For the building of a just and equitable society equality between men and women is the foremost imperative, but unfortunately, in spite of all the efforts made by the Prophets and reformers, the human society has, so far, failed to achieve this objective. The West, in this respect, notwithstanding all its professions and high sounding claims, is in no better position than the East. The western world has exploited the women in the name of emancipation and deprived her of her natural purity. According to a survey conducted lately in the UK 98% of the women expressed an earnest desire to return to their family life, but found them helpless because neither the husband nor the father was ready to welcome them back. Lot of the woman in the backward and less literate societies is no better than the so called civilized societies, but the nature of problems faced by them is certainly different. If we cast a glance at our society we find our women suffering from several problems i.e.
i. Women is considered a creature of lesser status, her birth is a burden for the family, events of turning women out of their homes only because they had given birth to a female child, are very common.
ii. Women are made to work as peasants and field labour in our rural areas. So women are performing double responsibilities in the rural areas.
iii. In the feudal setup, status of women is even worse; she is confined within the affet fortress like boundaries of the feudal houses like slaves.
iv. Honour killing of women is now a common practice. Our social system is generally inclined to favour men, woman is convicted notwithstanding the fallacy of the charge levied against her, and woman is not even given a chance to plead innocent in the court of law.
v. In our country literacy rate in the lower income groups is generally very low, in women it is even lower. Women Literacy rate is very low in the rural areas, as compared to the urban areas.
vi. Women are not provided adequate legal and constitutional safeguards of their rights, leaders of the public opinion also make high sounding claims about these rights, but all this has failed to better the women's lot.
vii. Underage Marriages are very Common and this creates problems for women.
viii. Islam provides inheritance privilege to the women but practically women are deprived of their financial rights, women have to face serious economic problems in their entire life.
Apparently the women have been provided adequate legal and constitutional safeguards, yet the social taboos remain interposed between them and justice.
In a country where more than 96 percent of the people adhere to Islam, the faith which is the greatest protagonist of gender justice, this dismal state of affairs is very alarming. It is neither sanctioned by the civilized standards of humanity in general, no approved by Islam or any other religion of the world.
