NEW YORK, June 9: Muslim women do not mind the veil but want to vote as they wish, according to a survey released on Thursday, in which respondents did not feel oppression in Muslim countries.

Lebanon had the highest proportion of women who feel they should be allowed to make their own decisions on voting, at 97 per cent, followed by Egypt and Morocco, each at 95 per cent. Lowest was Pakistan, with 68 per cent, according to The New York Times reporting on a Gallup poll.

None of the 8,000 women surveyed even mentioned the use of the head scarf or the full-length burqa in open-ended questions, the Times said.

Despite the suffragist leanings, Muslim women set aside their own issues and said their countries had greater problems, such as violent extremism, corruption and lack of unity among Muslim countries.

Although women largely said they should be able to work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government, they linked sexual equality with the West: 78 per cent in Morocco, 71 per cent in Lebanon and 48 per cent in Saudi Arabia, the New York daily reported.

However, when asked what they least admired about the West, they said moral decay, promiscuity and pornography, which degraded women.

A majority of the women said that economic or political advancement in Muslim countries would not improve with the adoption of Western values, the survey said, according to the New York daily.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted among 8,000 women last year for ‘What Women Want: Listening to the Voices of Muslim Women’, part of The Gallup World Poll, a project to canvass 95 per cent of the world’s people.

Overwhelming majorities of the women said the best aspect of their cultures was their countries’ ‘attachment to moral and spiritual values’, the Times said of the poll.—AFP