‘Women laws should take into account ground realities that limit proper implementation’

Experts believe that there are many good laws which have been made for the protection of women in the world in general and Pakistan in particular, but a major hurdle in the implementation of these laws is less awareness in women about them and their rights enshrined under these laws.

There is also a lack of awareness and advocacy on the part of law enforcement bodies, like the police department, where right from the person who registers an FIR to the investigation officer and even at the court people are not sensitised on the issues of women.

The above observations were made during a three-day training workshop, which was held at a hotel in Karachi on “Feminist Legal Theory and Practice (FTLP)”.

Being conducted for the first time in Pakistan, with the collaboration of the Forum for Women Law and Development (APWLD) and the Shelter Participatory Organisation (SPO), the purpose of the training was to train and sensitise civil society representatives, including journalists, lawyers, academicians and human rights and women rights activists about these laws.

“The FTLP is primarily about using law to ensure women enjoy all their rights. It is a programme based on feminisms, law and human rights, which emphasises the importance of women’s lived realities. Our experiences matter. Many laws and policies are formulated without consultation with the diverse groups of women. So, it is no surprise that those laws do not do justice to us. Formal, written laws are of little use if they do not bring redress and justice to women,” said the Malaysia-based trainer Honey Tan Lay Ean, who came to Pakistan for the first time to impart this training in Karachi and Lahore.

The training encompassed many subjects, including feminism and women’s movements, law as an institution or system, role of law as a tool for change and how it can uphold women’s rights, women, human rights and developments in international law. In the last session, the participants were encouraged to devise strategies for feminist legal theory and practice, by reviewing various case studies to apply the FTLP and find out as to how these can effectively be utilised to secure women laws.

“Enforcement of laws is deteriorating in Pakistan due to various reasons, as Pakistan has plural legal systems which are being practised at various levels. These include formal laws, customary laws and religious laws, which sometimes have clash in their implementation,” said Sarah Zaman Karachi-based feminist activist, development professional, teacher and researcher.

She said people are not aware of various levels at which the law works. For example, the text of the law, which is written in the statue books, is usually not understandable to ordinary persons. Similarly, its structure, which addresses the mechanism and procedure through which it operates, is also very complicated and women usually are not aware of this procedure. And lastly, the culture, which generally affects the enforcement of law, as the judicial system comprises people who are from amongst the society, which is governed by cultures and traditions.

“In some cases, when the police department is not sensitised on women issues, or an illiterate woman who comes in the courts and all the proceedings are done in the languages she doesn’t understand makes her position vulnerable. Women usually don’t get legal aid, and court English is very difficult to understand even by an educated person, let alone an illiterate woman and that too from rural areas of Pakistan. Similarly, the judges and lawyers probably will not fully comprehend the language she speaks. The interpreters cannot convey her actual sentiments and meanings of her words, as they too are not sensitised on the issues of women survivors,” opined Sarah, while continuing, “There is religious stereotyping of women, which doubts the credibility of women, for example in the law of evidence, two women are equal to one man, makes things further complicated.”

Explaining the objective of the training, Samreen Khan Ghauri, director and co-founder, SPO, who made efforts to arrange this training in Pakistan, said: “I wanted to build knowledge and skills of our lawyers, journalists and activists to analyse and critique discriminatory laws and practices from feminist and right-based perspective and identify and address challenges and dilemma encountered by women’s rights advocates in their use of legal strategies to address women’s rights. The particular focus was on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Pakistan has ratified along with other international treaties and conventions but discrimination to women continues unabated in every sphere of life,” she added.

“In many factories, they have no bar for women to work in the night, but they are not provided transport, so they don’t avail the opportunity. In an advertisement for an editor of a newspaper, a prerequisite for the candidate is that he/she should have worked on all desks, including crime desk, but women are not given crime beat, so they don’t avail opportunities. There are similar other facilities which are there but not for women,” observed Honey.

The Malaysian trainer said: “FLTP reminds us lawyers and activists to acknowledge and put women’s realities front and centre when we do our advocacy work. We also remind ourselves that our many identities may discriminate and privilege us at different points in time, so our plans must be nuanced. It must take into account that there is no one type of woman – we are all complex,” she concluded.