‘Connect women’s movement to electoral politics’

LAHORE

Awami Workers Party activist Alia Amirali on Friday stressed the need for connecting women’s movement and scattered feminist efforts with the electoral politics in the country. She said feminism was not just about the cultural or social norms, it was also a political concern needing political solutions. She was speaking at the AWP’s 2nd All Punjab Women’s Conference on Friday.

Amirali urged the activists in the audience to focus their energies on expansion of the party's organisation if they wanted to effectively address the concerns of the working women. She said women activists should be cautious of the agenda for promotion of women’s rights in non-western countries advocated by the United Nations and international Non-Government Organisations (INGOs). She said these institutions were an integral part of the capitalist and patriarchal system of the nation-states. “How can we trust these organisations with the task of women’s emancipation,” she asked. AWP President Abid Hasan Minto said liberation of the women could not be achieved without transforming the country’s economy along socialist ideals. He said dominant position of men was tied to their control over state institutions pertaining to use of violence and force. “Mobilisation of all the marginalised social groups against feudal and crony capitalist economic system is needed to achieve the emancipation of women,” he said.

AWP Finance Secretary Shazia Khan said instances of violence and abuse against women were a byproduct of behaviour emerging out of socialisation of men and women based on patriarchal gender norms.

AWP leader Ismat Shahjahan said in Pakistan gender was not the only factor of violence against women. She said religion, economic class and national identity had contributed to such instances. Shahjahan said despite their sincere efforts to oppose the patriarchy and seek gender equality, Left parties had yet to ensure adequate representation of working women in their organisational structures. “More work is needed to achieve this aim,” she said. She said successful materialisation of the ideology of their leader Marxist, feminist and ethnic-nationalist organisations needed to work hand in hand.

Other speakers included women activists from various cities of the province and researchers working on issues concerning women.  

Saleha Rauf, a Lahore-based activist, spoke about the plight of women engaged in cotton picking work in farms. She said because their employers didn’t provide them with resources to undertake precautionary measures, a majority of these women were suffering from chronic diseases including lung cancer. She lamented there were no provisions for cotton pickers in laws on workplace safety.

AWP Lahore Women’s Secretary Nusrat Basheer Zafar highlighted the issues of wage disparity between working men and women and the failure of the Labour Department to address concerns of the working women. “Majority of the staff at the Labour Department are men, she added. They are not concerned about the working women’s issues,” she said.