Q&A: Women’s rights activist discusses film ‘Honor Diaries’

The oppression and hardship that women endure in society, Zainab Khan said, is the largest human rights violation that is happening in our world.

Three years ago, Khan, a licensed clinical therapist and global activist for women’s rights, came together with eight like-minded women to create the film “Honor Diaries,” a conversation about the role of women in Muslim-majority societies.

On Monday, after a screening of the film in Moore 100, Khan will appear in a panel alongside fellow women’s rights advocates Linda Church and Heidi Basch-Harod to discuss the film’s themes and to establish a dialogue with the UCLA community.

The event is sponsored by several UCLA organizations including Advancing Women in Science and Engineering, or AWiSE, and The Society of Women Engineers, or SWE. Khan said the goal is to create a platform for female voices to deal with subjects such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation, or FGM, and other systematic abuses.

The Daily Bruin’s William Thorne spoke with Khan about the film and its impact.

Daily Bruin: How did you first get involved with “Honor Diaries”?

Zainab Khan: I am a therapist who specializes in domestic violence, and my clients were mainly South Asian women. I always saw this common denominator of oppression and suppression because of their gender, because of cultural constraints and because of social constraints. I started writing about these issues. I started participating in campaigns and volunteering my time and my efforts to raise awareness. I saw it go from a local to global issue that went beyond myself. I saw that we needed to bring a much stronger voice, and I found that this could be done through unifying with like-minded people, campaigns and organizations that are fighting to eliminate gender disparity, that are tackling the issue of culture based violence. The violence is not necessarily physical – a lot of the times the violence is emotional, psychological or financial. There’s various dimensions of that kind of oppression that a lot of these women face, and that’s how I started with “Honor Diaries” in a sense.

DB: Do you think that the current political climate is conducive to accepting the messages of the film?

ZK: Yes, because to me no progressive social movement can ever be initiated without fair dialogue. So now, more than ever, we need to unite to address what’s happening. We continuously see in the news the atrocious stories of women and what they are experiencing under (the Islamic State group) and even Boko Haram. There were a large number of girls who were returned pregnant or with (sexually transmitted diseases) because of sexual and human trafficking, and it’s all being done under the constraints of either social, religious or cultural contexts. The bottom line is that there is no excuse for this kind of abuse.

DB: What has the reception of the film been like worldwide?

ZK: The beauty of the film is that it’s a collaboration. It ties everybody together in one platform to speak about these things. The stories range so broadly; anything from a woman’s choice of a sexual partner, education and unemployment, behaviour with the opposite sex, rejecting of forced marriage, leaving a spouse or even speaking about divorce. These are all personal experiences that people have shared. I always feel like I am at a loss for words. I feel like we are just scratching the surface in talking about these issues.

DB: What would you say needs to be done to begin to tackle these issues?

ZK: We need to be able to break that denial that is passed on from one generation to another. Social norms are a huge factor influencing gender equality and they’re very difficult to change. The violence is really underreported. Here in the U.S., we’re seeing a rise in gender-based violence, in FGM, and it’s very shocking to me because rather than progressing we’re regressing. According to the U.S. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), there’s 150,000 to 200,000 women right here in the United States that are undergoing FGM and to me this a startling number. We need to be able to hold governments accountable for allowing these kinds of violations to take place. We need to be able to lobby for legislative change that allows women and girls to escape the loopholes in the system that allow for this treatment and hold the perpetrator accountable. I think we need to rally for social and cultural change, a break in the norms, shifting the paradigm and what defines a woman’s role in our society.

Compiled by William Thorne, A&E contributor.