Persecution of Women in the Middle East - Essay Example

"Many Christian women live in restricted countries where Christianity is not tolerated--over 200 million Christians in 80 countries worldwide are persecuted because of their faith. Women of the Way is "a program of Open Doors mobilizing women to become strategically involved in strengthening persecuted Christians" and works to educate and minister to these women, whose social situations often prohibit them from receiving Christian materials or speaking out freely about their faith." (Persecuted Women) Women are still considered the weaker sex in the Middle East and they are oppressed day in, day out.

Women are primarily oppressed because of their faith in Christianity. Many Christian women have had to bear the brunt of this and many continue to face the consequences of their religious beliefs. It is really sad that these women can't be helped; it is high time to put these women out of their misery. They sink into despair when they are ostracized or persecuted. Some of them are even killed because of their faith in Christianity, this is unacceptable and something has to be done about this sooner rather than later.

Islam is misunderstood by the Muslims and they tend to punish the women, they end up banishing these poor women. They inflict pain upon them and they fail to realize the real values of Islam. Religious belief is the most important reason because of which the women in the Middle East are persecuted. . This has been a very popular practice in the Middle East; women must be protected at all costs and they must be given much better treatment than what they are receiving. "Under the Islamic Republic of Iran, discrimination and segmentation on the basis of religion and gender have been institutionalized in the constitution, government policies, and state ideology.

The system explicitly favors men over women, Muslims over non-Muslims, and Shiite Muslims over other Muslim sects.The constitution and the Shari'a-based penal and civil codes, especially those sections pertaining to family and personal status, legalize the subordination of women, treating them as second-class citizens with unequal rights. Women's rights activists have launched widely publicized equal-rights campaigns that have been successful within the parameters established by the theocracy.

However, the overall legal framework remains discriminatory, with the state's theocratic underpinnings consistently negating its progressive and democratic elements." (Access to Justice) Islam restricts women from wearing revealing clothes and any woman found wearing revealing clothes is often persecuted. These draconian laws are only for women, no such laws exist for men in the Middle East. Women are targeted in the name of Islam; Islam never supports persecution of women. Human beings have started deriving satisfaction by inflicting pain upon other human beings.

This practice of persecution goes to reflect the pain inflicting tendencies in place; women get exploited in the name of Islam. They can't go out nor can they attend a school. They remain uneducated and weak, this is a method of exploiting them and this is also a