Three female scholars tackled issues of gender violence in the Middle East with separate speeches and audience Q&A. (Emily Wu/The Daily Campus)

On the heels of the shooting of Malala Yousufzai, a 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head for demanding education in northwest Pakistan, three prominent scholars gathered in Dallas Hall Thursday night for the Embrey Human Rights Program’s “The Current Status of Women’s Rights in the Muslim World” Giving Voice to Muslim Women.”

The three scholars, Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Sahar Aziz and Shahnaz Bokhari were each given 20 minutes by moderator Barbara Harlow to discuss a certain issue pertaining to the night’s topic.

Afzal-Khan, a professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey and author of the controversial memoir Lahore With Love; Growing Up with Girlfriends Pakistani-Style, began the discussion with her take on the current state of women’s rights in the Middle East.

Afzal-Khan stressed the importance of the separation of church and state in her talk – calling the combination of both facets a “slippery slope.”

“The fact that Pakistan was founded on Islam alone shows that there is nowhere to go but rightwards,” Afzal-Khan said.

The professor continued her speech by exhibiting movie clips from a documentary that she is working on that focuses on women musicians in Pakistan.

“There is a lot of paradox in the Muslim world and I hope I got to show them tonight,” she concluded.

Next to the podium was Sahar Aziz. As a faculty member at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, Aziz incorporates critical race theory, feminist theory and constitutional law into her studies.

Aziz began her talk by outlining what she believed to be the three different types of feminist in the Muslim world: liberal seculars, Islamic conservatives and Islamic reformist.

The law professor explained each category in detail claiming that liberal seculars are most akin to the Western way of thinking.

When discussing Islamic conservatives, Aziz spoke of the women’s complacency with not working, a situation she sees “a lot of American women” follow.

Aziz concluded her time by pointing out to the audience which articles in the new Egyptian constitution are important to the furthering of women’s rights in the Middle East.

Following Aziz was Shahnaz Bokhari, the founder of the Progressive Women’s Association, a non-governmental organization that seeks to shed light on injustices toward women in Pakistan.

The bulk of Bokhari’s presentation consisted of the speaker walking the audience through certain violent, sometimes graphic, that cases she has dealt with in Pakistan. Bokhari even confessed to fleeing Pakistan for three months after having her house raided.

“We only highlight some [victims] but there are hundreds of people just like this,” Bokhari said.

The night was concluded as the three speakers took questions from the audience pertaining to such topics as the Muslim Brotherhood, blasphemy laws in the Middle East and the Muslim image in a post 9/11 America.

Gabrielle Beich, a junior psychology major, claims the night opened her eyes to many Muslim issues she never knew existed.

“We’ve all heard of violence in the Middle East but I never thought it was so tailored to women,” Beich said.