Sara Khoshjamal is what you call a real fighter. In 2008, this 21-year-old Iranian women’s tae kwon do champion took her fight from the outskirts of Tehran to the Beijing Olympics.

She was the first Iranian woman ever to earn a spot at the Olympics, just losing out in the quarterfinals but winning the respect of women around the globe for her extraordinary journey and determination.

Sara featured as number 22 in Time Magazine’s Top 100 Olympic Athletes to Watch. Making the Olympic qualifiers in Vietnam and beating the world’s top-ranking woman in her weight class in 2008 transformed her into a national icon. In a country with limited options for competitive female athletes, she personifies the potent combination of talent and ambition.

Read the full story »

I recently discovered a groundbreaking group of female Tunisian filmmakers that are drawing international acclaim, but are barely heard of in their native land and I felt I just had to give them some kudos here!

Dora Bouchoucha, Kalthoum Bornaz, Nadia el Fani and Moufida Tlatli were names I’d never heard until I read a fantastic article in The Christian Science Monitor.

Tlatli is now one of Tunisia’s most famous directors, after her 1996 film “Silences of the Palace” earned her oodles of acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. “Red Satin,” produced by Bouchoucha in 2002, was a hit in the US around the globe. Nadia el Fani’s  “Bedwin Hacker,” released in 2003, portrays a computer-hacking Tunisian woman and earned her international admiration and accolade.

Bornaz’s current flick, “The Other Half of the Sky,” depicts the last remaining legal difference between men and women in Tunisia – inheritance laws. According to the Koran and Tunisian law, a daughter is entitled to half the amount of inheritance as her brothers.

Read the full story »

I was quite surprised when I visited Tashkent a few years back. Girls were wearing a wide range of clothing:  I saw plenty in traditional Uzbek garments, a fair few hijabs and also a lot of very snappily dressed gorgeous Uzbek girls in bright, modern garb.

Yet when I went to go look at the clothes on offer to girls, hoping to snag myself a souvenir, I have to say the choice was kinda limited. It seemed that there weren’t hardly any clothing stores. The ones I did see were much more expensive than I had expected.

I read in Ferghana, the Russian news agency, trade constraints mean the flow of quality girls’ clothing into Uzbekistan was curtailed in 2002-2003, As such Uzbek traders had to shift to local low-quality goods and poorly fashioned clothes.

Read the full story »

You don’t have to be a Muslim or a woman to say “burka” and face a tide of reactions. It’s become quite the fashion statement  to pick apart the most modest of Muslim women’s garments.

No, I wouldn’t wear one, but I’ve never lived in a country where I was expected to. I have heard a whole host of arguments (very occasionally) for and (nearly always) against them, but what most enchants me is how Muslim women themselves feel about them.

It isn’t all doom and gloom: Barbie wore a burka for charity… Sophie Ashraf is the self-proclaimed Burka Rapper – in the strangest of ways, when it comes to the most demure of couture, it would seem to some it’s all about how you wear it.

Prince Charming?

In 2008, German designer Markus Kison made heads turn at the Seamless 2008 design and fashion show in Boston, USA by debuting a digitally enabled burka that can broadcast a photo of the wearer to nearby mobile phones.

Read the full story »

I love multitasking women. They are such an inspiration  – and Hanan Al Muhairi, whom I discovered through an article at Emiratisation.org, is a prime example.

Hanan directed ‘Arabyana’, a feature film documentary, which highlights the challenges women face in the equestrian field.

Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum came out in open support of the film and the premiere of Arabyana earned Hanan sponsorship from the United Nations Ambassador of Goodwill. It went on to screen in Abu Dhabi and the US during 2009.

Not bad for your first feature film, eh?

Read the full story »

Forget sleeping pills, valerian root or a nice cup of cocoa. Apparently, if you’re a Malaysian man trying to get a good night’s sleep in Kuala Lumpur, the surest bet for a good nights sleep is not to look at a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public. Or so says Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party. The prominent Muslim cleric spoke up at the end of ’07 about how his fellow countrymen were suffering sleepless nights and could not pray properly.

The reason? Body-hugging dresses or tight T-shirts and jeans worn by young women in Malaysia’s major cities such as Kuala Lumpur.

Read the full story »

As someone who grew up in the former Soviet Union, I am always interested in what’s happening in the republics since they became independent. As a woman, I’m particularly interested in what life is like for girls in these countries, now the Internet and international media have arrived and completely changed the lay of the land.

A Day in the Life of a Typical Tajik Girl

Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics – According to UNICEF, in 2006, 76% of Tajik girls and boys were living under the poverty line of $2.15 a day. 1 in 5 girls didn’t go to school, and stayed home to help their mothers or took on seasonal agricultural work.

School fees, plus the price of textbooks and shoes etc made it virtually impossible for many Tajik families to educate both their sons and daughters.

With unemployment and poverty rife, the priority was to school boys and hope girls would marry well. In ’06, UNICEF set up a programme to attract girls back to school with support of their families, in collaboration with the Tajikistan Ministry of Education and NGOs in the country.

Read the full story »

Berber people, the descendents of the original North African nomadic tribes, make up around 35% of Morocco’s total population. Berber women are known for their colourful jewellery, makeup and sense of freedom.

Based mainly in rural and mountainous areas, most Berber women don’t wear veils and have more liberty of movement than their urban counterparts, wandering freely between fields and villages.

Village women such as those in Morocco’s Tazenakht and Ouarzazate regions are famous for the beautiful rugs they produce, weaving 10 kilos of raw wool to make just one of these dazzling, precious carpets.

Read the full story »

Women all over Bahrain must be breathing a sigh of relief at the recent campaign to protect and improve female divorcees’ rights to alimony, custody of their children and shelter.

The Bahrain Women’s Association for Human Development wants legislation and society to reflect the Quranic concept of divorce, in which a wife must either be returned to her husband or “released (divorced) in kindness”.

According to an article in Women Living Under Muslim Laws, divorces are on the rise in Bahrain, but for Bahraini women; they often encompass a long, drawn out ordeal, a fight for custody and the risk of ending up broke or homeless.

BWAHD Board member Ebtisam Zaid told the Gulf Daily News:

“They are not doing what the Quran says. It says let her return to her husband or be released in kindness, but a lot of women suffer. We want these cases to be resolved peacefully and responsibly.”

Read the full story »

Girl’s boxing may not be a mainstream sport in the Middle East, but surprisingly enough, it does exist in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

What’s more, a 2007 rule-change in the Olympics dictated that if a country doesn’t have a girls’ team, it can’t enter its male fighters in major tournaments.

Jordanian coach Ayman Away may have his misgivings as he shows up to work at Jordan’s national boxing arena, but has little choice but to train the nation’s young ladies as well as men.

“It’s a physical thing. They shouldn’t fight, they should stay at home. A woman should be a lady.” Ayman tells Australia’s The Age Magazine.

Read the full story »