Acta Via Serica

Academia Via Serica (계명대학교 실크로드연구원)
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Transforming Understanding of Women's Rights in Kyrgyz Madrassas

  • Received : 2020.02.22
  • Accepted : 2021.02.28
  • Published : 2021.06.15
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Abstract

Education is a key element in shaping the worldview of the next generation and determines society's core values, ideology, and basic understanding of human rights. While Kyrgyzstan is a secular state, Islamic education, backed by Arab and Turkish sponsors, continues to increase in popularity with the construction of thousands of mosques and dozens of new Islamic educational institutions. Young women have become an important target for Islamic ideology and Islamic educational institutions seek to introduce a new type of ideal woman who is obedient, submissive, and modest. This research uses curricula content analysis, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with teachers and students to examine the effects of newly introduced Islamic education institutions and concludes that the schools are succeeding in training female Kyrgyz students for sheltered lives of dependency, threatening to fundamentally erode women's rights in the country. Two tasks thus demand the attention of policymakers: preserving Kyrgyzstan's secular state and introducing new interpretations of the Quran, which strengthen support for women's rights among believers.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge my debt to those who have influenced my training in practical fieldwork and in theory, and to those who have provided more immediate help in preparing my article. I received training to conduct fieldwork thanks to CARI and the CARTI Programme, our Director Olexander Schtokwich as well as my mentors Edwin Segal, Marcia Texler, and Maria Louw. I express my gratitude to Irmtraud Fisher who showed unforgettable personal leadership, the highest level of human quality, and support during my stay in Graz. I'm grateful to all of my colleagues from the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Thanks to Michele Commercio and Sebastien Peyrouse I was able to develop my research subject. I received unstinting support from my colleagues and friends Russell Kleinbach and Christopher Schwartz. Finally, this article would not have been completed without the excellent suggestions and editing of James C. Schopf. Of course, any mistakes or omissions from this article are entirely mine.

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