province, BHU in every union council, elimination of customary practices, reforms in jails and other steps for the social welfare of women had been proposed.

Senator Dr Firdus, the general secretary of JI women wing, said that it was mandatory for the government to ensure the protection of women's rights and abolish discriminatory un-Islamic customary practices from society. Guaranteeing women all their rights would ensure a strong family system in an Islamic society, she said.

She said that society could not work without equal participation of women, adding that women should be empowered by giving them their rights guaranteed and granted by Islam.

She said the family unit could be made stronger by establishing more family centres where girls should be trained before their marriage about family laws and other rights.

The chairperson of the JI's Women Commission,Ms Afia Sarwar said that there was need to educate women about their rights. There were about 30,000 Madressahs where about 500,000 women were given Islamic teachings and awareness was created among them about their rights.

Ms Sarwar said that "our aim is to bring a change in our society through creating awareness among women about their rights.

She was of the view that there was no need to change Hudood laws and other Islamic laws relating to women, but there was a need to abolish vulgarity and ignorance from society.