April 17, 2014 – Pakistan Gender News

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014

A new face of Kashmir women’s long struggle

MUZAFFARABAD: She believes women need to be empowered through education and financial independence, yet feels strongly that women need to do so while balancing their cultural values with emancipation. A success story to say the least, Farzana Yaqoob, Minister for Social Welfare and Women’s Development in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) is helping bring about change but with a sense of balance.

The younger daughter of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, she hails from a middle class family of Ali Sojal village, in Rawalakot district. She graduated in 2000 from Punjab University and after marriage settled down in Switzerland.

In 2011 she came back to AJK and won the by-election from LA-19 Rawalakot constituency that remained vacant after her father Sardar Yaqoob was made the President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Sharing her views while talking to The Express Tribune Yaqoob said politics is not as bad a field as people imagine it to be, and when you join it as a passion to serve people, the satisfaction is matchless. She feels that it is an honour for her that she is the second woman of Azad Kashmir after Noreen Arif who was elected by the people. “This has given me the confidence to bring about a change on ground.”

All for sticking to one’s cultural roots, Yaqoob added that while we do live in a male-dominated society, things can become less problematic if a female follows the religious and cultural values of her forefathers. “I believe if she does so, nobody will create hurdles in her way. When a person follows the right direction and the intention is to make the people prosperous and economically stable, then nobody will ignore him or her,” Yaqoob observed.

She said vision needs implementation and unfortunately we only talk about the vision but practically we do nothing to make the vision a story of success through practical steps.

A stickler when it comes to meritocracy in her own words, Yaqoob said that “there is zero tolerance towards merit violation in my department.” In her opinion, implementation of a system based on merit is the final remedy to bring about sustainable change in society.

Slowly inching towards empowerment of the women of AJK through education, Yaqoob shared that “while we cannot provide jobs for every educated woman in AJK, we are thinking about how to engage the literate women to make them financially stable, as a big portion of our population is female,” said Farzana.

She feels that women are dynamic and even more hardworking than men. The Minister hopes that the government would engage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the welfare of womenfolk to equip them with different kinds of skills and crafts aimed at improving their economic condition.
Yaqoob’s department is working on different projects to empower the rural women across AJK. “Livestock, floral culture, horticulture and agriculture are the fields where we can help women become financially stable by providing them small loans.”

She termed the sharp rise in incidents related to violence against women as unfortunate. “The basic reason of violence against the women is that we are not following social norms, culture and religion in its true spirit.”

Besides her active involvement in politics which is not so common in AJK, Yaqoob is an active human rights activist. In this connection she recently attended the women’s conference in the European Parliament, held at Brussels. She shared that in the European Parliament they highlighted the violation of women’s rights by the Indian security forces in Indian Kashmir where thousands of women have been tortured and molested since 1990.

“We will continue to raise the issue of women’s rights’ violations by the so-called largest democracy of the world and what its troops are doing to the women of Indian Kashmir under the cover of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which is a licence given by New Delhi to its troops to kill anyone in Indian Kashmir,” she said, adding that the draconian AFSPA is being used to crush the freedom activists in Indian Kashmir particularly women.

Express Tribune

April 17, 2014April 21, 2014

Two girls raped in Chunian

CHUNIAN: Two girls raped in separate incidents here on Wednesday. In the first incident, Asghar Ali told the Elabad police that accused Akhtar allegedly raped his 16-year-old-daughter when she was going to cut crop. In another incident, Liaqat Ali told the Kanganpur police that accused Asif entered his house and allegedly raped his four-year-old daughter. The police have registered separate cases.

The News

April 17, 2014April 21, 2014

Jirga orders man to pay Rs5.3m for killing pregnant wife, two others

By: Sarfaraz Memon

SUKKUR: A jirga allegedly held at the farmhouse of the prime minister’s adviser Imtiaz Shaikh on Monday resolved a three-year-old bloody dispute between the Pathan and Jamali families.
It was decided that Abdul Qadir Jamali would pay Rs5.3 million for killing three women, two of whom were pregnant. According to sources, the jirga was held at Shaikh’s farmhouse in Shikarpur and was presided over by former Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali. Shaikh’s elder brother and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Maqbool Shaikh was also in attendance along with a large number of men from both families.

Both parties, Aurangzeb Pathan and Abdul Qadir Jamali, presented their case to the jirga after which Abdul Qadir was found guilty of attacking Aurangzeb’s house in Shikarpur and killing his daughter, Amna, and two others. The other women were identified as Aurganzeb’s wife Afroze, Saddam Hussain Pathan’s wife Naghma. Since Amna, who was Abdul Qadir’s wife, and Naghma were said to have been pregnant at the time of the murder, the jirga ruled that Abdul Qadir had taken five lives and would have to pay accordingly.

It was decided that he would pay Rs1.2 million for killing each woman and then another Rs600,000 for the unborn children. An additional fine of Rs500,000 was imposed on Abdul Qadir for attacking Aurangzeb’s house.

After accepting the jirga’s verdict, the Jamalis paid Rs200,000 and said the remaining amount would be paid by the end of July this year. Before the jirga dispersed, both parties embraced and promised to withdraw the cases filed against each other.

While talking to the media after the jirga, the former prime minister said that he saw no harm in reconciling a dispute between two families. He added that the women, were killed three years ago in broad daylight and the police had done nothing about it. The former premier claimed that Qisas and Diyat were in accordance with Islamic law and the jirga had imposed a fine on the accused which would be paid directly to the affected family.

Family history

In 2010, Abdul Qadir, a resident of Shaheed Benazirabad had married Aurangzeb’s daughter Amna. A couple of months into the marriage the couple started fighting and Amna left for Shikarpur to live with her parents.

To end the matter quickly, Aurangzeb filed a divorce application on behalf of his daughter at a family court in Shikarpur. This enraged Abdul Qadir and drove him to murder on November 3, 2011. Aurangzeb’s son-in-law arrived at this wife’s house with some men and opened fire at Amna, his mother-in-law Afroze and his brother-in-law’s wife. Abdul Qadir was also upset at the fact that his wife was pregnant. He suspected the child was not his.

Official version

When contacted, PPP’s Maqbool Shaikh told The Express Tribune that the jirga did not take place within the limit of Shikarpur but was held at Dera Murad Jamali in Balochistan. He said the former prime minister was actually visiting him at his farmhouse and wanted to congratulate him on his son’s wedding. He added that they took advantage of him being there and held the jirga to sort out the matter as soon as possible.

Last month the Shikarpur police lodged an FIR against Pakistan Muslim League-Functional’s Ghous Bux Mahar and 12 others for holding a jirga at Mahar House in Wazirabad. The police raided Mahar’s house twice till he went to the high court and asked for protective bail.

The Express Tribune tried to contact Shikarpur SSP Altaf Leghari for a comment but he was not available and had switched his cell phone off.

Express Tribune

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014

The 92-year-old veteran educator’s legacy spans decades

By: Sidrah Roghay

Karachi: It started with a single-room school just after the Partition. Today the Nasra School is spread over five large campuses with 20,000 students. Yet its founder, 92-year-old Nasra Wazir Ali, lives in a single-bedroom apartment inside the educational institution she cultivated with such joy and perseverance.

Dressed in a printed shalwar-kameez, she sits in an L-shaped room which serves as a dining room for her meals and a drawing room to greet visitors. The walls are decorated with frames: there is one in which she is seen accepting an award from former president Asif Ali Zardari, while another shows the Sitara-e-Imtiaz she received for her services.

One corner of the room is full of pictures of her family: husband, son and daughter, and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The only window of the room opens to the vast grounds of the school building. When she is bored she likes to look down and watch the children playing, running, squealing and laughing.

“My husband was a civil servant. In 1947, when Pakistan happened, we moved into a government accommodation on Karachi’s Bandar Road (now MA Jinnah Road),” said Nasra, as she began narrating her story leading to the school eventually becoming the mission of her life.

“I felt the need for a school which would educate middle-class parents, many of whom were government servants who lived in the locality. I emptied out a room in my house, added chairs, tables and a blackboard, and began teaching whoever would attend class.”

Her first student was her own daughter, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, who grew up to become a prominent bureaucrat.

The school became such a huge success that one by one the family had to empty out all the rooms of their house and convert them into classrooms. Nasra, her husband and Shahnaz had to move out into the garage.

But as the number of students increased, the government began to have a problem. “They said that this was government property meant for residence and could not be used for a school.”

So the search began for a place to relocate the school began. They initially found a few rooms near the Empress Market, where the school was relocated. “I never waited for anything big to come by. I tried to give my best with whatever resources I had.”

Things changed when her husband bought a huge piece of land in Garden East which was to serve as their private residence. But Nasra converted it into the first purpose-built building the school owned, leaving out a small apartment for her private residence, where she lives to this day.

Her husband backed her decision. “He was always very supportive of my work; caring, responsible and sensitive.” They had never met before they got married. “I saw him for the first time on the day of my marriage. We eventually fell in love.”

As the strength of the students multiplied, her lawyer brother registered the school under an act. Then a board of governors was formed. “The school is owned by a trust. It is not an individual property any more.”

With the tuition fee of the students, enough was saved to expand the institution to four more campuses across the city: in Malir, North Karachi and Korangi and on Super Highway.

The school’s fee has always been nominal. To this day it ranges between Rs800 and Rs1,700, depending on which campus a child gets admission in. The campuses have everything a modern school needs: vast grounds, sports activities, computer labs, libraries and qualified teachers.

Students regularly bag top positions in the examinations conducted under the Board of Secondary Education Karachi and the Aga Khan University-Examination Board.

Perhaps the school’s expansion while maintaining an affordable fee structure is a slap in the face of the newly established elite private schools which are run like commercial enterprises, where each student is a client who brings enormous profits, digging deep into the pockets of salaried professionals who have accepted that quality education comes at a hefty price.

Nasra cannot hear any more. She suffered a stroke last year, and her memory sometimes fails her, but she is still in high spirits. She spends her time teaching English to her two maids. When she is not doing that, she reads poetry. She read out an excerpt from Khalil Gibran’s most popular work, ‘The Prophet’, part of her collection of poems and quotations stacked in a plastic folder at her table:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

When teachers come to visit her she tells them she is getting old and tired. “But they tell me they love me, they need me, the school needs me. That and only that is what keeps me going. Every day.”

The News

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014

Filmmaker exposes flaws of forced marriages

ISLAMABAD: The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) aired ‘Poles Apart’, a documentary based on the menace of forced marriages, on Wednesday.

Directed by Samar Minallah, the short documentary focuses on individuals who managed to escape forced marriages amongst Pakistani families across the country and in Norway, to maintain links with their roots or other social cultural reasons.

The movie’s director, who has been highlighting various forms of forced marriage, including compensation marriages such as vani/swara and early marriages, focuses on the parents as prospective agents of change.

Shot in Oslo, Norway, Jhelum, Gujrat and Lalamusa, the production captures glimpses from the life of Khadija, in Jhelum, who dared to return to Pakistan after enduring an abusive relationship with her husband for seven years.

The film shows how she lived now, content in giving driving lessons to girls in her hometown.

The documentary is not just restricted to women’s issues but also shows the impact of forced marriages on men.

It contains shots of Tayyab Chaudhry, in Oslo, who stood his ground when he was also being forced to marry against his will.

With the underpinning that chains can not keep marriages together, the documentary emphasises the importance of individuals involved being given the choice to choose and refuse.

The director supports this message with comments from a former judge of Lahore High Court, Nasira Iqbal, who explained how marriages could only be between freely consenting parties. “This is the true concept of marriage in Islam,” said retired Justice Nasira Iqbal.

The film reveals shocking statistics, stating that around 1,700 individuals were forced into marriages, in 2010, and one third of them were under the age of 18 years.

Samar Minallah explains, through moving images and examples, how in most cases the individuals were forced into marriages when families are trying to improve their station in life.

She gave the example of Najma Bibi, who was married to a man, who was ill and had been married twice before, so that her family could pull their relatives out of Pakistan to settle in a foreign country that presumably offered better living standards.

It shows how dreams turn into bitter reality, not just for the married couple, but they also sever family ties. The production depicts how younger generations walked into the traps and the parents emotionally blackmailed them into marrying persons who were poles apart.

“Young people become victims of values and customs of older generations, who are trying to uphold practices that have become obsolete,” the documentary quotes one victim of forced marriage as saying.

It also reflects on parents who meant well, but misjudged the intentions of others, doing more harm to their children. Mental mismatches and barriers led to divorces within months, or in some cases many painful years later.

The film’s screening was part of FES’s efforts to spread awareness on the gender issues, in an informal atmosphere. The concept was to bring civil society together, to provide a platform and discuss such controversial issues.

Poet and writer Kishwar Naheed, said, “These issues are not resolving and the honor crimes are increasing, day by day. Choice of marriage is not only a crime but it is also considered as a sin.”

The documentary was shown as part of the ‘Movie-log’ initiative of the three cooperation partners, German Political Foundation (FES), the German academic exchange Deustcher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), and the Centre of Excellence in Gender Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University.

DAWN