TOWARDS AN ISLAMIC FRAMEWORK OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Abstract

It is worth recalling that the globalization of gender equality started quite recently with the United Nation declaring 1975 as the International Women's Year at the world conference held at Mexico City. Sequel to this the decade 1976-1985, was declared the Decade for Women, during which international agencies as well as some governments focused attention on what came to be popularly referred to as 'women issue." After that the second UN conference on women was held in Copenhagen in 1980. The decade as crowned by Nairobi Conference on Women in 1985. Then, the Cairo International Conference on population and development in 1994 came which seemed to focus on independence and autonomy of women even with a family context. Indeed several conferences, conventions and activities of a host of international agencies took place during the 1985-1994 to prepare the grounds and minds for the famous Beijing Conference in 1995. It was in Beijing, more than anywhere, where the issue of empowerment was focused and made such an indispensable condition for world progress and development.