The talks at the International Women’s Week provided me with insight that I did not previously have. Both talks shared messages of the infringement of women’s rights by men.
My greatest take-away from the first talk might well have been about the “man camps”, the camps where workers (usually in the sector of resource extraction) set up camp in indigenous land. Lucy Everett informed us that there is evidence that when these workers are there, rates of kidnapping, and violent crime (murder, rape, assault, et cetera), increase. This indicates that the workers commit these atrocities, usually at the expense of indigenous women.
In 2007, the United Nations released the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). As the name indicates, this was a declaration of rights that the UN found to “constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world”. 144 countries adopted this declaration and four countries voted against it: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America. One significant reason that these countries likely rejected the declaration was because it would hinder natural resource extraction (even though it’s not their land to extract resources from). And, now, Canada is extracting resources from Wet’su’weten land.
Though I missed the second lecture, I have read about Bill 21 and I do believe it is an infringement on women’s freedom. Bill 21 was tabled on March 29, 2019, and went into use June 16 of that year. The law is officially titled: “Act Respecting the Laicity of the State”, and its main function is to ban people working in Québec government jobs from wearing religious symbols. Despite being a religious symbol, the hijab is a fundamentally different issue than the other religious symbols as I will elaborate. In the Québec government’s eyes, and the eyes of those whose support Bill 21, women who wear hijabs are victims of misogyny and the hijab is itself sexist. There is a line in the official text of Bill 21, “the Québec nation attaches importance to the equality of men and women”. The origins of the hijab are not entirely clear. Some believe it started as a symbol of status, whereas others believe it started to curb sexual desire. In Iran, women are required by law to wear hijabs, which makes it a sexist issue as women are forced to do something hey may or may not want to do at the behest of men. Anyway, all this to say, that these conditions are not the case in Québec. Women who wear the hijab in Québec want to wear the hijab, they are not under any obligation to do so. Personally, I know a family of Syrian refugees who are muslim. They have a little girl who has not yet started wearing her hijab but she is excited to do so, she sees it as a rite of passage, a symbol of growing up or becoming a woman. I think it’s this idea that a lot of Muslim women relate to, the idea that the hijab was an important milestone in their life and a constant reminder of their faiths. To be banned from wearing this item, so meaningful to your life would be very unpleasant.
Sources
UNDRIP- UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/un_declaration_on_the_rights_of_indigenous_peoples/)
Official text of Bill 21- Légis Québec (http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/L-0.3?langCont=en#ga:l_i-h1)
Bill 21 Dates- Projet de Loi Nº 21 (http://m.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-21-42-1.html)
Reasons for Wearing a Hijab- Why do Women wear a hijab? (http://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717)
Women are Required to Wear a Hijab in Iran- Milani, Farzaneh (1992). Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, pp. 37–38, ISBN 9780815602668
History of the Hijab- Aslan, Reza, No God but God, Random House, (2005), p.65–6
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 