November 1, 2016 – Pakistan Gender News

November 1, 2016November 1, 2016

Breast cancer: let’s start with the words

By: Aisha Sarwari

A few years ago, I went to a restaurant where the waiter turned the deepest beetroot shade of red when I requested for a grilled chicken breast. I’d said the word breast and this had sent him shuddering. Unluckily for many chicken around this country the world chicken breast is graining traction and respect and familiarity. It no longer conjures up images of a busty blonde.

Unluckily for about 40,000 women in this country that die of breast cancer every year, this word is still not appropriate to use in whatever mode or language for the mammary glands of a woman because it is shameful and dishonourable in society to do so. Thousands of the staggering number above could have been saved with what is a routine breast self-exam that can early-detect a tumour in time for a life to be saved. Breast self-exams are a simple technique of rubbing your breast, possibly in the shower, clockwise and anti-clockwise with your hand arched behind your shoulder and elbow pointing to the ceiling. Just this simple check on a routine basis is needed, and yet there is hardly any awareness of this self-exam.

Women, particularly in rural areas feel lumps when they’ve overgrown and metastasised already. They gather the courage to report it even later, when the cancer spreads to other parts of the body. Again rural women are very susceptible because they often store coins and paper money as well as essentials in their bras for safety. This puts them at greater risk.

Pakistani women are also deathly afraid of going to treat their lumps because they will become sexually undesirable, the only one currency they think their worth is measured in. For many in the west, Angelina Jolie’s full mastectomy made the procedure much more acceptable but for a woman in Thar, her role model was her aunt who died of breast cancer, not the woman in some faraway land who battled it.

The prevalence of breast cancer in women in Pakistan is among the worst in the world, yet hardly anyone ever is talking about it. There should be posters in public restrooms and public service announcements on television rather than the myriad of ads that show women as subservient likeable beings. It is the tyranny of likability that gets women to fear creating trouble for the family if the lump they feel, turns out to be cancer. Women are swamped with signals from family that they are already much trouble and they don’t want to burden anyone further, financially or socially.

This is a victim-blaming culture to begin with. A woman with breast cancer has got to be up to no good, no shred of doubt. There are many reasons women are dying because of honour in this country, having cancer in their breasts should not be one of them. Cancer, if detected early, is just as curable as dengue or cholera. Let’s not call women corpses until they are. Doing away with cancer lumps in breasts or doing away with the whole breast should not be more jarring than an appendix operation. Women before they can be identified as sexual beings, need to be beings first, and if a part of their body revolts against them, well then it needs to go.

Some brilliant people together with the pink ribbon campaigners lit up the Jinnah mausoleum pink for breast cancer awareness. It would also help if we can now stop defining women by their sexuality and then limiting their health procedures by it. All women must carry out regular breast self-exams, the men in their lives must reassure them that when or if women lose their breasts to cancer, they don’t lose their dignity and self worth. The young girls must be taught new curriculum to guard against this disease whose cause is more likely to be ignorance than metastasising cells.

At the least let us be able to say the two words together before we can cure it out of Pakistan: breast cancer.

The Express Tribune

November 1, 2016

Taboos KO’d by Lyari’s mother-daughter boxing duo

Slim, powerful, and with an unwavering gaze, 19-year-old Razia Banu jabs at the face of her opponent – her own mother, a widow inspired to join her daughter in smashing taboos in Pakistan’s sultry port city Karachi.

Mother and daughter are both dressed in loose athletic gear, with scarves wrapped around their heads instead of helmets, as they punch one another in an exhibition bout at the Pak Shaheen Boxing Club in Lyari, Karachi’s most restive – and sporty – neighbourhood.

Banu was drawn into the ring last year, after watching the grand funeral of legendary boxer Mohammad Ali. He was “my favourite personality”, she told AFP after “losing” to her mother, pointing with a smile to a small framed poster hung on a pillar that read Ali’s famous quote, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

She went to her mother to seek permission to join the club, started just last year, the first for women in all of Pakistan. Haleema Abdul Aziz worried about her daughter’s request. There were financial considerations – her husband had passed away five years back, and she was struggling to afford even school fees for her children.

And then there was Pakistani society. Deeply conservative and Muslim, it has seen women fight for their rights for decades – and, sometimes, in a country where acid attacks and honour killings are still commonplace, their lives.

The violence weighs on Aziz. “I believe that all the males become beasts when a woman goes out alone from her home,” the 35-year-old single mother says.

“But I did not disappoint her (Banu) because I wanted her to be successful in her life.”

Her husband was a good man who encouraged his daughter to take part in sports, she says. Yet Banu echoes her mother’s wariness when it comes to men and violence.

“Males think that they are strong so they could beat females and force them to be confined to the home,” she says.

“But I think that when you have strength, you should provide safety to people instead of beating them.”

Her passion – and penchant for practising at home – soon inspired her mother also, who followed her daughter in joining the club.

Aiming for gold

Banu leaves home early every morning for her job as a receptionist in a school, before going on to college, where she studies commerce.

She reaches the boxing club in the evenings. There she drills: punching bags and balloons, skipping rope, then practise bouts with some of the other 20 young girls who make up the club.

The club is sparse, its facilities comprising the ring, three punching bags, and a boxing balloon in a corner. Money, says the club’s founder and coach Yunus Qanbarani, is tight: few of the boxers can afford to even pay their fees.

“We don’t even have a proper changing room for the girls to put their kit on. We don’t even have the right rubber mounting on the ring ropes,” he says.

Then there is the social backlash. “At one point, some people plotted to attack the club to force me to close it down. But I am determined to carry on,” he says.

Qanbarani, who has been a boxing coach for 40 years, has sent his own two daughters and other women from his family to be trained at the club.

“I want our daughters to go to the international level and hoist the Pakistani flag in foreign lands,” he vows.

Pakistan’s boxing community agrees, with former boxers who competed internationally visiting the club regularly to offer encouragement.

“We don’t have a dearth of talent in Pakistan,” says Sher Mohammad, who took a bronze medal at the 1993 Asian Games. “We improvise and use alternatives to make up for our lack of resources.”

The support inspires Aziz and Banu to new heights. Aziz plans to become good enough to coach girls herself one day. Banu aims even higher.

“I wish to box in the Olympics – and not just participate, but to win the gold,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “I will keep striving for my goals; hard work does not go waste.”

The News

November 1, 2016

Mukhtaran Mai to walk the ramp at FPW

By: NASHRAH FARRUKH

KARACHI: The survivor of a gut-wrenching incident of gang-rape in 2002, Mukhtaran Mai is a name unknown to none. The brave-heart is set to walk the ramp at Fashion Pakistan Week-2016 for Rozina Munib, and the courageous woman opens up about why she’s taken up the task to propagate the message of education for all through the medium of fashion and media.

“I am walking the ramp to spread awareness about the struggles women go through. This is for the women in my society, it is for those who have no one and no place to go to,” Mukhtaran told The Express Tribune.

Established in 2006, the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Shelter Home is a cocoon for women who are subjected to violence or are in a dire need of shelter.

When asked why she chose this particular platform, Mukhtaran Bibi had a warm response. She graciously said, “All that I do, I do it for my children (at the shelter) and women. This is for them. I can’t do this alone hence I found an anchor in the media to help spread my message.”

“Jinka koi nahi hota unka Allah hota hai, aur main sirf zariya banna chahti hoon.” [Those who don’t have anyone, have Allah. I just want to be able to provide them with what they deserve and more.]

The shelter home is located in Mukhtaran’s hometown, Meerwala.

From protecting, assisting and finding a solution for those seeking refuge from violence, the house provides shelter and daily necessities like food, clothing and daily commodities.

The MMWSH also provides legal assistance to women via hiring lawyers for them. Moreover, long-term support, medical and psychological counselling are provided to women, who face victimisation, to ensure they remain mentally sound.

Moreover, Mukhtaran Mai’s Women Organisation also has a Women’s Resource Centre and a Girls Model School which gives girls access to quality education.

Many might question the motives of a woman who was a gang-rape survivor and raise fingers as she walks the ramp, but it is imperative to understand that women like Mukhtaran Mai give strength to those who are thrashed not just by society but by their families too.

“When I see my girls passing matriculation examinations, attending universities, I feel like everything I have worked for is worth the salt. Meray bachay aur meri behnain mera rang hain,” she said.

The Express Tribune