Day: March 8, 2012

ISLAMABAD: Individualland Pakistan, an Islamabad consultancy and advocacy group with nationwide outreach, initiated a project with the support of USAID and Aurat Foundation on ‘Sensitisation of Media Personnel on Gender Equality’ in January last year, with a baseline survey to gauge existing perceptions of the public and media on gender equality.

The survey was carried out to substantiate claims that gender-based violence, particularly against women, has become a serious problem in Pakistan. One of the main reasons why such violence is still prevalent is the lack of education and awareness of gender-based issues. There are some areas in Pakistan that are particularly notorious for such crimes. Another reason why such crimes are still being committed is the involvement of powerful and influential people that exploit religion and culture for their own benefits. Results of this survey were representative of the fact that gender-based violence and injustices are prevalent in Pakistan, particularly in areas still under the influence of feudal culture. For instance in Chaghai and Pishin, Balochistan, women did not even participate in the survey.

There is an alarming trend of accepting unjust social practices such as honour killings, especially in the rural areas of all provinces. Although, the majority of both male and female respondents did not agree with domestic violence and unjust social practices (79% KP, 82% Punjab, 90% Baluchistan, 85% Sindh, 85% Islamabad/Rawalpindi and 90% in Gilgit-Baltistan), in practice they observed and accepted such practices. The baseline survey took women’s education as another indicator of the level of gender equality in Pakistan. Girls go to school in all provinces but the percentages vary: 79.5 percent of girls in KP, 75.5 percent in Punjab, 85 percent in Balochistan, 83.5 percent in Sindh, 95 percent in Islamabad and 93.5 percent in Gilgit-Baltistan go to school.

After concluding the baseline survey, nationwide sensitisation of media personnel was initiated through training workshops. A total of 23 training workshops were conducted in all the major cities of Pakistan and representatives of radio, TV and print media attended these training sessions.

After the conclusion of training workshops, focus group discussions were initiated. A total of five focus group discussions were held in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Quetta and Peshawar. After concluding the FGDs, an End Line survey has been initiated to gauge public perceptions regarding media’s portrayal of gender issues through talk shows, TV serials, news reports, articles in print and documentaries etc. Once the results of the survey are compiled, a conclusion about media’s role in highlighting gender issues will be drawn.

Daily Times

For international women’s day, we take a look back at the one name that stands out.

Bushra Zaidi.

KARACHI: There is only one woman for Karachi.Her name launched a thousand protests and forever altered the city’s history. This is not to belittle the daily toil of our homemakers, nurses, architects, CEOs – women who contribute to Karachi just as much as any of its residents. But for International Women’s Day, we thought we would remember Bushra, the 20-year-old Sir Syed Girls College student, whose death in a traffic accident on April 15, 1985 was a turning point in the lives of everyone who has lived and will live in Karachi.

Twenty-seven years have passed, but Abdul Qayyum, who works as a clerk at the sports department at the college in Nazimabad, still has fresh memories of the day she died. “There were two N-1 minibuses racing and one of the bus drivers couldn’t apply the brakes in time,” he told The Express Tribune. Such is collective memory that many people believe that Bushra was killed while alighting from the bus and not as a result of being hit by one. Daily Dawn reported that the bus had knocked over a group of students, and three others were injured along with Najma.

According to Qayyum, Bushra and her sister Najma were crossing Nawab Siddiq Ali Khan Road at the time. Najma was badly injured – her leg was reportedly fractured – but Bushra was killed. Her body was taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital before the college staff arrived at the scene. They arranged a car for Najma to be taken to the hospital.

“The students of the Sir Syed Girls College tried to protest but [Professor Atiqa] Baig – the principal at the time – closed the college gates,” recalled Qayyum. “The girls forced their way out and were joined by female protesters from the nearby Usmania College and adjacent Government Degree College for Women, Nazimabad.” They gathered at Golimaar Chowrangi and boys from colleges in the vicinity also joined them. The boys toppled and then torched the bus.

The state responded. The police first lathi-charged the protesters and then unleashed an intense bout of teargas. The shells fell inside Sir Syed Girls College and even inside an ambulance. Dawn reported that four people were wounded by bullets and pellets, 80 were taken to hospital. It was so bad that the people living in Nazimabad had to keep buckets of water to counter the effects of the tear gas.

Students boycotted classes, put up barricades and pulled down hoardings. Dawn described scenes of total panic in Nazimabad and Liaquatabad, where the protests spread, and educational institutions were shut down for three days. The curfew was lifted for a few hours in select areas so people could buy food.

The ire of the protesters inevitably turned on the transporters. This sector was dominated by Pathans and this is what people have generally come to believe was the bus driver’s background. This has been cited in several books and research. Here too there is a discrepancy in the story and confusion. According to Ghous Ali Shah, who was the chief minister in 1985, the man who was caught and tried in a sessions court for his role in the accident, was originally from Azad Kashmir. And then, according to the president of Karachi Transport Ittehad, Irshad Hussain Shah Bukhari, the crime was committed by a Punjabi-speaking driver, who later spent 10 years in jail, and not a Pakhtun.

Nonetheless, Bushra’s death precipitated ethnic riots and violence. A week on, the toll reached 50 with 300 people injured, according to an account by the Associated Press (AP) news agency at the time. “Every ten minutes someone is being brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds,” AP was told by a local reporter for the second day of the riots.

Ghous Ali Shah ordered an investigation. The IG of police at the time was Agha Saadat Ali Shah, who is now dead. The investigating officer of the case, SSP Munawar Ali, died in 2006. Bushra Zaidi’s family, who had no political affiliation, are believed to have left the city and have not been heard from since the mid-1990s. Her father was reportedly working in Oman when his daughter was killed, and flew back.

Tahir Siddiqui, who owns a printing press in Nazimabad’s printing market, was approached by some boys who wanted a pamphlet to be prepared. He recalled how it contained inflammatory messages against Pathans and how it was later distributed in the Nazimabad area. No group was named on them.

Student leader Altaf Hussain had already created the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation by then. Bushra’s death became a breaking point for a people who had already complained of not just the changes in the city, but also state discrimination. “For the first time, Karachi was high on the list of government priorities and things began to change,” recalled Dr Farooq Sattar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), while commenting on what Bushra’s case did for Karachi. For one, he told The Express Tribune, it led to a commission being set up in the late 1980s by then chief secretary Masooduz Zaman, who realised that there was a sense of deprivation and it needed to be corrected with the allocation of resources.

Subsequently, during Sattar’s tenure as mayor, 100 million gallons of water were added to the city’s supply. “Improving civic infrastructure, developing a mass transit programme, the water allocations… these were all as a result of the Bushra Zaidi accident,” Sattar said.

The MQM is not the only stakeholder that agrees with this. “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Munawwar Hasan, who now leads the Jamaat-e-Islami. “It was evident, but nobody could really see it [at the time].”

And thus, as we look back, nearly three decades on, we see that, in some ways, Bushra Zaidi is the only woman who matters for Karachi.

The Express Tribune

By Roshaneh Zafar

The writer is founder and managing director of Kashf Foundation and founder of Kashf Microfinance Bank Limited based in Pakistan. She was awarded the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz in 2005. She is a graduate of the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania and also holds a master’s in international and development economics from Yale University

I was recently visiting New York, and came across a very interesting statistic in the New York Times. Nordstrom, which is a well known American retail group gives out university scholarships every year — well this year 71 per cent of the merit-based scholarships were won by girls.

Women now represent half of the world’s university students, and that is the case in Pakistan as well. In 1993, 22 per cent of the student body in Pakistan comprised of women, while in 2011 the number had risen to 47 per cent according to the Higher Education Commission. There is a critical mass of educated females across the world, who are slowly and surely changing paradigms. This, of course, is the upside of the previous decade that we can all be proud of and need to celebrate.

The point remains how many of these female graduates are able to find jobs. There is no doubt that a country where 50 per cent of the population is left out of the labour force simply cannot progress, and estimates show that the cost of leaving women out of the economy can be as high as one per cent of annualised loss in gross domestic product. In many countries, gender inequality persists in terms of economic opportunities, earnings and productivity for women. Pakistan is no different in this respect: women comprise 75 per cent of the labour force in agriculture, essentially working as unpaid and unrecognised farm workers, while the female employment rate in industry and services is 12 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

Economically, this translates into lower incomes and less market opportunities for female labour and the gains of education do not seem to permeate into better job options for women as a whole. There are several reasons behind the persistence of such disparities. Even though women have made phenomenal gains in higher education, the overall enrolment of girls in primary and secondary schools remains much lower than boys. Lack of access to education limits market opportunities for adult females, who then tend to seek self employment in the informal sector, where they end up working harder than men but earning less since they usually work in less profitable sectors.

In my work with female entrepreneurs in low-income communities, I have often come across many paradigm changers. These are women, who despite their lack of education or their lack of formal training have succeeded in incubating and growing their businesses. I remember the first time I met Parveen baji in a slum area of south Lahore. She was a petite, quiet woman with a deeply-lined face, which reflected years of endless struggle and belied her true age. Parveen had contemplated suicide many times, because of a husband who was a physical abuser and a marriage which had resulted in nine children. Life was hard and her lack of voice, agency and access to markets made it even harder. She wanted to change her life, but found both internal and external constraints that held her back.

Her own lack of belief in herself, combined with the time old notion that a woman’s earning is not blessed cowed her down. Her husband despite his extreme negligence was still the man of the house, he made the decisions and held complete sway over her and her children. In spite of her doubts, she decided to take a risk and start a business with a small loan after enrolling in a basic financial education course provided by Kashf. She began making beautiful quilted bed sets, which she first sold in her own community and later in other markets. Her earnings gave her respite from the past and allowed her to choose a different future for her children.

On a more macro level, we can learn several lessons from Parveen’s story. In order to promote women’s economic empowerment access to resources whether financial or capacity related becomes a prime driver. This needs to be combined with enhancing women’s access to markets, while reducing constraints that affect women disproportionately, for example, providing child care programmes, introducing career development programmes and promoting affirmative action across industries. There is also a need to equalise women’s voices within the households and increase their control over resources — these aspects need to be taken up through changes in policy and the law, while massifying access to education for both boys and girls. The enactments of the domestic violence act and the sexual harassment at the workplace bill are positive developments, and are backed by the fact that 22 per cent of the parliament comprises of women.

Both these laws certainly help to improve the constraints that women face within and outside their homes, however in the case of statutory changes it is implementation that matters and only time will tell how such laws change the environment for women in the work force. We as a country need to do much more for women than we have done in the past 65 years — the good news is we know what needs to be done.

The Express Tribune

By Isabel Guerrero

Today we celebrate International Women’s day. Like every year, hundreds of events will happen worldwide to highlight the importance of rebalancing the global gender equality and integrating women in economic, development and peace processes. We will read or hear the phrase ‘women’s empowerment’ many times but soon, people will refocus on other day-to-day issues, such as concern about the effects of the financial crises, its impact on people’s pockets and the lack of employment for new generations.

It is true that South Asia navigated the financial crisis better than most regions and that over the last two decades it has experienced a long period of robust economic growth, averaging six per cent a year. The idea that the world has entered the ‘Asian Century’, is now becoming a reality and some countries in the region are working hard to become global leaders in order to give the world economy a big boost. But if South Asia wants this boom to happen, it needs to go far beyond today’s celebration and bring women on board now, as they are a key force in shaping the region’s future.

A stronger and dynamic South Asia will only be possible with the integration of women in its development formula. Gender equity is not only a core development objective in its own right, but is also crucial to smart economics, enhancing productivity and improving prospects for the next generation. Bringing the feminine perspective to the table can really make a difference. Poverty can be reduced by empowering women in their communities to find their own answers, organically grown to solve problems as they emerge.

Unfortunately, South Asia — that includes the culturally-rich and diverse countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka — is at the bottom of the gender inequality global rankings. This index includes five indicators: maternal mortality, adolescent fertility, parliamentary representation, education and labour force participation. Some numbers are striking: 290 women out of 100,000 die during child birth — a number only exceeded in sub-Saharan Africa — and millions of girls simply go missing through sex selective abortions.

The region is home to the largest population of young people in the world, half of which are women. In order to take full advantage of the potential of South Asia’s youth, women need to have the skills that will allow them to leverage the opportunities that are available in an increasingly global market. More and better jobs are needed to capitalise on the region’s demographic dividend and to close the earning and productivity gaps between men and women.

Furthermore, half of the world’s child brides live in South Asia, which has serious consequences: women who get married at a young age are less likely to attend school and are more likely to be victims of widespread and often socially-accepted domestic violence. Unfortunately, over half of adolescents think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife.

The ‘Asian Century’ will only become a reality if South Asia welcomes growth that reduces gender gaps in health and education and ensures that women’s voices are heard. We need to work together to economically empower women. Gender equality will benefit all — it is not only a matter of fairness, but is relevant to generate and ensure economic growth.

The Express Tribune

By Sanaullah Baloch

The writer was a member of the Senate from 2003-08 and of the National Assembly from 1997-99. He tweets @Senator_Baloch

The ongoing dirty war in Balochistan has affected society at all levels. Women — mothers, sisters and daughters — are particularly affected because of the magnitude of the so-called ‘missing persons’ issue. Hundreds of men — fathers, husbands and sons — have gone missing, presumably abducted, killed and dumped on roadsides in the province.

However, some tearless Baloch women are bravely pushing the cultural and traditional barriers and campaigning for justice and truth, taking part in sit-in camps outside the Quetta and Karachi press clubs and sometimes on Islamabad’s “Constitution” avenue.

Politically conscious and culturally well endowed, resource-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s least-developed province with a high rate of maternal mortality, female illiteracy, unemployment and gender disparity. Inflexible social customs and practices are widely blamed for the plight of Baloch women but the reasons are different and have more to do with state-sponsored discrimination against women in the province.

Islamabad has always tried to blame the Baloch themselves for their appalling state. However, facts and findings on health, education, communication, political empowerment and economic development clearly indicate that human development in Balochistan has been deliberately ignored by successive central governments — so, to blame the Baloch themselves is not entirely correct.

Women are discriminated against in the country at large, but in Balochistan they are discriminated by the state. They have no access to enabling opportunities, required for empowering women in any modern and civilised society. Discriminatory policies are not only resulting in slowdown of gender empowerment but effecting the overall social and economic development process.

The most devastating consequence of underdevelopment in any society is a high fatality rate. As a separate region, Balochistan has among the highest infant and maternal mortality rates of many underdeveloped Asian and African countries. For example, the maternal mortality rate for Karachi is 281 per 100,000 lives birth compared to 750 for rural Balochistan. The increasing rate of preventable maternal mortality is a symptom of larger social injustice.

Let’s move on to education. Access to education is crucial for empowering women so that they can participate in the economic, social and political life of their societies. Education unlocks a woman’s potential, and is accompanied by improvements in well-being of their families. According to a national survey measuring living standards, only 27 per cent of students in Balochistan complete primary or higher education, compared to 64 per cent in Punjab. The province also has a high dropout rate and it is that way not because of any cultural barriers but because there aren’t that many middle and high schools for girls. Again, the figures are telling: only 23 per cent of girls in rural Balochistan are able to enroll in primary schools compared to 47 per cent in rural Punjab.

Interprovincial gender inequality in the employment sector is also significant with the province suffering from high levels of female unemployment, especially when compared to Punjab. The latter also has 11 women’s vocational and training centers which enable them to learn skills needed to gain decent jobs — Balochistan has only one.

No development policy can succeed unless it is based on the needs and participation of people in the process. In Balochistan’s case, what people need is socioeconomic development, political empowerment, clean drinking water, electricity, education, basic health facilities, roads and infrastructure. But Islamabad’s policies achieve quite the opposite.

Under Article 25 of the Constitution, of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), women are entitled to several economic and social rights, such as rights to food, social security, housing, education and healthcare. But policy commitments have hardly been translated in to practice. On this International Women’s Day, we should not forget the hapless and neglected women of Balochistan.

The Express Tribune