Kadhafi Calls for a ‘Women’s Revolution’

(PANA)--Libyan leader and current chairman of the African Union (AU), Mouammar Kadhafi, has stressed the need for a ‘women’s revolution’ worldwide to correct the false notion of equality between men and women.

Speaking on Friday in Rome, Italy, to Italian female actresses, he addressed the status of women in the West, Arab and Islamic societies, Africa and Libya. He noted that the token emancipation of women in the West was hiding the oppression and injustice against them, saying that it resulted from conditions created by the two World Wars. The Libyan leader declared that the emancipation of European women was actually a token, since the freedom achieved by women in Europe did not result from an evolution, a choice or a willingness, but rather from a necessity imposed by the aftermath of two World Wars that made millions of widows and orphans, thus forcing women to work, get out of their homes, and mix with men.

Kadhafi emphasised the need not to differentiate men from women in terms of human rights, yet noted that they should not be put on an equal footing in terms of duties, which, he said, would be a violation of women’s femininity. ‘Why force women to believe that their rights are recognised provided that they have the same duties as men?’ he asked.

The Libyan leader stressed the need for the existence of two ways, one that befits women and another that suits men, saying that women must have the choice based on their willingness to do men’s work with no obligation, because the adoption of a specific way for women, like in Europe, ‘obliges them to only learn men’s jobs, which is an injustice’.

In his speech, Kadhafi referred to the situation of women in the Islamic and Arab world, arguing that women were not considered as human beings who had rights and duties. ‘They are like decorations that men change any time and have no rights in terms of divorce or marriage. They are married and divorced without being informed beforehand,’ he said, noting that the situation was very bad and that required a revolution.

Speaking of women in Africa, the Libyan leader said that they had no rights and their role was limited to taking care of children and feeding them. Kadhafi said this was because African families were fragmented and did not live in cohesion, thus children were exposed to kidnapping, forced to enrol as soldiers in rebel movements, and were fighting with warlords in the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa.

Kadhafi said to address this decadent situation in African families in general and among women in particular, he had proposed to the AU a bill in which he emphasised the need to have respect for family, motherhood, fatherhood, marriage and divorce in Africa, to end this life of the jungle. He also indicated that the bill was on the need for marriage to be supported by a certificate and for divorce to be with the consent of husbands and wives or supported by a certificate, and for children to be under the responsibility of those who make them.

Addressing the situation of women in Libya, Kadhafi said that his country, prior to the 1 September 1969 revolution, which proclaimed the mass society of men and women, was like other societies in the Arab East. Kadhafi said that Libyan women nowadays couldn’t be married without their consent. The same it is for divorce, which, he said, can only be achieved under the consent of husbands and wives or by a ruling of a court, noting that both men and women had the right to sue for divorce in Libya.

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