ABSTRACT
Many conflicts around religion involve young girls and women: forced marriages, cliterectomy, divorce and inheritance regulations, children’s rights and education, purdah practices, religious symbols (hijab, burqa, niqab), abortion, sexual and reproductive rights, polygamy, equal access to office in religious organizations, and so on. While there are, statistically speaking, more believers and practitioners among women than men (Trzebiatowska and Bruce 2012), religion is deeply divisive from the perspective of gender equality: given the gender difference in terms of religiosity, it is somehow paradoxical that religious practices and beliefs are often interwoven with patriarchal arrangements – with complex discourse-and-power regimes based on the discrimination and domination of girls and women in the private and public spheres.
