Zakia Soman

Zakia Soman in 2010

Zakia Soman (Arabic: زكية سومان ) is an activist from India. She is the head of the human rights group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA).[1] In 2014, she received the Outstanding Women Achievers award from the National Commission for Women.[2]

Life

Soman is from Ahmedabad, Gujarat in India. She worked as a university professor.[2]

Work

Soman fights for women to be able to enter religious shrines.[1] She works to reform Islamic divorce customs in India, and to stop the triple talaq practice of divorce in Islam for the 90 million Muslim women in India.[3][2] The BMMA works for women's rights in Islam and recommended changes in India's family law. [4]

In 2013, the BMMA did a survey of 5000 women about women's rights in Islamic families. After that, they trained 30 women as judges to help solve family problems.[5] In the survey, 92 percent of women had agreed to ban the one-sided triple divorce. The Shariah court for women was started because they thought that women were not being heard in the male Shariah court.[6] In the survey, 92 percent of the women were also opposed to multiple wives.[7]

References