Press Statement
Hizb ut Tahrir Hosts an International Women's Conference Today The Khilafah: Protecting Women from Poverty and Enslavement

The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in coordination with Hizb ut Tahrir Indonesia have organized this momentous International Women's Conference today, attended by over 1500 influential women from all corners of the globe to address the desperate poverty and soul-destroying exploitation afflicting millions of women across the world and globally under the capitalist system and all other man-made models of governance.

For too long Western capitalist states have been selling a lie to the world - that this corrosive capitalist ideology, that places securing wealth creation over all other values in life - is the best system by which to ensure economic stability, prosperity, and financial security for women. In reality, its debt-fuelled model of growth built on greed and credit has led to volatile economies and caused the catastrophic global financial crisis, resulting in financial hardship for millions. Its free-market economy and interest-based finance has crippled nations with debt, destroyed domestic markets and created a one track flow of wealth from the poor to the rich, impoverishing the masses globally and forcing many women to leave their homes and families to seek employment abroad or work under slave-like conditions in back-breaking jobs to feed themselves and their families. The American capitalist dream turned out to be humanity's nightmare. It has taken the world on an economic rollercoaster to ruin.

In addition, this exploitative system that strives for financial gain regardless of the human cost has nurtured societies where the enslavement of women as migrant workers, or in factories or businesses, working long hours for a cheap wage has become a necessary tool of capitalists to maximize profit-margins. Alongside this, capitalist states have equated women's empowerment to employment and labeled women's financial dependence upon her male relatives as a source of subjugation - all as a means of deriving economic benefit from her presence in the workplace. This has pressured women into work to feel valued, equated her worth to her level of wealth creation, and intolerable burden with being both the breadwinner and home-maker and mother of the family. It devalued motherhood, and robbed women of their time with their children, causing them to compromise their vital duty as nurturers and educators of the future generation.

And yet despite all this, we find that the rulers and leaderships of the Muslim world continue to embrace, promote, and implement the capitalist system in our lands. These corrupt governments have built their personal fortunes from the wealth of the Muslim world and have worked hand in hand with Western powers to enslave our lands and its women to foreign governments and corporations. These are failed leaderships implementing failed systems and they need to go!

This deplorable state of human suffering and economic oppression cannot continue for the women of the Muslim world. It is now time for the birth of a new world order that places securing human need over financial gain; a system that places eradicating poverty through the fair distribution of wealth at the heart of its economy, ensuring first and foremost that the basic needs of every citizen is met; a system that embodies sound economic policies which couple prosperity with economic justice, and that does not build its richness from the ruin of people; a state to which women globally can truly look to as a model by which to protect them from poverty and enslavement, and that views them as dignified human beings and not objects of wealth creation. It is the Khilafah "Caliphate" system, implementing a purely Islamic constitution that embodies this vision.

This is a state that implements the Islamic economic system that rejects interest, prohibits privatization and hoarding of wealth, invests in the real economy of manufacturing, industry, technology and agriculture rather than the casino speculative financial system, and implements a low taxation scheme that taxes surplus unused wealth rather than imposing indirect taxes. All this builds an economy built on wealth not debt, establishes sustainable growth and prosperity, and has a sound time-tested approach to eliminating poverty and mass unemployment through ensuring effective circulation of wealth, reducing the tax burden on the people and increasing the disposable income of its citizens that creates a healthy environment for business and development. It is an Islamic State that will not accept that a single citizen go hungry for even a day and that will tear down the artificial Western-imposed borders between the Muslim countries, unifying the wealth and resources of our lands, creating an economic superpower. Indeed the Muslim world is an economic giant in waiting that will take life upon the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate".

In addition to all this, the Khilafah "Caliphate" is a system that will oblige males to provide for females and if the woman does have any male relatives to secure her financial needs then the state shall be responsible for her needs. The Islamic State, the Khilafah "Caliphate", will not subject any woman to suffer, not even for a single day, to secure her daily needs or for her family! In the Islamic State, women work through choice not pressure due to circumstances and will not subject any woman to work in harsh or humiliating conditions. Her circumstances must be free from abuse, exploitation, or humiliation. Under a sound Islamic financial system, women will be blessed with their rights. In this state, females will be nurtured upon the basic concept that they are the mothers of this Ummah. A woman's dignity and place is considered sacred in the Khilafah "Caliphate". The world shall envy the women of the Khilafah "Caliphate" State. Women who will be the envy of the world, a worthy role model for women globally to aspire to.

We at Hizb ut Tahrir call upon women throughout the world to carry this Dawah with us to reestablish the Khilafah "Caliphate" that will achieve women's dignity, provide well-being and prosperity.

(الر كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ لِتُخْرِجَ النَّاسَ مِنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِمْ إِلَى صِرَاطِ الْعَزِيزِ الْحَمِيدِ)

"Alif-Lam-Ra. (This is) a Book which We have revealed unto you (O Muhammad ) in order that you might lead mankind out of darkness into light by their Lord's Leave to the Path of the All-Mighty, the Owner of all Praise." [TMQ Ibrahim 14:1]

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of The Central Media Office
of Hizb ut Tahrir