NEW SOVIET WOMAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 June 1927, Page 6

NEW SOVIET WOMAN.

CAMPAIGN FOR RIGHTS. CASTING OFF THE VEILS. Russian Central Asia, where the native population, almost 100 per cent, illiterate, has lived for 10 centuries in strict obedience to tiro precepts of Mohammedan law, is now the scene of an energetic “women’s rights” campaign carried on under the leadership of the Communist Party. Nowhere in the Soviet Union, probably, is- there more unpropitious soil for the cultivation of tire “delgatka,” the new typo of Soviet woman who is supposed to take an active part in the work of Soviets, co-operatives and other public institutions. The campaign of emancipation is in full swing. Some time ago the Soviet Government forbade under heavy legal penalties the traditional custom of .buying and selling wives, together with the practice of poh’gamy. Now there is a .strong drive to persuade Asiatic women to cast off their heavy veils. Families of native Communists are first approached; and husbands who, for religious, social or traditional reasons, oppose unveiling are liable to expulsion from the party. The movement has spread heyond tho ranks of the party, and on March 8, which was celebrated all over the Soviet Union as International Woman's Day. moro than 0000 women in Central Asia are reported to have discarded their veils. On the other hand, women who gave up their veils, and active organisers in the campaign, have been murdered in some localities. Near Samarkand some workers accidentally discovered a woman who was chained up in the courtyard of a former bey, or wealthy landlord. It seems that several years ago this woman attempted to put off her veil and go into tho city, and her husband had kept her in chains ever since. The bey will now be given over to a public trial, while tho Zhenotdcl, the Women’s Department of the Communist Party, is undertaking to care for the woman, who had become half wild and mentally unbalanced during her long period of savage captivity. Women’s clubs have been established in tho several autonomous republic and territories into which Russian Central Asia is now divided, and these clubs claim 30,000 members. Under the new land regulations 1500. women have received land of their own; aii unprecedented deevlopment in Central Asia. The Communists say they are convinced that time is on their side, that the old world of Islam is dying and that obstacles of religion and tradition which might have been invinciblo half a century ago can now be removed by vigorous and determined pioneer education work.