As she accepted the Global Trailblazer award on Wednesday (March 8th), Jordan's Queen Rania called on people to recognise the potential and promise of Arab women, the Jordan Times reported Thursday (March 9th).
The 16th annual Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. honoured international female leaders in areas of economic empowerment, political development, and human rights.
In her acceptance remarks, Queen Rania referred to the plight of women and young girls in areas of conflict and instability across the Middle East from Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
She underscored the pivotal role education plays in extracting these women from their grim realities by providing them with "the knowledge they need to excel".
She urged people to take part in reshaping the future of Arab and Muslim girls and women by viewing them in a different light. Instead of perceiving them as weak and docile, she asked that they be seen as purveyors of tangible change.
"One of the ways each of you can help is by challenging preconceptions. Resist the easy stereotypes attached to Arab women: pitied as helpless and submissive on the one hand, labelled as threats on the other," she said.
The queen also condemned extremists who commit crimes in the name of Islam, reiterating King Abdullah’s depiction of their ideology as "fake Islam".
