Fighting for Women's Rights in Pakistan - Talibans' Era and before

'This is not what we want for Pakistan'

Ayeshah Alam, V-Day activist

Renowned social activist Ayeshah Alam speaks out against the recent flogging of a teenage girl by Taliban fighters. The violence was captured on a mobile phone and spread throughout the internet, highlighting militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country of Pakistan.

When Samar Minallah first forwarded me the video of a young 17-year-old girl being flogged in public I was stunned. These were images that one had gotten used to seeing come out of Afghanistan but not my country. For years on my morning radio show and then later on my morning television show. I had been saying, “we are ignoring what's really happening in our tribal areas.” Hushed stories had been filtered through and my pathan friends kept going on about how the government was ignoring the gradual growing strength of extremist elements. We failed. As a society. When we could see the warning signs, they weren't in our faces and perhaps that's why it was easier to brush them aside...but we failed and today the flogging of our 17 year old sister...daughter is because we kept quiet then and didn't make a loud enough noise to say NO.... this is not what we want for Pakistan.

Today I am proud to see so many men and women stand up for the little girl and tell the people who did this...YOU WILL NOT DO THIS ANYMORE. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see clergymen, different political parties, all come together with one voice and say NO. Yet there are still the men in those areas, which are not under the write of the government who continue to have their beliefs and are making the women of that territory miserable. Some were cynical and said it was fake. Clearly Chaand Bibi's screams for help and mercy were not enough proof for them. Today we don't know where Chaand Bibi is. We don't know if she is still alive. The courts have asked for the victim to be produced but the family will never come forward as it "dishonors" the family name. That today in the year 2009, these events and ideas are still alive is a shameful thing. Yes governments have their role to play, but even as individuals, we can all contribute in making a change of opinions and ideas and ways of living and thinking, if only in the slightest way. We have a saying in Urdu that says "katray katray say durya bunta hai" which means “ a river can be created drop by drop,” or, as Margaret Mead liked to say "Never doubt a small group of people can change the world... it never happened any other way."

Thank you for your work in challenging accepted norms... lets keep challenging and changing so the Chaand Bibis' of the world don't have to scream helplessly anymore. - Ayeshah

Ayeshah Alam is a blogger, filmmaker and radio host based in Pakistan.

Source: http://newsite.vday.org/vmoment/alam

Humaira Awais Shahid: Fighting Forced Marriages
By Tekla Szymanski - From the January 2004 issue of World Press Review

A Pakistani legislator fights unspeakable women’s rights abuses—with surprising success.

The acid burns the hair off their heads, fuses lips, melts breasts, and leaves the victims blind, in agony, unrecognizable, and scarred for life. According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), at least 211 women were killed in 2002 and countless others maimed when their husbands threw acid in their faces to punish them for disobedience. In Urdu, the acid is called tez ab—sharp water. Some victims say that it is worse than dying.

Humaira Awais Shahid, 32, a former investigative journalist turned legislator at the Punjab Assembly, is lobbying to treat this "ruthless tribal custom" as attempted murder. On Aug. 5, 2003, the Assembly passed her resolution to treat it as a crime and prosecute the men who commit it.

According to HRCP, an estimated 70-90 percent of Pakistani women have suffered some form of domestic violence—ranging from beatings and rape to maiming and murder. Shahid became aware of these practices while researching forced marriages for the Lahore-based daily Khabrain. The so-called "blood marriages" (vinni, from the Pashto word for blood) are forced unions between rival clan members in parts of northwestern Pakistan. They settle disputes, restore honor, win forgiveness, and turn mostly minor girls—some as young as 5 years old—into servant-mistresses. Tribal jirgas, or assemblies, order the unions. One girl above the age of 7 or two girls younger than that are an acceptable compensation for, say, murder. The girls become the property of the victim's family.

According to Junaid Bahadur of Karachi's Dawn, "The girl's parents usually pray for her death so the period of their disgrace is shortened." During her research, Shahid came across the account of the forced marriages of a 17-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister. Shahid challenged the local jirga: The marriages were dissolved and a monetary settlement between the families was worked out.

Though part of the political establishment, Shahid, too, is a victim of prejudice. "To my horror, most of the time, [we] aren't allowed to speak up in debates," she says. "It's like we are just there to amuse the male legislators."
Nevertheless, in February 2003, Shahid's resolution to outlaw vinni passed unanimously. "Women's issues...will never totally disappear from the agenda of the [Assembly]," says Shahid, "but they will only be touched upon and never debated. Women's empowerment is a fashionable discourse."

Source: http://www.tekla-szymanski.com/englpeople2004.html