The Status of Women in Pakistan

A Muslim majority state and the 21st century. Neshay Najam
Lahore, Pakistan

"All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.
There shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex alone".

"No citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the service of Pakistan shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment on the ground only of…sex…"

"Steps shall be taken to ensure full participation of women in all spheres of national life".

"The state shall protect the marriage, the family, the mother…
"The state shall…[ensure] that…women are not employed in vocations unsuited to their sex alone…"
Constitution of Pakistan
Articles 25, 27, 35, 37.

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person. Men and women of full age without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry or to have a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage and its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered in to only with the free and full consent of the attending spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental group, unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and state."

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 & 16.

According to Farkhanda Lodhi; a spirited feminist writer and an ex-chief librarian at the Government College, Lahore says in an interview with The Daily Dawn, November 27, 2001:

"Man is a moment but woman is life."

All these beautifully constructed sentences take a180 degrees turn while considering the status of specifically 'women' in Pakistan. Our women still seem to be living in the dark ages. It is a matter of deep sorrow that being Muslims we have completely forgotten the status of women given by Islam. Annie Bessant in her book, 'The Life and Teachings of Mohammad (P.B.U.H)' says, "I often think that women are more free in Islam than in Christianity. Women are more respected by Islam then by the faith which preaches monogamy."

Islam was the first religion to recognize the equality of sexes and granted women rights unheard of 1400 years ago. Their other tragedy lies in the fact that what was highly progressive in those early days of Islam and which ought to have been kept in step with the changing of the realities of life through Ijtehad, was frozen in that position through retrogressive interpretation of religious edicts. In addition to that, male chauvinism and cultural taboos, some of them derived from the Hindu society have combined to keep our women down.

In Pakistan the story of a woman's deprivations start even before her birth, because the girl-child is not a particularly 'wanted' child. Her life is a journey of subordination. When she is young her father decides for her on matters ranging from whether she will get any education, to the all important matters of whom she would marry. After marriage, her husband and her in-laws get hold of her reins and decide matters on her behalf; like shall she or shall she not have a child every year, or whether she would produce only boys, or whether she can seek independent employment and so on. Finally when she becomes old and her husband gets weak or may have gone already, it is her son or sons who decide her fate in the declining years of her life. As if this is not enough, the whole society acts as an oppressor, browbeating her in to obedience. Thus, the word 'woman' in Pakistan is synonymous with 'endurance'. She is simply forced to accept certain bare facts of life once she grows up to be a woman. Be it on streets, or for that matter in restaurants, a woman is first and foremost required to be alert. It is best to try and not notice, women are told. According to Hina Jilani, Lawyer and Human Rights Activist, "the right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."

In addition to that, women in Pakistan face all kinds of gross violence and abuse at the hands of the male perpetuators, family members and state agents. Multiple forms of violence include rape; domestic abuse as spousal murder, mutilation, burning and disfiguring faces by acid, beatings; ritual honour-killings and custodial abuse and torture. According to a report by Amnesty International released on June 15, 2000, several hundred women and girls die each year in so-called 'honour-killings' in Pakistan, in a backdrop to government inaction. She is killed like a bird in family feuds to create evidence of "illicit" connections and cover them under the garb of "grave and sudden provocation" to escape severe punishment. The practice of Summary-killing of a woman suspected of an illicit liaison, known as 'Karo Kari' in Sindh and Balochistan, is known to occur in all parts of the country. Kari's (the females suspected of illicit relationships) remain dishonoured even after death. Their bodies are thrown in rivers or buried in special hidden kari graveyards. Nobody mourns for them or honours their memory by performing their relevant rights. Karo's (the males suspected of illicit relationships) by contrast are reportedly buried in the communal graveyards. The promise made by the country's Chief Executive in April 2000, that all 'honour' killings would be treated as murders has yet to be converted into anything nearing reality.

Women who report rape or sexual harassment encounter a series of obstacles. These include not only the police, who resist filing their claims and misreport their statements but also the medico-legal doctors, who focus more on their virginity status and lack the training and expertise to conduct adequate examinations. Furthermore, women who file charges open themselves up to the possibility of being prosecuted for illicit sex if they fail to 'prove' rape under the 1979 Hudood Ordinance which criminalize adultery and fornication. As a result, when women victims of violence resort to the judicial system for redress, they are more likely to find further abuse and victimization. As far as domestic violence is concerned, it is the most under-reported crime because it is generally condoned by social customs and considered as a private family matter.

A documentary titled 'Murder in Purdah'; a 28 minutes B.B.C production (1999) very effectively highlights the status of women in Pakistan, which is considered the citadel of Islam. It discusses candidly the forms of violence against women. The two main kinds of violence discussed are domestic violence, including burnings and disfiguring bodies by acid and ritual honour-killings. It also pinpoints the double standards of our police as majority of the women are put behind the bars under the Zina Ordinance. In this documentary when a question was put to a group of males of one of the Katchi Abadis of Mardan, that why do not they let their women go outside? The answers they gave reflected their myopic and narrow-minded ideas about women. The first respondent said that the Islamic teachings restrict them to do so and there are various dangers attached to a woman's life if she goes outside. The second respondent said that a woman's mind is weak and she can easily be swayed unlike a man. The third respondent interestingly was of the view that it will become a common habit if he will not stop his sister from going outside. These male chauvinistic answers emphasize the 'commodification' of women whose role is limited to the four walls of her home and is not eligible to perform any fruitful task that might be of use in the development of the society.

The most emotional and sensitive portion of the documentary are the burnt women shown in hospitals. They are there as a result of the wrath of their husbands or the in-laws. The statistics of such reported cases were alarming. In a hospital whose name was not disclosed, seven to eight such cases per week were reported. The doctors were of the view that these women become easy victims at the hands of the males without any solid reason and only one out of ten women are fortunate enough to survive.

The documentary also stresses the fact that the principle reason as to why women become easy prey to the wrath of males is due to their low literacy rate. This low level of education in women is justified by the masses as being in accordance to the Islamic teachings. However, Islam gives equal right to both men and women to attain education. It is a sorrowful affair that our neighbouring Muslim countries, especially Iran has excelled as a nation by giving equal opportunities to women in the sphere of education while remaining in their socio-cultural-religious parameters.

In a documentary titled 'Cyberspaces and Cultural Boundaries' (2000), ambitious women leaders from the Middle East and some parts of Africa have given their viewpoints about the new information technology at the turn of the 21st century, that has brought about immense opportunities for not only men but also women (especially for Muslim women) in their communities according to their cultural constraints. The idea promoted in this documentary by the Muslim women is not to change the culture of their countries to empower themselves but to be proud of what they have and bring some modifications in it by connecting to the developed cosmopolitan world. Bushra Jabre of Lebanon; proud of being an Arab Muslim in the documentary is shown using videos in her advocacy and training project to empower Arab women. She asks them to do their analysis in relation to the video shown of women who have reached to the top remaining within their cultural boundaries. She focuses not on women development alone like in the West. In every video a husband is shown as a believer and supporter. The idea is not to empower women over men but empowering women equal to that of men. Here the women are not asking for the impossible as the change is positive where both men and women have an equal role to play and work collectively towards socio-economic development. Considering the present condition of Pakistani women even such positive development for them seems to be a far-off cry, as women there do not even have the right to own their bodies, being exposed to the traditional male control over every aspect of their bodies, speech and behaviour with stoicism, as part of their Kismat (fate). Defiance of any sort translates into undermining male honour and ultimately family and community honour. Severe punishments are reported for bringing food late, for answering back or for undertaking forbidden trips etc. According to Sajida; a journalist in Larkana, Feb 1999, "women in Pakistan are killed like hens; they have no way to escape and no say in what happens to them."

Information technology, which has been supported to a great extent by our present regime for the economic uplift of our country has the potential to improve the status of women as this is a kind of technology that is making it easier to be a woman at home than a man. Men, as we all know love to spend time outside the home, generally bragging about their feats, which may be little enough- but who cares? By contrast women are supposed to sit at home, taking care of it and tending to the children. The information technology however, is changing all that. Since it allows people to log on to their work while sitting at home and only coming in to their offices for meetings or for using confidential data that cannot be allowed to leave the office premises. This means that a woman may sit at home and take care of their children and between the naps, feeding and diapers, take breaks to get work done. But this is only possible when the women in Pakistan have the skills and the necessary expertise to use it. This needs to be started from the grassroots level, as two percent of the country's elite using this technology would not make much of a difference. The 'difference' is badly required in this age of global communication and the competitive 21st century, as who ever will have the access to this knowledge will be the winner. Unless and until women are given formal education, not only there would be no change in their status but also the country would suffer in terms of social and economic development. Women no doubt are the backbone of any society and according to Amartya Sen; Nobel Laureate Economist, "Sustainable development cannot take place until women of a country get their due rights."

The role of media in Pakistan has also been lethargic in terms of improving the status of women. Pakistan television (PTV) plays have a crosscutting viewership, especially among women. However, plays mostly revolve around formula-based story lines, which cast women in either submissive roles or at the other extreme as westernized glamour girls. A recently conducted survey (2001) by a United Nations Development Programme on 'Portrayal of women in media' indicates that the viewers' preferences are now tilting in favour of more gender-balanced portraying of women. The respondents of the survey feel that the negative stereotypical images of highly emotional and suppressed women should be reduced and downplayed. This is a sure sign of improvement in women's status, as it would leave a positive impact on the male members of our society regarding the productive role of women and who might then stop considering them as mere vegetables who have no say of their own. Thus, revolution is required in the thinking pattern of the male members to change the existing notion of power. The requirement in the present scenario is not to empower one gender over the other but a balance between the two genders towards achievement of joint goals, better society and better future for the upcoming generations by being proud of one's own culture.

The two ways through which this target can be achieved is firstly through proper commitment of our home media (TV, Radio Newspapers and Films) that has the power to mould public opinion and here the government's support has to be unconditional. The second way is the evolutionary process through which the mothers by being independent of religion, caste or creed can instill in their children from the very beginning that both the genders are important and 'honourable' and have a key role to play in the society. But the problem is that this is only possible when women are educated and supported by the government as equal and feeling beings to benefit from the latest technology and contribute efficiently to the country's uplift.