Day: December 1, 2012

The White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan (WRCP) held a seminar followed by a candlelight vigil at Lahore Press Club on Friday to show solidarity with the women who are the victims of violence in any form and to show men’s pledge to end violence against women.

White Ribbon day celebrations 2012 started in Pakistan with the global theme: From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Lets Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women! Talking to reporters, CEO of WRCP Omer Aftab said that to stop violence against women, it is not sufficient to create awareness about women rights among women only, but it is also necessary that men should join with women to encourage norms of consent, respect and gender equality in order to promote empowered roles based on non-violence and equality.

Omer further added that as per the Social Institutions and Gender Index 2012, Pakistan is ranked 55th out of 86 in the list of countries violating social norms and rights concerning women. The country was ranked 94th out of 102 in the Gender Inequality Index, 2009 however this year its ranking has dropped to an alarming rate.

Pakistan ranks lowest in the South Asian region in terms of GDP per capita for women. Right to education, discriminatory family codes, restricted physical integrity, son bias, restricted resources and civil liberties are some common forms of biases against women that need serious consideration. The White Ribbon Day against Gender inequalities is an international campaign initiated by White Ribbon Campaign here in Pakistan.

Business Recorder

By: Abdul Fattah Malik

KARACHI: The Supreme Court has reserved its judgement on a suo motu case on the jirgas (tribal courts) working in Sindh.

The Sindh High Court had declared jirga as illegal in 2005 but the practice continues despite hue and cry from the human rights organisations. Jirgas are assemblies of community elders that take decisions by consensus, particularly among the tribal people, to settle disputes within their communities.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had initiated suo motu proceedings after he went through recent newspaper clippings about two jirgas deciding the fate of minor girls in Sindh.

Earlier this week, the tribal courts had ordered giving four girls to the rival communities to settle personal enmities. On Friday, the case was fixed before a three-member bench, headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali. The case was, however, heard in the chamber later.

As the court initiated proceedings, Advocate General Abdul Fattah Malik said that according to police reports, the four girls – reported to have been bartered to settle personal enmities – had in fact “married of their own choice”.

Malik also submitted the report of police officers from the relevant districts. The judges have taken the police reports on record and reserved their verdict that will be announced later.

The Express Tribune

KARACHI: Married women spend most of their lives like widows. It is a familiar story: a young, beautiful girl has a fairy tale wedding. Soon after she arrives at her new home, her husband leaves for Dubai where he has to work to keep the family afloat. She lives a life of isolation with her in-laws.

This would be enough to drive anyone mad.

On Thursday night this was the theme of The Lyceum school’s theatre evening to raise funds for War Against Rape. The plight of the left-behind wives of migrant workers, the focus of the second performance ‘Aadhi Gawahi’ by Shahid Nadeem, was tied in to the psychological distress that the neglected wife develops and society’s response to it: hakeems, aamils, doctors. All she really needed and wanted was to live a normal life with a husband.

C Aurat

Pakistan has an estimated one million workers in the UAE who sent $753 million home in the first quarter of this year (July to September). ‘Aadhi Gawahi’ highlights the cost at which that money is made. The workers, who leave their wives and children at home in Pakistan, not only live difficult lives abroad, but their families grow up without a key parent.

In the case of protagonist Sameena (Batool Siddiqui), her new husband’s family was just interested in the latest Rado watch or touch-screen phone or gold bangles he could send them from Dubai. In the meantime, she slowly sinks into depression, pining for her husband.

‘Aadhi Gawahi’ also highlights our society’s still primitive response to mental illness. The depressed Sameena is first taken to an aamil (Abdullah Jan), a hakeem (Akbar Amin Lakhani) and then a doctor (Usama Khatri). It was director Yaseen Bizinjo’s brilliance that helped depict the absurdity of each group’s ‘cures’ by making their characters jump, shake and quiver. This physical ‘craziness’ mirrored the stupidity of the aamil, hakeem and doctor’s suggestions on how to make Sameena better. ‘Aadhi Gawahi’ shows that sometimes the solution is really that simple: treat the woman fairly and with respect and you will not drive her mad. The first, and equally strong performance, was the script of ‘Aurat’, written by Safdar Hashmi.

Its non-linear narrative was strung along in short scenarios of the situations young girls and women find themselves in. They ranged from the young, Malala-esque student who wants nothing more than to study, to the beaten down wife, whose inebriated husband swears at her if the dinner isn’t ready and whose naked, malnourished horde of neglected children scream the house down. Some of the acts were based on familiar, even overwrought stories that leaned towards the hysterical instead of subtle. The women were most portrayed as victims who were paradoxically extremely vocal about their miserable condition but seemingly unable to change it.

There was one exception though, of a teenager walking down the street only to be harassed by two thugs. She complains to the policeman standing nearby. “Hey, are you guys bothering this young woman,” he asks. The boys start pulling out a 500-rupee note. The policeman refuses the bribe. “But sir, she was harassing us!” they cry as they pull out more notes. The cop is sufficiently mollified with double the bribe and turns on the woman. It is more of this, ironic work that can breathe life into these themes. The shrill script that painfully spells out each social message could perhaps be eschewed for nuanced dialogue that turns the spotlight on to newer more modern challenges that our women face.

The last performance is tonight, Saturday, at the Alliance Francaise de Karachi. Tickets available at the door.

The Express Tribune

If and when justice is delivered, it would further empower women into believing that they do, in fact, have rights and they will be protected by the system when they seek righteousness.

Cruelty seems to know no bounds in our country with even fewer regards given to basic human rights. The latest such incident occurred in Kitro, Sheikhpura district, where five peasant girls — the daughters and nieces of a farmer — were gang raped by their employers, because the girls merely asked them for their wages. They were warned of “dire consequences”, which resulted in their abduction the same night, followed by the heinous act. The fact that the girls had rightfully earned those wages for hard work rendered on the fields holds little value for the landlords. Such mindsets, especially prevalent in the rural areas, depict the criminality meted out to women for demanding justice for themselves.

It is encouraging to note that four out of the eight accused have been identified, of which three have already been arrested. And while the chief minister of Punjab visited the family of the victims and presented them with cheques, whilst providing them assurances for the capture of the accused, this reassurance must see the light of day and the criminals taken to task so that others, who would consider choosing rape as a course of action to punish women are deterred from doing so. This is not the first instance of gang rape and while its repeated occurrence shows the level of illiteracy prevalent amongst men in our society, it also highlights the need to revamp the system and rid it of loopholes where men can get away after committing such crimes against women. If and when justice is delivered, it would further empower women into believing that they do, in fact, have rights and they will be protected by the system when they seek righteousness.

Althought

Although we are a long way off from achieving the kind of equality witnessed in other countries and developed societies, we need to move towards this balance so that we can ensure the safety and protection of our women and rid our society of the much-ingrained patriarchal culture. There need to be laws to safeguard against such acts and greater awareness must be spread with the help of NGOs with regards to the rights enshrined upon both men and women.

The Express Tribune

By: Abbas Nasir

MEXICO is being gravely wounded by drug cartels vying for domination just as Pakistan is being torn apart by religious zealots seeking supremacy.

Everyone knows who Benazir Bhutto was and who targeted her; we also know who Malala Yousufzai is and who wanted her dead. It was nothing short of a miracle that her beautiful life was saved. But how many of us know Maria Santos Gorrostieta?

Let me share what I have selected from an obituary of the woman called ‘Mexico’s heroine’ which appeared in the daily Telegraph earlier this week. Tell me if you find resonance in the bloody ways of the Mexican drug cartels and our murderous peddlers of hate.

“A doctor and mother of three, Maria Santos Gorrostieta served as mayor [of Tiquiche, a town in Mexico] from 2008 to 2011. Over that time she survived at least two assassination attempts, including one that killed her husband Jose and another that left her body peppered with bullet holes and scars….”

While over the past six years, since the government launched an operation against the gangs, “some key players have been killed or captured; the carnage has continued … Official estimates say 50,000 people have been killed since the crackdown began.…”

The region, “known for growing illegal marijuana and poppy crops, has become a key battleground … The main player is a group known as La Familia Michoacána, a cartel notorious for its grisly killings and beheadings….”

“In a country known for its machismo, it has often fallen to Mexican women to take on ‘los narcos’. Without weapons or financial resources, and often with no help from the police, women have come to the fore in an effort to improve the quality of life for their families and communities….

“Like many others Maria Santos Gorrostieta focused on improving social services for her small town and left Mexico’s drug cartels to the federal police, explaining that ‘I have a responsibility towards my people, the children, women, elderly and men who each day rip apart their souls just to bring home a loaf of bread’.

“But that made no difference to the drug barons, who came for her anyway…”

Earlier this month, as she was driving her daughter to school, without an escort since she was no more in office, she was kidnapped. Although at her pleadings her daughter was spared, Gorrostieta’s body, bearing torture marks, was found five days later.

Old-fashioned descriptions and stereotypes of women notwithstanding, the truth is such courage and commitment continuously marks the lives of most women. Yes, some like Benazir Bhutto, Malala Yousufzai and Maria Santos Gorrostieta become icons.

They are inspirational figures because their courage is for all to see, it has a public face. If her own life was her only consideration, then, after that massive bombing on her arrival in Karachi on Oct 18, 2007, Ms Bhutto could have left the country or kept a low profile.

Instead, she made a public declaration the following day that she wasn’t prepared to bow before the terrorists and would fight to reclaim the ground conceded to them. We all know what happened in December of the same year.

How stark was Malala’s reality and how fluid and dangerous the environment in which she chose to become the standard-bearer of girls’ education can hardly be imagined by so many who may be a few hours away from Swat but have as much sense of the dangers as if they were a million miles.

In a polarised and divided Pakistan, there are those who have the audacity to question Malala’s courage, even attribute motives to her. But surely their bias and sorry state of mind can never take anything away from the heroic chapter written by the determined teenage girl.

Maria Gorrostieta didn’t appear any different. Her slender frame took bullets and punishment that would have felled a bull but she remained defiant while she lived. Yes, these women and others like them believe in causes where consequences, no matter how dire, are immaterial.

This is why we celebrate their lives, lament their loss.

But do we have time enough for equally courageous women whose everyday existence, mere survival, is heroism worthy of accolades? The mountain of biases they have to climb, the abuse they brave, be it in the name of culture, religion or tradition?

The world, including Pakistan, exists in the 21st century. Have we ever seriously asked why more than half our population lives and dies in pain and obscurity and often in circumstances which would make our claim to being part of humanity suspect?

Do we recall the name of the last victim of ‘honour killing’? Do we know the name of even one woman disfigured for life by an acid attack? Who was that young bride who so annoyed her in-laws that fuel was poured over her and she was set on fire so her agony in death resembled her life?

All that even the best among us will remember is a faint image of a tortured body and disfigured face. That’s all. We are like this because we choose to be so. Otherwise, why would we have tolerated an environment where questions of women’s equality are seen as challenges to the divine will.

Don’t shake your head. Believe me these aren’t holier-than-thou words. I read Gorrostieta’s amazing story followed by someone’s Tweet about the International Day against Domestic Violence and I reflected.

I couldn’t even recall the names of the women who earned filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy an Oscar and international acclaim. I am bereft. My indifference towards heroic women, in their millions, whose silence makes a statement every day, is inexplicable. Can you say you are different?

Dawn