Broadcasting – Pakistan Gender News

August 23, 2013August 23, 2013

Restrictions on women voters: Court stays results in Lakki Marwat, Nowshera

PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan on Thursday stopped the Election Commission of Pakistan from declaring the results of the by-elections in two National Assembly constituencies from Nowshera and Lakki Marwat by issuing a stay order over restrictions on women voters.

While taking a suo moto notice of a complaint about restrictions on women voters, the chief justice ordered the extension of the polling time until 6:30pm in the 18 polling stations of NA-5, Nowshera and NA-27, Lakki Marwat directing the authorities concerned to ensure the maximum participation of women and observed that in case women voters did not turn up during the extended polling time, ECP arrange the re-polling in the two constituencies.

He directed the relevant high court office to list the complaint as a petition for hearing by a division bench within 10 days.

The single-member bench also observed that those stopping women from casting votes in polling stations in question be dealt with strictly and arrested if offences were cognizable.

It observed that the decision taken by male members of the family/ area about casting of women vote was against the Constitution and the law both and was also an offence because it amounted to interruption and interference in the election process by directly and indirectly preventing a voter from casting her vote.

Despite closure of the high court due to public holiday in Peshawar, the chief justice took notice of the issue on the complaint of in charge of the country’s by-election monitoring cell Sofia Waqar Khattak, wherein she had referred to broadcasting of the news item by different television channels regarding denial of the right to vote to women in nine polling stations of Nowshera and similar number of stations in Lakki Marwat.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary, home secretary, IGP, District police officer Nowshera and other officials turned up on court notice.

The chief justice observed that the women voters were denied their right to vote albeit, the polling staff and all facilities required for that purpose were full in place to facilitate them to cast their votes freely and in a secure and safe manner, however, domination of the man society and so-called elders of the area restrained women voters from exercising their fundamental right. He observed that the fact was verified from the district returning officers and returning officers of the two constituencies.

The court was informed that after the chief justice took notice in Nowshera the elders of the area agreed and the women voters were taken out to cast their vote and polling process was running smoothly.

The bench directed that to ensure that maximum women voters were able to cast their vote the closing time for the polling in the said polling stations was extended to 06:30pm, however, during the extended time foolproof security should be ensured.

It ordered that the DRO and RO, Nowshera immediately report to the Chief Election Commissioner and to the high court the result of the polled votes of these polling stations. It was added that the election commission should not notify the result of NA-5, Nowshera-I in the Gazette Notification nor it should be officially or unofficially announced unless it is ensured that maximum women registered voters were extended opportunity to cast their vote whether it is by today 06.30 PM or on any subsequent date to be arranged by commission for this purpose.

About Lakki Marwat, the bench observed that it was reported by the DRO that elders and some religious leaders have agreed and have brought women voters after the High Court took notice to poll their votes in some polling stations but with low turn out of women voters.

It added that the DRO and RO had reported that in the said polling stations no women voter could cast vote because of the earlier settlement between the parties and therefore, the ECP was directed not to notify in official gazette the result of NA-27 Lakki Marwat until arrangements were made on a subsequent date to be fixed by the ECP and it was ensured that all women voters were given free will and choice with full security arrangement.

DAWN

February 8, 2013

Outlawed in Pakistan — Kainat Soomro’s story on film

Amid the media storm that broke after the gang rape and death of a 23-year-old Delhi girl Jyoti Pandey, two journalists have made a short film that follows the story of a teenage girl allegedly raped in a village in Dadu, rural Sindh in 2007.

The story revolves around the central character of the film, Kainat Soomro, who was raped by four men while she was on her way back home from school. The film depicts Kainat’s struggle for justice. The story narrates how the ugly incident became a matter of ‘family’s honour’.

The short film titled Outlawed in Pakistan was one of 15 short documentary films selected for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Directors and producers of the film Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann, while speaking to ABC News said that the documentary was inspired by Kainat’s perseverance.

Pakistani-Canadian journalist Nosheen has received several awards, including the Gracie Award for outstanding correspondent and reporter by the Alliance for Women in Media. Hilke is a German journalist who was previously associated with The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and National Geographic.

The short film shows how Kainat’s family suffered after she decided to bring the alleged perpetrators to justice. Fearing that a tribal court might order the girl’s killing because rape brings shame to the family, Kainat’s family moved to Karachi. However, Kainat and her family refused to give in to tribal norms and stayed resilient in her struggle.

Kainat

After Kainat’s rape, her father and brother were beaten up by the alleged rapists, while her older brother went missing and was later found murdered. The rape survivor’s family now lives in poverty, but remains unperturbed in its struggle to get justice for Kainat — they hired a lawyer, filed a court appeal and appeared on news channels to bring the alleged rapists to justice.

Nosheen told ABC News, “The film shows how fighting for rape is like in Pakistan, where you don’t have a system to collect evidence, to do proper investigation. When this mechanism is missing and someone comes out and says ‘I am raped’, then it’s just the woman’s word against the men.”

When asked if it was risky to film this case, the Pakistani-Canadian film-maker said, “One of the remarkable advantages of being a female investigative journalist in Pakistan is that no one takes you seriously. So, if you go somewhere with a camera, people don’t worry about being filmed.”

The short film will air on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a non-profit American public broadcasting television, this spring in a show called Frontline.

The Express Tribune

January 8, 2013

Gender and television

By Tazeen Javed

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance communications consultant. She tweets @tazeen and blogs at http://tazeen-tazeen.blogspot.com

The gender-based discourses on Pakistani television may not be very dynamic but the way they are discussed leaves one to ponder if those who are at the helm of the affairs have any idea about the impact of their careless deliberations on the subject.

Take the case in point of a television serial ‘Zindagi Gulzar Hai’ airing on Hum TV these days. Only last week, the male protagonist of the story picked a fight with his girlfriend about her clothing and a direct quote from the play said, “if you had seen her clothes, you would have known that she was a walking invitation for harassment”. In times like these, where there is global protest about women’s clothing and how it has no relevance to the sexual violence they face, here is a drama where a protagonist — who is extremely popular among women — is telling women that yes, their clothing invites men to harass them. In case anyone is wondering, the woman was wearing a sleeveless top with a shawl draped around her shoulders.

This was not the lone case of misogyny in that particular play. The protagonist also had issues with the mobility of his female family members. He wanted to impose a curfew for his sister and wanted his mother to seek the permission and approval of his father before she could leave the city on a work assignment. He said repeatedly that “he is a man and can go wherever he wants and whenever he wants and women cannot do the same”. While it may be a reality in our society, reinforcing such ideas in the guise of propriety and religiosity is shoddy and has consequences for the audience. What disappointed this scribe even more is the fact that both the writer and the producer were women and that the producer has a personal history of struggling for her rights.

Our television plays seem to glorify the role of women who are situated within the four walls of their homes, sacrifice their happiness for their families and do not complain if their husbands beat them or take second wives or are just really horrible to them. Those who are financially independent, situated outside their homes and interact with men who they are not related to are the bad ones. This does not only judge all women who choose to interact with others in the public sphere, but also presents a distorted version of reality to women who stay at home, that all those who do step out in the public sphere do so after compromising their morality.

Ours is a society that is used to either lecture or indoctrination. It is a society where powerful forces indulge in monologues and there is hardly any room for dialogue. We do not open up conversation on gender; we tell people what is appropriate through Islamic programmes, television dramas and literature and expect them to follow what is told.

It is about time we challenge the television narrative that focuses on taming female sexuality and identity, and glorifies the sacrificial women whose ideal sphere of activity is the private space and is critical of those who venture out in the public space and implies that they do it at the cost of compromising their morality and roles assigned by religion. In any case, the concept of a stay-at-home woman is a very urban middle class one and if half the population had stayed at home, the economy would have collapsed a long time back.

The Express Tribune