Client System Research Paper

Oppression of MuslimsAnushka ChakrabortySaginaw Valley State UniversityIntroductionMuslims have a diverse culture in many ways. They can pray at home or at a mosque with the Quran and may use the beads if they choose to. There is no certain time that they must pray instead they can pray whenever they want. There only few times that Muslims are restricted and that is when they go to Mecca and have Ramadan. Muslims have festivals too such as Ramadan a time of devotion to their culture that ends with Eid. Children can participate in Ramadan by choice. They are expected to go to Mecca once in their life where prayer only matters and nothing else. The Quran their holy book, talks about a single god and is a big part of their life. Social workers are being pulled into the police force and some are even working in the police force to help fight against terrorism in so many different countries not seeing that how that will isolate a culture from coming for help and forcing them to see that there is no one their fight for them if a group that is supposed to fight for them is not even their for them. The media is not helping the cause either when they only talk about negative aspects. While the poor reporting may be a small problem, an even bigger problem is that there is not enough information in the social work database about Muslims. Even more information is needed, like understanding the senior citizens of the culture.About Muslim cultureThere are many different things that Muslims do when they pray. When praying Muslims read their holy book, the Quran, and may use the prayer beads. They do not have a certain time or place that they must pray; they can pray whenever they want. Just like any other culture, they have festivals too. One of their festivals is Eid which celebrates Prophet Abraham giving up having his own family to serve God. Just like many cultures, they believe that there is one God and that prophethood of Muhammad is the last messenger sent to the people. That is talked about in the Quran.What comes to mind when one thinks of Hajj? They would think that it is something to do with Islam. They would be correct to think that because Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca, their holy place. Where a person must go at least once in their lifetime for their devotion and it lasts for five days of rituals that commemorate the lives of Abraham and his son Islam. The first day, before going into Mecca, the person going must cleanse, groom themselves, and wear the required clothes to enter. The clothes are two unhemmed white sheets. At the same time, while people are on this journey, they are expected to give up a few things and that is trimming of nails, using perfume, and sexual intercourse. In a way, they are supposed to not care what they look like. Instead, just give themselves to just connecting to God.To many people, not being able to take care of themselves might be hard to do, but that is what is expected and there is more. On the second day people have to go for nine miles east from Mina, to Mount Arafat where profit Muhammad did his last preaching. Then, on the third day at Mina, they throw their stone at one of the three pillars called Jamarat. After the stone is thrown there is an animal sacrifice by the pilgrim or the person chosen by the pilgrim for them. On the fourth day, they throw the seven stones and pray. And on the last day, people do a farewell and go home. A festival that a lot of people might know is Ramadan where it is considered the holiest month of the year for them. Where they fast from food, drinks, and sexual intercourse the whole day from when the sun is up trying to teach themselves control and understanding the people that do not get a lot of food. Some people do not have to fast, and they are elderly, pregnant, and nursing women. In the time of fasting people read the Quran over and over showing their loyalty to their culture. After the sun sets Muslim people that were fasting can eat and drink. Ramadan might have been for fasting, but it does a lot more than that it is helping Muslims to be a better person by trying not to do anything bad like gossiping. On the last day of Ramadan is Eid where kids get clothes, money or any other gifts from parents and there is a special prayer on the morning of Eid. Biased ProblemEven though there is about fifteen percent of the population of the United States make up the Arabs there is still not much information about them in the social work practice for the research of them. It says every culture needs a different way to be handled about mental illnesses. So, if we do not have enough information on Muslims then how will we be able to know what to do to help them? Is there a reason why social workers are not publishing their findings or not even trying to figure out a culture that we do not know enough about? There is so much to learn about Muslims and even in many articles, it says to study more of addiction, child welfare, and older people. Having an article say that we need to study more of that says we have a long way to go about learning about Muslims because it seems that social workers know very little and they can not help them knowing so little. Media in many ways makes things worse. Yes, it is a great way to get information about the world but when media starts a problem talking only about bad things about a single religion. Constantly the media talks bad about Muslims, yes, they do a lot of bad things, but they never still talk about Muslims in a good away by showing their lifestyle. Or even how many Muslims have died in the attacks that the terrorist did. Showing that the terrorist does not care who dies would show that it is not just other cultures are dying in the hands of the Muslims. Not Muslims are dying to just as other cultures are dying. For this reason, Muslims are thought too bad and the ones that are being attacked are women wearing veils. They are being physically and verbally abused by others. How is that right to bully someone does that make the verbal abuser any better of a person. Attacking people is not the way to solve a problem then we are no better than them. In the NASW Code of Ethics, there is an ethical standard called social justice where you fight for the people that are being oppressed. And if social workers who are supposed to fight for the oppressed are not going to fight how are they going to be heard? The western government is using social workers, nurses, home health aide, and others to fight terrorism. In Canada, social workers are part of the police force to hinder violence and even in the UK social workers are used to prevent anti-terrorism. There was a discussion between social workers in the UK if they should help or not, in the end, they helped to fight against terrorism. If social workers are going to work against Muslims where they already are trying to see if they are terrorists or not then how are Muslims going to talk about what they are going through if they see who they came to share their feelings have different agendas from the beginning.Diversity factors When did kids become a target of being a terrorist for just being Muslim and using the wrong word? Kids should not be scared to go to school and write about their feelings and then when they are emotionally terrorized to the point of not being able to take care of himself how is that right? Even college students can not read a book freely and must think about reading something twice when people just report others for reading about terrorism. If a person does not read about how they are going to learn. The college student now looks over his shoulder because he is paranoid. There is a group of people that can not voice what they feel and are scared to do anything from reading a book to showing their imagination. The worst part is even though the United States does not require people to report terrorism if they do then the authorities will investigate. But what people consider might be a terrorist is not even that important and that is a clock that a teacher considered in the US to look like a boom. How does a homemade clock and boom look-alike is it because it has wires and that made the teacher consider it a boom? Even elderly people that are Muslims are having problems in Australia. In Australia, elderly men are about two to four times more likely to lose their job even though they might be highly qualified for it. After 9/11 was the worst for the Muslims because in the urban areas like New York City there was great discrimination on them. In the urban setting, men got more discrimination than women, on the other hand, women handled stress by not going out in public and just staying at home. While women got post-traumatic stress disorder by having anxiety, symptoms of depression, drinking more alcohol and others. On the other hand, men are more likely to show signs of aggression, use drugs, hyperalert, and others. It may be that men do not have as high of a chance of getting post-traumatic stress disorder does not mean it can not happen. The worst thing that could happen is suicide rate of the women has been steadily going up instead of what it used to be that men had a higher suicide rate in Muslim majority communities and countries. Is it the way they handle the stress that causes them to have a higher chance of suicide in some communities?Suicide might be low because in the Quran it says that you should not kill yourself or others and should be reported to the police because it is a crime. Being that is a crime it is very under-reported by the people. Even though it is under-reported that did not stop the numbers from saying that women are still at a higher risk of suicide than men. That said that this could be from being under-educated, poor conditions, or living in rural areas. There are different methods that are used by women to suicide and some of the ways are by burning themselves, medication and over-dose. They sometimes burn themselves because the control of their body is not in their own hands causing them to burn themselves to show that they have the control.Education for WomenMuslim women for many reasons are suiciding but one of the reasons they are is that because they are under-educated. That may be changing where more women are being educated but that does not change that there are so many different countries that are still at the bottom of the graph where like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, and other countries. These countries are lacking in being able to educate the women so that suicide can go down even more. Women are not being educated because they are considered lower in rank from men and there is higher importance for men to get an education over women causing women to be dependent on their spouse instead of being equal in the relationship. Parents of girls are also causing girls not to be more educated. Parents of girls the father decide if they get an education or. The mother does not have any say or equal in deciding if their daughter should get an education or more. So, the cycle starts with parents causing an education difference between men and women. Interviewing skills that I will useLike any other culture, Muslims have mental issues and when they need to be counseled on how they feel on the world waiting for them to do something bad just because they are Muslim. We would use the micro-skills when they come in to be counseled or needing help. There would be a basic head nodding with a comfortable posture so that they feel like we care about what they have to say. Before the interview starts, we would let them know about confidentiality and how that works. I would try to take notes and use my notes to see if their similarities in what my clients are going through and try to help them. At the same time, I would try to educate myself more about Muslims and study and figure out how I can help them in their counseling session. In these sessions how this culture works and gets detailed information because it would help me later because there is not much information out there in the database and need more information.ReferenceAbu-Ras, W., & Suarez, Z. E. (2009). Muslim men and women’s perception of discrimination, hate crimes, and PTSD symptoms post 9/11. Traumatology: An International Journal, 15(3), 48-63. doi:http://0-dx.doi.org.library.svsu.edu/10.1177/153476560934228Al-Krenawi, A., & Graham, J. R. (2000). Culturally sensitive social work practice with arab clients in mental health settings. Health & Social Work, 25(1), 9-22. doi:http://0-dx.doi.org.library.svsu.edu/10.1093/hsw/25.1.9Canetto, S. S. (2015). Suicidal behaviors among muslim women: Patterns, pathways, meanings, and prevention. 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