Slipping between the gap

The strange idea put forward widely across the country that the increasingly controversial Aurat March in March this year should not have happened because the situation for women in Pakistan is very good – since they are allowed to work, study and go about daily life – in truth makes no sense.

The huge disparities based around gender have been ignored in this discourse, which suggests that the Aurat March was some kind of conspiracy intended (for undisclosed reasons) to promote vulgarity and immorality in society.

The issue of the huge gender gaps that exist in Pakistan have gone ignored too. The World Bank in its Pakistan@100 Initiative, which takes a look at what Pakistan would look like by 2047, says that the country stands near the bottom of world rankings in terms of women’s participation in the workforce. This somewhat negates the argument we have heard that women work freely across the country and are permitted to do so. Why they should need permission is of course a different, but equally relevant, question.

The same is true of education, again an example used widely by those interviewed, most of them women. According to the World Bank, half of Pakistan’s women have not attended school and currently only 10 percent have gained education beyond the secondary level. This means their chances of attaining well-paid jobs are minimal. Despite the equality that many claim women have attained in Pakistan, the fact is that less than half of the women surveyed in 2013 said they felt safe while walking around their neighbourhoods. The widespread harassment of women at work and on public transport has also been reported, regardless of how women choose to dress or what line of work they adopt.

The World Economic Forum in its Global Gender Gap Index for 2018 found Pakistan was the second worst country in the world in terms of gender parity, ranking 148 out of 149 countries and finishing only ahead of Yemen and behind all other South Asian countries. Of the South Asian countries, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had closed the gender gap most effectively, although of course it still existed as is the case in most countries around the world. Pakistanis do, however, need to carefully consider the fact that the worst performing ten countries on the WEF list are all Muslim-majority countries and include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other states. This is an issue that needs wider discussion in the country where many of those interviewed suggested that religion gave equal rights to both genders.

This should happen then in reality as well as in theory. It is also a fact that good people come in all shades and belong to all schools of belief. Jacinda Arden, the prime minister of New Zealand who has gained the status of a hero in Pakistan and around the world, is a feminist, a socialist and an agnostic. Few Pakistanis appear to have acknowledged this or accepted that New Zealand’s biggest achievement is to accept a diversity of opinion.

One of the key issues is the failure of the administration and the government to do all it can to safeguard the rights of women. While clerics, including the frenzied prayer leader from Karachi who suggested that women who demanded rights over their body should be subjected to rape, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F who said his party would take things into their own hands if authorities did not act against events such as the Aurat March, obviously create further doubts in the minds of people. It would have been good to hear ministers or other persons elected by the people of Pakistan to speak out in defence of the right of citizens to freely put forward opinions and also the constitutional right of women as equal citizens. Too many times we have seen quite the reverse happen.

The Punjab Games, a sporting event of national significance, to be held in April this year for the first time since 2011 – the long gap having occurred due to administrative mismanagement and negligence – oddly features 21 events for men and only seven for women. The number of events for women has continued to decline at sporting events in Punjab. This is despite the fact that women are well-represented nationally and internationally in many of the events they have been excluded from, including football, tennis, swimming, karate and other sporting events.

The discrimination against women athletes, who desperately need opportunities and support, violates the charter of the International Olympic Committee, which lays down a strong commitment to gender equality and for both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics ensured that contingents from every country were represented by both genders. Punjab clearly has failed to follow this fundamental charter. Of course, there is discrimination against women in terms of facilities for sports beginning at the school level, the salaries professional athletes receive and the periodic attacks they face. Yet many in the country continue despite the odds stacked against them.

There is discrimination in other domains as well. While Pakistan has one of the better representatives for women legislators than most other countries, with a presence of over 20 percent in assemblies, the fact is that this is essentially created by the availability of reserved seats for women. Currently, only eight women in the National Assembly were elected on general seats – and thereby on the basis of their own standing in their constituencies. Three of these women belonged to the PPP and were all elected from Sindh. Two are affiliated with the PTI. But, overall, political parties need to be persuaded to bring far more women into mainstream politics by offering a larger number of tickets for general seats. This has been found to be a vital practice in genuinely empowering women in terms of decision-making in nations around the world.

There are many other statistics which tell the story of women, at least in the bleak, harsh realm of stark figures. One woman is gang-raped every hour in the country, 80 to 90 percent face domestic violence according to studies carried out both inside and outside the country and over 1,000 are murdered each year in so-called honour killings. These crimes and other acts such as the rape of little girls, incest or other behaviours which in any society would be termed evil apparently bring no outcry from the ‘keepers’ of ‘morality’ in our society.

Clerics, TV hosts or political leaders rarely speak up. They do not speak either for the majority of women at the Aurat March who represented bonded labourers, domestic workers or other groups subjected to open discrimination and oppression. Currently, the irrational response to the Aurat March (which refuses to die out) and the media’s coverage of it create an environment under which women face the possibility of great harm. It is up to state actors and leaders in all other realms of life to understand these issues and take a stand against them so that the ‘equality’ that a large number of citizens apparently believe exists in the country can truly be created rather than the string of reports which suggest the desperate situation of millions of women across the country.

All these women need help escaping their reality while issues of right and wrong, or what is seen as unacceptable behaviour, should perhaps first be directed towards crimes committed against women, children and all those who are weak and vulnerable.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com