Enforcement of Natural Rights of Women: A Comparative Study of India and GCC Countries

Sharmin Chougule
LL.M. Student at ILS Law College, Pune, India.
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Anukirat Singh Baweja
BA.LLB(H) Student at Amity Law School, Noida, India.

Volume III, Issue VI, 2020

This research paper is restricted within the contemporary “Women’s movement” and addresses itself to the trends and currents within it. The analysis of Islamic and legal texts is undertaken within the framework of feminist jurisprudence. A comparative study on the women rights in GCC and India with reference to UDHR. This research critically analysis the CDHRI in order to show that male centricity still exists in the GCC countries despite promises, which the researchers thinks are pipedreams and just a façade of lies. This Research paper also critique’s the limited rights given to women under the name of Sharia in an international context.

The study is primarily a religious and legal exploration considering the nature of countries involved in the study – the GCC countries and India. The research is based on published material, such as legal texts, law journals, books, reported judgements, official fora of women groups.

The analysis in this paper will be built around thorough research pertaining to the provisions of the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, the consequent “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam” along guidelines from natural law through the lens of Catholic philosophers. In equal measure, the research will be augmented by comparative analysis of constitutional/Sharia provisions (women rights) in OIC member countries (including GCC states, Turkey and Syria) along with non-OIC member state – India, which theoretically is the world’s second largest Muslim country by way of population.

Therefore, the paper will be divided into two parts. While the first part will be assessing the very definition of natural rights from the perspective of western philosophers (Catholic Judaism), which has been relegated to being ‘relativistic’ by non-secularists. In the second part, the researchers will connect the dots by undertaking a comparative analysis of constitutional/ Sharia provisions among selected countries – in light of women rights/ gender equality. 

Researchers has restricted to the scope of research to cover personal laws of Muslims and Hindus majorly, while only some references are made to the personal law of Christians and Parsis.

Keywords: UDHR, CDHRI, Women Rights, Sharia, GCC Countries.

DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.25368