‘Female achievers abound but recognition missing’

Karachi

Even though there have been instances of women making phenomenal progress in various fields, the recognition that comes through the panorama of Pakistan is missing. This is revealed by the fact that the United Nations rating index rates Pakistan as 121st out of 148 as regards status of women.

These observations were made by Nargis Rehman, chairperson of the Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFP), while speaking at the seminar titled “Bottlenecks to women’s empowerment” to mark International Women’s Day at a hotel on Wednesday.

True, she said, of late Pakistani women had excelled in various endeavours on the world stage like Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Malala Yusufzai. Even though Pakistani women had qualified as fighter pilots and had made their mark as mountaineers, by and large the situation in respect of the status of women was pathetic, she added.

Rehman said that it was on account of Chinoy’s feat that a very high and mighty in the country had to admit, “There’s no honour in honour killing.” 

“Yet, why do we remain consistently static, low in development indices, both in gender status and human development? Why have we failed in our millennium development goals?” she questioned.

She said many pieces of pro-women legislation had been enacted in the 1961-2012 period. The recent pieces of legislation to protect women against workplace harassment, domestic violence and child marriage had, as before, received major bashing, negating their effectiveness and serious implementation, he said.

Over the years, Rehman said, huge amounts had been received as aid from our donors and patrons to initiate the social action programme and their failure had been phenomenal.

“We face endemic, well-entrenched historical bottlenecks that breed a misogynist, socio-religio-tribo-cultural order, which steamrollers the constitution, all legislation and human rights.”

Poor governance, lack of justice and bodies which in the name of religion shot down all proposed healthy laws pertaining to women like the opposition to the child marriage bill or violence towards women were major inhibiting factors, she said.

She regretted that while two religion–based bodies were straining the last nerve to negate the bills that would provide women relief, they were totally silent about the practice of corruption and that their entire energy was being consumed by negating the true spirit of the religion.

Dr Khailda Ghous of the Social Development Policy centre (SPDC) said that 43 percent of the primary school-going age children were out of school, and more than a third of the population was living below the poverty line.

The country, she said, was suffering social and religious discrimination, which was affecting women most. Seventy-eight percent of the women, she said, were out of the labour force while only 17 percent of men were out of it. 

The government, Ghous lamented, was not focusing on the female youth. 

Noted lawyer and rights activist Zia Awan said, “Violence is embedded in our society”, and cited the way the telephone lines to the television were jammed with questions. He recalled that women in particular asked all sorts of questions when he recently did a TV programme on violence against women. The lines, he said, were just jammed.  

Our laws, he said, were tribal and feudal and we had to initiate Jihad for stopping honour killings and in favour of sending children to school.

Awan said this sorry state of affairs was not just a local one but also part of the international scenario. Because of globalisation, he said, we had also fallen prey to global conspiracies.

He lamented that when Karachi’s population was just one million, we had only one Darul Aman in town and today with the population having burgeoned to 20 million we still had only one Darul Aman.

Dr Nasim Salahuddin told the gathering, “You all must have come here of your own will and are wearing the attire of your choice. However, don’t forget that there are millions of women who don’t have this freedom. They’re scared.” 

In 2015, she said, 1,000 women fell victim to honour killings. She said keeping women confined indoors led to depression, infectious diseases and tuberculosis, the last mentioned being very common among the 15-40 women’s age group.

She said the values being imposed on us by another Islamic country were really confusing us.

Noted architect Yasmeen Lari said the situation in Pakistan was “really frightening”. She said there was 99 percent illiteracy among women in all the areas she visited in connection with her uplift work.

In villages, she said, women were roughed up by their menfolk and the concept of human rights was totally non-existent in these areas. Children, she said, were used as slave labour on the fields, and there were no healthcare facilities and hospitals were located so far apart that patients mostly expired before they reached them. She illustrated her uplift work with the help of videos.  Earlier, there were references for two very important female figures who had departed last month, Fatima Surrayya Bajiya and Naushaba Burney.

Jehan Ara Hye eulogized Bajiya as the most versatile person. “It was her lifelong ambition to bring women into public life and through a conscious effort. She brought women into the field of television and lent the profession respectability. She changed the public outlook towards women in the media,” she said. Noted TV playwright Haseena Moeen, while talking most tenderly of noted journalist Naushaba Burney, said that while herself remaining anonymous, she did so much for women’s emancipation. “She herself remained invisible but did so much for women.” 

She credited the late journalist with having trained so many young people who were seasoned and highly famous journalists today.  “She transformed the PIA in-flight journal, Hamsafar,” she said. 

Moeen said that Burney proved it beyond doubt that women were second to none.

Sheherbano Saiyid, daughter of Ameena Saiyid, managing director, Oxford University Press (Pakistan), talked most tenderly about her maternal aunt, Naushaba, and described what an affectionate and loving aunt she was.