How Christian fundamentalism and patriarchy inadvertently enable gender-based violence contrary to biblical principles and human rights

1. Gender Justice & Human Rights
Christian Perspectives
Stanley Arumugam
ActionAid International

2. Key Messages
• Human rights is a core Christian conviction
• Gender justice is a part of wider social justice
• Christian fundamentalism perpetuates GBV and is a
threat to social justice
• Feminism is a useful lens for gender justice change
• The Church needs to partner with social justice
organisations /NGO’s/civil society

3. Manifestations of GBV
• Rape – in the household and in war
• HIV/AIDs – men’s control over women’s bodies
• Child and women sexual abuse/assault
• Female genital mutilation – culture
• Refugee crisis – displacement
• Torture of women and children
• Honour killings
• Unsafe abortions
• Sharia law
• Israeli occupation
• Silent violence in the home
• HOME – CHURCH – SOCIETY AT LARGE

4. Christianity and human rights
• Human rights as a secular ideology
• The Christian roots of human rights
• UN Declaration of Human Rights
• Reclaiming human rights as a biblical mandate
1948

5. Article 1 : Human Dignity
• In the image of God
• All human beings
• Freedom of choice
• Equal in dignity
• Conscience
• Brothers keeper

6. Article 2: No Discrimination
• Jew, Gentile, Greek
• Male – Female
• All equal in God
• Discrimination
– Superiority
– Power
• Patriarchy

7. Gender justice and human rights
• The inclusiveness of human rights
• Principle of ‘indivisibility’
• Gender justice as human right
– International conventions
– SA constitution
• Gender justice for a better world
– Not just a theological issue

8. Sharia Law
• A husband has sex with his wife, as a plow goes into a dirt
field.
• I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants
were women
• A male gets a double share of the inheritance over that of a
female
• A woman’s testimony counts half of a man’s testimony
• Husbands may hit their wives even if the husbands merely
fear highhandedness in their wives

9. Canon Law & Reformation Thinking
• freedoms offered in Christ do not apply to male-preference in
marriage, the ordination of women, racism, or any other form
of discrimination.
• women were defective men, imperfect in both body and soul.
• women are intellectually like children they explain why
women are given to the practice of witchcraft:
• woman's duty to bear children, even if killed her "If they
become tired or even die, it does not matter. Let them die in
childbirth - that is why they are there" .

10. Threat of Christian fundamentalism
• What is Christian
fundamentalism
• History of biblically justified
gender injustice
• Emerging African
Pentecostalism –
prosperity/ patriarchy
– Church – state agenda
– Cultural fundmentalism ‘un-
African’ ‘un-Christian’
• Pastor Steven Anderson
• 60 000 petition
• Current manifestations:
racism, homophobia and
gender discrimination, anti-
feminist

11. Feminist Lens – Gender Justice
Understanding power and
patriarchy
Deep structures : enabling
voice and power

12. Intersectional Feminism
• analyzing and discussing
how oppression often
intersects, creating
unique and varied
experiences of
discrimination
– Race and gender
– Class and gender
– Poverty and gender

13. ActionAid International:
Intersectional Feminism
• Women around the world
are more likely to live in
poverty - just because they
are women. They have less
access to land, education,
income and decision-
making – all of which keeps
them poor.
• ActionAid puts women and
women’s rights at the
centre of all our work
because we believe this
inequality is an injustice we
must fight. And we believe
that gender is critical to
understanding the causes of
poverty and injustice.

14. ActionAid International .
Women’s Rights
• Violence against women
• Women and girls around
the world face widespread
violence, sexual harassment
and abuse in many of the
spaces that they populate –
their homes, workplaces, on
the streets and on public
transport. Women’s fear of
violence is an attack on
their basic rights and
prevents them from living
full and equal lives.
•
• Women’s control over
their own bodies
• Throughout the world
women and girls are forced
to endure harmful practices
that cause them great
suffering . ActionAid works
with women to stop female
genital mutilation, early or
forced marriage, sex
selective abortion, dowry-
related crimes, honour
crimes and many other
harmful practices.

15. Advocating for gender justice as a human right
• Biblical equality and
gender justice
• More than a theological
proposition
• Human rights violations
– faith in practice
• Moving beyond
compassion to JUSTICE
• Churches partnering
with NGO’s/INGO’s

16. Our Hope for Advocacy
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.—Gal 3:28
• Call to Action – righteousness & justice
# 60 000 votes
• RESOURCES
• www.actionaid.org
• www.awid.org
• www.genderjustice.org.za
• https://www.ijm.org
• stanley.arumugam@actionaid.org