Day: March 15, 2012

SUKKUR: Haleema is one of the three women who arrived at the women’s complaint centre on Tuesday night, fearing for their lives. They claimed that their husbands wanted to kill them over the pretext of karo kari.

On Tuesday, Haleema, a resident of the Rato Shal village in Khaipur, overheard her husband and in-laws plotting her murder in the name of honour. She packed all her belongings immediately and made her way to the women’s complaint centre in Sukkur.

After a six-year marriage and four children with Ameer Bux Sial, Haleema said that the first time she ran away was four and a half months ago because Sial was physically abusive. While talking to The Express Tribune, she said that she had gone to court and was sent to a Darul Aman in Sukkur but 11 days ago, her husband brought her home and promised not to hurt her. “I do not want to go back to my husband or my parents,” she said. “They are all involved. I want to live in Darul Aman.”

Gulnaz, Sumbul and Halima spent the night at the complaint centre and were presented before Sukkur’s first additional session judge Anand Ram on Wednesday. The police said that the women gave their statements in court and requested the judge to send them to Darul Aman.

The judge told the police to take the women to the shelter.

Sumbul and her sister Gulnaz had eloped to marry two brothers, Aamir and Shan Majeed in Okara, Punjab. They claim that theirs was a love marriage. Initially, the sisters thought that Aamir and Shan used to work as carpenters at a furniture shop. But when their husbands started to bring ‘friends’ over and forced Gulnaz and Sumbul to entertain them, the sisters realised that their husbands ran a brothel. “When we refused to do what they said, they started to hit us,” said Gulnaz. “We finally gave into the pressure and have nowhere to go. Our parents are unhappy with us and refuse to accept us.” She added that Aamir and Shan had been meticulous when it came to using contraception as an unwanted pregnancy could affect their value. “We have been tortured and forced to something we did not want to do,” said Sumbul. “We ran away on Monday when our husbands were at work and our mother-in-law had stepped out of the house to meet a neighbour. We took a bus to Sukkur and want to stay at the Darul Aman.”

The Express Tribune

By Owais Jafri

Panjayat in rural Punjab decides the girls will be forced into marriage.

ROJHAN: Rasheed and Nasreen fell in love, got married and ran away. So far, this tale from the rural Punjabi district of Rajanpur is common, both in Pakistani life and soap operas.

It becomes a sick genre of its own with what happened next. Nasreen’s family were unhappy with the arrangement and went to a panjayat (local village assembly) for justice. The panjayat decreed that Rashid’s two sisters must be given over to Nasreen’s family as watta satta (exchange marriage).

Rashid’s sisters are Jameela, aged nine, and Aneela, aged two. They were thus declared wani (forced child brides). Thankfully, the police moved into action swiftly – arresting three members of the panjayat. Worryingly, however, Rashid’s family are under intense pressure from the local community to withdraw their FIR.

According to Ameer Bhatti, Nasreen’s father, the girl’s family was always opposed to Rashid marrying his daughter. Regardless, the couple got engaged and eventually got married in a court before running away to Sindh in fear for their lives.

Rashid’s father said the couple had received death threats. Indeed, there have also reportedly been outbreaks of violence, including firing from Nasreen’s family on Rashid’s family home.

After the couple fled, Rashid’s family made it clear that they opposed the tradition of watta satta and would not give their girls to Nasreen’s brothers.

The panjayat decided on Wednesday that Rashid’s two sisters were wani, prompting the police to arrest the three main members of the panjayat. Qalandar Baksh, Ahmed Baksh and Haji Muhabbat have been arrested by the police.

Ten others have been named in the FIR filed by Rashid’s father.

SHO Ijaz Sindhu told The Express Tribune that the police had been providing protection to Rashid’s family. Rashid’s father, Abdul Kareem, was still fearful: “We want protection. I have been given threats from the family of the girl and residents of the area to take back my application against the panjayat.”

Abdul Kareem and Rashid’s other relatives have appealed to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and the IG Punjab for further protection.

The Express Tribune

KARAK: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti on Wednesday announced 100 percent increase in oil and gas royalty for Karak and establishment of a full-fledged university in the district.

Addressing a public meeting here, he said the provincial government was planning to establish Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Oil and Gas Company to explore the oil and gas reserves in the province. Awami National Party (ANP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa President Afrasiab Khattak, Minister for Prisons Mian Nisar Gul, ANP provincial joint secretary Khursheed Khattak, district president Usman Khattak and others also spoke on the occasion.

The chief minister announced the approval of a 17 kilometres road to Kurd Sharif coalmines costing Rs280 million. He also announced Rs250 million for the acquisition of 100 kanals of land for the construction of university in Karak. He said two girls degree colleges would also be established in Banda Daud Shah and Latambar.

The chief minister said the people of Karak had the foremost right over the natural resources explored in the district. He said Karak would get Rs1.20 billion royalty from the gas and oil deposits from next year.

Haider Hoti maintained that the provincial government had got Rs1.10 billion as its share of net hydel-generation profits from the federal government, adding the money would be spent on the welfare of the masses and launching electricity projects in the province. He added the first such project would be inaugurated in Madyan in Swat in April to generate 2000 megawatts electricity to gradually bring an end to loadshedding.

The chief minister said Bacha Khan Poverty Alleviation Programme (BKPAP) had been launched in six union councils of Karak and it would be extended to the entire district in the next budget.

The chief minister said interest-free loans amounting to Rs300,000 were being given to the unemployed youth under BKPAP to enable them to earn livelihood for their families. He said the provincial government had received Rs1 billion extra under the National Finance Commission Award, which would be spent to raise the living standard of the masses. He added Rs1.30 billion had been earmarked to impart skills to 1,500 educated youths, adding that 700 youths were being trained in the first phase.

Haider Hoti said Stori the Pakhtunkhwa and Rokhana Pakhtunkhwa programmes had been introduced to provide education opportunities to talented and poor students. The chief minister said construction work on 28 kilometres long roads were underway in Karak while Rs280 million were being spent on the construction of the Teri-Gurguri Road, which was in final stage.

Haider Hoti said that 17 kilometres road would be constructed at a cost of Rs280 millions to connect Karak with the coalmines of Kurd Sharif. He said uplift projects worth Rs3.27 billion were completed in Karak over the last four years.

In his address on the occasion, Afrasiab Khattak said that 2.3 million people became members of ANP during the membership drive. He said the ANP candidates had won almost all the by-elections since 2008 elections, which showed that the masses had trust in his party’s manifesto and performance.

The News

LAHORE: The minority women are facing severe problems in the Pakistani society and need a policy response, according to a study conducted in 2010-11 by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP).

The statistics were made public in a press conference by NCJP on Wednesday. MPA Najmi Saleem, IA Rehman, Justice (r) Nasira Javed Iqbal, Hina Jilani, Bushra Khaliq, Wajahat Masood, Emmanuel Yousaf and Peter Jacob were the guest speakers on the occasion.

The speakers said the study looked into social, political and economic conditions of the minority women in today’s Pakistan with the help of a baseline survey conducted in 26 districts of Punjab and Sindh – the two provinces where 95 percent of minorities are residing.

Around 1,000 Hindu and Christian women were interviewed – the two communities forming 92 percent of the entire minority population of Pakistan. The research was led by Jennifer Jag Jivan and Peter Jacob.

They said that besides informing the readers on the minority population, policy framework and space available for minority women with reference to human rights standards, the study reviewed the literature available on the minority women.

Issues such as legal disparity, review of personal laws concerning minorities, religious and gender biases, forced conversions, lack of policy focus and segregated data were part of this study, they added.

They said the results of the study pointed to stark realities being faced by minority women as 43 percent of the minority women complained of facing religious discrimination at workplace, educational institution and neighbourhoods. Whereas 27 percent of them faced problems in getting admission to educational institutions.

Most of the minority children are forced to take Islamic Studies due to lack of an appropriate alternative.

Only 47 percent of minority women interviewed were educated, lower than the national average (57% national literacy rate) and far behind the urban literacy among women, which was above 65 percent among women (70% of the respondents belonged to urban areas). They said the data showed a higher infant mortality rate among minorities than national ratio; 314 infant deaths among 3,050 births (10.3%), which was quite high to the national mortality rate that is 8.7 percent according to World Bank reports.

A majority of the deceased offspring died either at birth or within 30 days of birth –

33.12 percent at birth and 36.62 percent within 30 days, making it a total of almost 70 percent.

Around 76 percent of the working women faced sexual harassment. Living (housing, civic facilities) and economic conditions assessed through income, saving, health, education, also placed minority women on the margins of social and economic development.

Though 55 percent of minority women saw the social environment as conducive to multi-religious living around, 62 percent of the respondents thought that in the wake of a religious disturbance like those in Shantinagar, Gojra, Korian, Sialkot, the majority community would not stand with them.

While the minority women faced a threat in the form of forced conversion and assimilation into the larger culture, their families tend to control their autonomy, thus the important decisions about their lives and well-being are controlled by the male, making it a case of several jeopardises.

Besides stressing a thorough review of laws and policies to root out religious and gender-based discrimination, the study noted the lack of official data on minorities that could actually help the civil society and government assess development and make interventions to improve the conditions of minority women.

The study included interviews and objective assessment of the situation by three prominent minority women – MNA Asyia Nasir, Ernestine C Pinto, a Karachi-based senior lawyer and Pushpa Kumari, a social activist.

Noting the discrimination and analysing the consequences of these discrimination, the study also included practical policy correctives and institutional ways of improving integrating minority women in the mainstream and safeguarding their rights in the conclusions and recommendations part.

Daily Times