Day: November 27, 2012

SHIKARPUR/SUKKUR: An illegal tribal court (jirga) on Sunday ordered a man to give in marriage his two minor sisters and a minor niece to the nephews of his rival, a close relative, in order a settle a case of enmity over illicit relations.

The losing side was also asked to pay a fine of Rs200,000 to the aggrieved party and another amount of Rs50,000 to the police.

The jirga, headed by tribal elder Abdul Wahab Jatoi, was convened in Momin Jatoi village of Lakhi Ghulam Shah taluka.

Police said they had yet to determine whether the place where the jirga was held fell within the remit of Daim Malik or Rustam police station.

Shikarpur SSP Parvez Chandio, however, ordered registration of a case against all those involved in the holding of the illegal jirga.

He also asked the Lakhi DSP to immediately take the three girls into custody.

According to the jirga proceedings, complainant Waheed Jatoi accused his relative, Amanullah Jatoi, of maintaining illicit relations with his wife.

The woman was killed by her husband (under the custom of Karo-kari) about four months ago but Amanullah Jatoi went
into hiding to escape the same fate, the jirga heard.

Amanullah Jatoi’s side at the jirga defended him but he was found guilty. He and his family were ordered to promise giving away his two sisters, Rabia and Sabiha, and a niece, Safia, to the aggrieved party for marriage — after they reach the age of puberty — to the three sons of Waheed Jatoi.

All the three girls are aged between six and eight years while the names and age of their would-be grooms were not declared.

The jirga decree was given under ‘Sang Chatti’, another hated custom.

Both sides accepted the Jirga decree and Waheed Jatoi was paid Rs100,000 of the Rs200,000 fine money.

DSP Asadullah Bhatti of Lakhi Ghulam Shah taluka has been appointed investigation officer with the task of arresting all those involved in the holding of the jirga and taking into custody the minors to be given away to Waheed Jatoi’s family under Sang Chatti.

He has also been asked to register a murder case against Waheed Jatoi on behalf of the state and submit his report on the whole affair to the SSP within the next 48 hours.

Another jirga in Pir Jo Goth

Another tribal court headed by Rahib Odh heard a case of a freewill marriage in Pir Jo Goth in Khairpur district on Monday evening.

The jirga ordered a 13-year-old girl, Fauzia, daughter of Wazir Odh, to be married to a 50-year-old man, Ajan Odh, father of seven children. The girl was handed over to the groom as soon as the jirga concluded its proceedings.

It was said that both parties involved in the matter belonged to the Hindu community.

The jirga was told that Jawed Odh and Veena Odh had contracted a freewill marriage about four months back.

Although the groom and the bride belonged to the same community and tribe, their marriage was not accepted by their families and the community, the girl’s father, Wazir Odh, and brother Manthar Odh told the media.

The groom was forced to take the case to the jirga or else they would be killed under the custom of Karo-kari. Accordingly, he was made to accept the jirga decree.

No case was registered at the police station concerned till late Monday night.

SSP Khairpur Irfan Mukhtiar Bhutto told Dawn that he had issued orders to the Pir Jo Goth police station to investigate the matter, register a case on behalf of the state, arrest the head and members of the illegal jirga and submit a report to him within the next 24 hours.

Dawn

LAHORE: King Edward Medical University Syndicate on Monday approved the varsity management’s decision to accommodate female students in the boys’ hostel located on McLoad Road.

Presided over by KEMU pro-vice chancellor Prof Dr Asad Aslam, the Syndicate meeting was attended by University of Engineering and Technology (UET) VC, the health special secretary, Higher Education Commission additional secretary, finance deputy secretary, medical superintendents of Mayo, Lady Aitchison and Lady Willingdon hospitals, besides senior faculty members of the varsity.

The decision to shift female students to the boys’ hostel was taken after the UET engineering and building departments’ reports declared the old girls’ hostel structure dangerous, recommending its demolition to avoid any accident, owing to its dilapidated condition.

The male students launched agitation and refused to vacate the hostel for the girls.

The meeting participants were informed that 62.6 per cent of the KEMU students were females, while a new batch of MBBS was also ready to join the classes on December 13. Hence, the girl students were facing enormous accommodation problems.

Giving legal cover to the decision, the Syndicate said the girls would use the new accommodation till the construction of new hostel on the premises of the varsity for them.

Research: The Technology Upgradation and Skills Development Company has launched sector research projects to help the five manufacturing industrial clusters of Pakistan.

According to a spokesperson, the research and development unit of the company has performed preliminary studies to dig out few of the most yielding industrial fragments carrying the potentials to feed the national economy. The final sector selection has been made weighing the significance of their contribution towards national GDP growth rate.

The fans, sport goods, surgical instruments, plastic goods and two and three wheelers automobiles sectors indicate huge employment and exports potentials while formulating a substantial chunk of national revenue, said the spokesperson.

Dawn

Bina Shah

A RECENT newspaper article casts light on a great problem women face in Sindh: the fact that traditional culture discourages women from entering the field of politics.

In ‘Female Politicians? Not on Our Watch, say Sardars’, Asad Pitafi examines the political culture in Ghotki, upper Sindh, and finds that despite there being a large number of political families active in the area, not one woman from these families has made it to the ranks of the provincial or national assemblies.

Women face the most hardline of social and cultural taboos on participating in any aspect of the public sphere in upper Sindh. A unique culture has developed there, where Pathans, Baloch and Sindhis hold the same repressive attitudes towards women despite their different ethnic backgrounds.

Part of this is due to the geographical isolation of the region where few outsiders venture bringing new ideas and exposure to different values, far from major cities and towns where schools and universities exist, and from where progressive attitudes might spread. And part of this is due to the extreme poverty and poor infrastructure of the area, which has excluded it from the technological advances, especially satellite television, which so often drive social and cultural change in rural Sindh.

The article quotes Babar Lund, a PPP Sindh Council member as saying, “We prefer traditional values. We can’t allow our women to break traditions that are centuries old… Our party manifesto highlights women empowerment, but I can’t allow my family women to come in assemblies.”

What an ironic statement coming from a member of the party which produced Benazir Bhutto, the only female national leader Pakistan has had! Sentiments like these and the absolute dismissal of women as part of the body politic in Pakistan are a huge betrayal of the legacy that Bhutto left behind for all women of this nation.

Pakistanis are very quick to trot out the fact that the country has had a female head of state before a developed nation like the United States, and Sindh remains very proud of Benazir Bhutto’s monumental life and courageous death, but in all reality most men in this province want her to remain an anomaly, rather than an example to their own women.

The climate for women in Pakistan is grim, as countless studies have shown, but unless women make it to the ranks of political parties and enter the assemblies, where they will have lawmaking power, how will legislation that helps women gain more ground — the bill against domestic violence to name a needed example — ever make it to the lawbooks?

After all, the Acid Attack Bill was passed recently in Pakistan’s National Assembly due to the multi-party efforts of women politicians, who joined forces across party lines to present the bill and then see it voted through.

And then, as if there wasn’t already a lack of female Sindhi representatives in government, there are those who criticise the fact that only women from highly influential Sindhi families make it into politics, connecting it to the reality that women at the grassroots level are denied the chance to make their voices heard, as if the inclusion of upper class women is the direct cause of the exclusion of the lower classes. The PML-N’s Marvi Memon, one of the few Sindhi women active in mainstream politics, has been quoted as saying: “It’s very easy to conduct politics from a reserved seat, but doing grassroots constituency politics for non-feudals is a huge challenge. Not many are insane enough to try.”

The truth is that women from all levels of Sindhi society are underrepresented in Pakistani government. Greater political opportunities do exist for women from the upper class, but their participation should not be derided or denied, especially in Sindh, with its dearth of women in politics.

Instead, any woman in politics should be applauded and encouraged because the spillover effects are huge and valuable: these influential Sindhi women have the means and the education to get involved in politics, and women from more deprived backgrounds take their cues once the barriers have been broken.

And in fighting for women’s rights, current Pakistani women representatives have proved that they are extremely aware of their more deprived sisters; after all, it was upper class women who legislated successfully against acid attacks, a crime that affects many more women from lower socioeconomic levels than higher ones.

Even amongst the urban upper classes, or the tribals and sardars, there exist a variety of viewpoints, and many such Sindhi families have not just permitted but also supported their women in the political field. In the remote parts of the province, Ghotki included, Sindhi women themselves have to step forward and claim their rightful place in the political sphere, regardless of the regressive, patriarchal traditions that would like to see them hidden away, out of sight and out of mind. The change cannot be forced upon them from the outside; it must be homegrown in order to remain authentic and long-lasting.

Sindhi women have to decide that it is their right as Pakistani citizens to emulate the work of historically renowned women politicians: Fatima Jinnah, Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, Fauzia Wahab and Benazir Bhutto, to name a few who also had to face conservative attitudes in order to participate in national politics.

Only once Sindhi women rediscover their courage will the land of the seven queens that Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai immortalised in his verse not hold women back in any sphere, least of all politics, just to maintain the masculine illusion of honour.

The writer is the author of Slum Child.

Dawn

By Asad Kharal

LAHORE: A family of farmers in Punjab had to pay a heavy price upon asking for their wages – five of their teenage girls were allegedly gang raped by eight local landlords in Kitro, Sheikhupura district.

According to B*, a resident of Noon village, his daughter and nieces – all between 14 and 18 years – were abducted by the landlords and taken into the fields, where they were gang raped.

The girls are all unmarried, police officials said.

B and his family, who had two weeks ago temporarily moved to Kitro to work in the fields, had demanded their two-week salary from their employers – Zaheer and Tassadaq, alias Mara Jutt.

In turn, the two ‘infuriated’ landlords and their accomplices warned them of ‘dire’ consequences. Their threats materialised later that night when they attacked B’s dera and tied up his family with ropes, before taking off with the girls.

According to contents of the FIR, B said they managed to set themselves free and set off on a search for the girls and the men. They found the girls in the field, while the accused managed to escape.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the residence of B, the complainant in the case, and directed the police to immediately arrest all the accused.

He also presented cheques to the victim’s family, and assured them that the accused would be brought to justice.

Four out of the eight accused have been identified as Tassadaq alias Mara Jutt, Noor Ahmad alias Noori, Aqeel, Zaheer Ahmad, while the identities of the other four is yet to be ascertained.

The victims were shifted to the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital in Sheikhupura.

Narang Mandi Police Station SHO Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal while talking to The Express Tribune said that initial medical reports confirmed that the girls were raped.

A case has been registered with the Narang Mandi police station against the eight accused men, the SHO said.

He added that three of the main accused have been arrested, while the remaining would be arrested soon. *name has been concealed to protect The VICTIMS’ privacy

The Express Tribune

By Tazeen Javed

Out of the four Pakistanis who made it to Foreign Policy’s influential Global Thinker’s List for 2012, three are women. Congratulations to those who made the list but irrespective of what Foreign Policy’s selection criteria for the list is (a 15-year-old student’s intellectual contribution to the society cannot be measured with that of a parliamentarian who has worked on important legislations affecting millions), it must be noted that in a country like Pakistan where women are constitutionally and legally considered of lesser worth, where they are valued less in cases of Qisas and Diyat, some are at least making a name for being fearless and courageous thinkers.

Every citizen has a social contract with its government. The notion of that social contract implies that the people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order where they are allowed to practise their religion, work freely and live in a secure environment. The state of Pakistan does not distinguish between its citizens when it comes to citizenship responsibilities. Women are expected to pay taxes when they are involved in economic activities, they vote in the elections and help select the government and are expected to observe the criminal laws enacted by one’s government.

However, the state of Pakistan does not deliver to its female citizens when it comes to equal rights. It is very unfortunate but the Pakistani constitution does not view women as equal and productive citizens of the country. The state views them as Muslim daughters, wives and mothers and values them according to their assigned roles in society — not as individual citizens with rights and aspirations of their own. Take the imposition of laws such as the Hudood Ordinance which gave control of a woman’s body and sexuality to the state and other members of her family. Then there is the Qisas and Diyat Law, or the Law of Evidence, which institutionalised a reduced value assigned to a woman’s testimony based on the assumption that a woman’s role in society is different, or perhaps less productive, compared to that of a man.

It is not just that but these legal and constitutional inequalities have also made certain types of criminal activities such as honour killings, domestic abuse and violence within families and tribes ‘compoundable’ — i.e., they are treated as crimes against the individual rather than as against the state.

Every year, November 25 is observed as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is usually observed in Pakistan as well. This year, it will be followed by a 16-day-long campaign called Take Back the Tech against gender-based violence. Campaigns such as this can only work when the women are allowed a level playing field which, unfortunately, is not the case in Pakistan. The very political parties who depend on their female voters to get to assemblies have continuously thwarted attempts to pass a much-needed domestic violence bill in parliament. If a country cannot acknowledge that a woman needs to be protected in her home, its government cannot be expected to protect her.

The Express Tribune