Day: March 2, 2011

ISLAMABAD: Ending violence against women is not a matter of a one-off celebration; rather it is an attitude that has to be taken back to homes, communities, workplaces and society at large, said Bushra Zulfiqar, Writer and Gender Activist during the launch of ‘We Can’ campaign’s Pakistan Assessment Phase II report and Strategy Paper held here on Tuesday.

Bushra said that the founder of nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah articulated and envisaged an extremely imperative role for women in nation-building, economic development and politics. “Today we have to strive to provide the women of Pakistan enabling opportunities to utilise their potential,” she added.

The report reveals that a campaign had been started namely ‘We Can’ in five countries of South Asia including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India in the year 2005 and has completed its 6 years in March 2011. The underlying belief of the campaign was that ‘the personal change becomes the agent for social change’. The campaign has used the stages of ‘Change’ theory. It began with changes in individual and thus led to changes in community. The campaign was implemented through national partners who enrolled community agents of change called change makers. The campaign aims at reducing the social acceptance of violence against women in different forms.

According to the report, the state has initiated various pro-women legislation and policies after years of campaigning by civil society organisations. However, the initiatives are still not effective enough to provide the support and protection to women need as survivors or as equal citizens of the state. Discriminatory legislation are still applicable, there have been amendments to make them less dangerous towards women, however, there is no evidence to show that the amendments are having the desired results.

The Pakistan campaign initially focused on engaging directly with over 65 district based NGOs which are doing awareness raising and undertaking the process of recruiting voluntary change makers. The findings of the campaign indicate that such activities have contributed in bringing about a shift in individual and collective attitudes. However, the extent of influence is context specific and is influenced by role of other actors including the state, media and civil society. The data also exhibits that there are different deterrent and reinforcing factors in each area.

Neva Humaira Khan, Country Head, Oxfam GB said, “I take pride when I look back to the achievements of women from all walks of life in Pakistan who have very bravely stood against all forms of violence and discriminations. ‘We Can’ Campaign has successfully generated over 3,50,000 Change Makers across 41 districts in Pakistan inculcating awareness around gender inequalities with positive shifts in paradigms towards all forms of violence against women. Every single Change Maker has declared changes in multiple systems of life after becoming sensitised by ‘We Can’ campaign, which is the highest rating among Change Makers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal & India. Nonetheless, the journey doesn’t end here, and there is a lot we have to do to bring together many scattered patches of success into a unified struggle for a promising future.”

People from all walks of life joined hands to extend support to’We Can’ campaign towards ending all forms of violence against women, advocating women empowerment and access to equal opportunities for women across Pakistan.

“With the help of the Change Makers, millions of people have been enabled to address violence in their homes and other spheres of life”, said Dr Noreen Khalid, Manager EVAW and Girls Education, Oxfam GB. Javed Hasan Aly, Public Policy Expert and Ex-Civil Servant told the audience, “Dogmatic Obscurantism, the root cause of violence against women is a consequence of intellectual degeneration and moral turpitude.

We need to fight against dogma and obscurantism if we want to revive a progressive society given birth by our Holy Prophet (PBUH) where women were of equal consequence to human, social, political and economic lives as men. There is a serious call for civil society to invest in religion for the revival of Islamic learning in its true essence.”

Source: Business Recorder

Date:3/2/2011

By Peerzada Salman

KARACHI: The 11th Hamza Wahid memorial lecture delivered by Dr Saba Gul Khattak on the topic of `Friction between customs and religion – possibilities of women`s land rights` organised by Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences went down well with the audience at the PMA House on Tuesday. The event was presided over by retired Justice Majida Rizvi.

Dr Khattak is an Islamabad-based researcher and social thinker. Though her research on the topic was country-wide, she confined the lecture to two tehsils of the Swat valley when it hadn`t been hit by violence, terming the period `before the havoc happened`. She set out by giving information on the valley with the help of slides and said it was a mountainous piece of land, only one-fifth being arable. She showed houses of the relatively well-off people made with migrant money and followed it with the subject of land claims in connection with violence against women. She said her research was based on interviews and focus groups.

She segmented the presentation into male and female perceptions on the issue and claimed that a majority of the male population considered land as an identity marker and very few thought of it as a source of earning. She said it was after 1930 that land ownership came about in Swat; before that every 10 years tribes moved from one place to another. She said during the research she found out that 85 per cent men thought women had the right to own land, 62 per cent believed they could exercise control over it by subcontracting it etc and 13 per cent opposed it. Sixty-two per cent said women needed men`s help in taking care of land, which was why they didn`t claim it. Also, it would socially ostracise them.

Discussing qualitative findings, Dr Khattak said landless peasants opposed it saying if women had land they`d be empowered, kick out their husbands, and their sexual agency would be active, which would destroy the social order of society. Subsistence farmers said religion had given women the right to claim and own land, but since there`s no sharia in the whole of the country it couldn`t be applied partially. She argued that`s how religion and customs were used to suit their purpose.

Talking about women`s perception, Dr Khattak said they had a nuanced understanding of ownership, and because of `protection` they wouldn`t like to upset their brothers or fathers. While getting married, class was more important to women than land. For most of them dowry wasn`t considered a compensation for inheritance rights. She said land wasn`t the reason for violence against women, and mobility of women was related to class. Poorer women would be seen moving about, while a little better off wouldn`t be seen in bazaars and would only visit relatives. She said there was a notion that women got freer once they became old, but even that didn`t guarantee power.

Dr Khattak said in her research she discovered that men were of the view that women who could inherit land didn`t have enough knowledge how to take care of it, and those who had the knowledge didn`t claim ownership. She said there was selective reliance on jirgas and more on the judiciary. She maintained women should be given the sense of social protection through different methods which could make a difference in their social status.

During the question-answer session Dr Khattak was asked to clarify what she meant by friction between customs and religion, to which she replied that while religion allowed women to claim land, it`s as per customs that it`s not seen in favourable light, which created tensions between communities.

Retired Justice Majida Rizvi in her presidential address lauded Dr Khattak`s presentation and said it was good that the lecture took place in the month of March, because March 8 was International Women`s Day. She said we should respect each other`s rights, and then pointed out certain flaws in the system which created unevenness in society. She said an empowered woman would never cause her family to disintegrate. She emphasised the need for having mother`s name on important national documents, and said voices must be raised against patriarchal mentality.

Prior to the speeches Dr Jaffer Ahmed gave the background to the Hamza Wahid series of lectures, which began in 2001 in memory of Hamza Wahid who was a social activist and a conscientious, enlightened teacher.

Source: Dawn

Date:3/2/2011

MARDAN: Two suspected militants attacked with grenades a gathering of students of the Lundkhawar Girls Degree College here on Tuesday, injuring 35 girls.

Ms Dilshad, the principal of the college, told journalists that Third Year students had arranged a farewell party for their seniors and they were taking photographs when they came under the terrorist attack. The inured were taken to the District Headquarters Hospital and Mardan Medical Complex and their condition was stated to be stable.

DHQ’s Medical Superintendent Dr Mohammad Tahir told this reporter that 19 of the girls were admitted to his hospital and 16 to the MMC. One student, with serious injuries, was shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.

District Police Officer Zeeshan Haider told Dawn that two men who were on motorcycles hurled two grenades on the students after firing on the watchman who had tried to stop them. The watchman was injured.–Jamal Hoti
Source: Dawn
Date:3/2/2011