Women Living Under Muslim Laws is an transnational solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam.
For more than three decades, the WLUML network has linked and kindled solidarity between and across women’s rights organizations and individual gender justice advocates working in a number of countries across the world – ranging from South Africa to Uzbekistan, Senegal to Indonesia, and Brazil to Egypt. It links:

• Women living in countries where Islam is the state religion, or secular countries with Muslim majorities, as well as in countries where minority Muslim communities are governed by minority religious laws;
• Women in secular states where political groups are demanding religious laws;
• Women from communities of Muslim heritage in Europe, the Americas, and around the world;
• Non-Muslim women who may have religious laws applied to them directly or through their children; and/or
• Women born into Muslim communities/families who may define themselves in non-religious terms, preferring to prioritise other aspects of their identity.

 

The WLUML network aims to strengthen women’s individual and collective struggles for equality and their rights, especially in Muslim contexts. It achieves this by:

• Breaking the isolation in which women wage their struggles by creating and reinforcing linkages between women within Muslim countries and communities, and with regional and global feminist and progressive groups;
• Sharing information and analysis that helps demystify the diverse sources of control over women’s lives, and the strategies and experiences of challenging all means of control.

WLUML’s commitment to transnational solidarity is grounded in our recognition that women’s struggles are interconnected and complementary. The network consciously works to build bridges across identities – within our contexts and internationally.
The WLUML network’s structure has been designed to maximize participation of diverse and autonomous groups and individuals as well as collective decision-making. Network members can be either an organization or individual who subscribes to WLUML’s principles and values, and who may:

• Receive and engage with WLUML information;
• Participate in WLUML collective projects, urgent actions, and solidarity work; and/or
• Lead or contribute to WLUML’s projects, activities and strategic direction.