Hina Haroon
At the 6th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, a crucial conversation unfolded – a conversation that raised a lot of questions, enquiring about the world, and making me wonder why and how can we change it. How can we make it better? How can we build a world that is safe for everybody including females?
The question kept coming to my mind: why? Why are half of the women in the world still struggling in the year 2024?
The conversation made me think and question how we can protect it. The crucial conversation was about how women around the world have been under the pressure of culture, resulting in their rights not being given to them, because culture demands something else from them.
As I was listening to speakers from different corners of the world sharing their stories and struggles, I came to know that they had to face biases based on their gender and based on their religion and the question kept coming to my mind: why? Why are half of the women in the world still struggling in the year 2024? Why do these cultural norms and traditions continue to suffocate them? Why do they still have to face inequality in the world?
Every society is different, yet societies use religion and culture to invade women’s rights. This forum provides us with a platform to promote dialogue where this question was raised, and people demand that we need to change society. We need a dialogue with society. We need to dialogue in order to tell them they can’t use culture to oppress women. Culture has nothing to do with the fact that women’s rights are not given to women. They need to stop using religion against them. We need dialogue because women are part of the culture, and they are the ones who will pass on the culture to the next generation–their kids. Therefore, we need a change in society. Therefore, we need to raise our voices. We need to change these norms that suppress women’s rights.
Together, we can make a change – together, we can build a society where women are valued, respected, and given the same opportunities. We can build societies where there is no gender inequality, a society where women don’t need to fight for their rights.
The offspring derive their natures from their mothers as plants do from earth—–Aristotle
