Daily Times

Sindh, the second largest province in Pakistan, is a land that shares quite a detailed history regarding its traditions, norms and social values. Its history is ancient; therefore most of the norms and traditions that are still followed today are a result of its intriguing past.

However, Women in interior Sindh remain in awful conditions. They are barred from participation in any field of life. In interior Sindh a woman’s role is limited the household and she is forced to live a life of a second-class citizen. Women exist in numbers nearly equal to that of men. Ever since the advent of humanity women have been in miserable condition and have been suffering from unrelenting issues. These problems can be traced back to cultural differences, gender discrimination, religious differences, misunderstanding or misconception of teachings of Islam, economic differences, and so forth have substantially attributed to the deplorable condition of women in Sindh.

We cannot deny the fact that our world has reached its advancements in all fields of life, yet the issue of women’s oppression hasn’t been solved. However, despite the passage of different pro-women laws and laws on prevention of violence against women, reports both published and unpublished, court cases and incidents through other sources shows that violence against women still occurs in Sindh.

Pakistan has enacted laws like the Early Child Marriage Restraint Act, Anti Sexual Harassment law (Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010), Amendment in Criminal Procedure Code (and PPC) 2010; The Domestic Violence (Prevention and protection Act) 2013, Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Act, 2008, The Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 which were needed but have failed to bring any improvement in women’s security or to decrease incidents of violence against women. Despite decision by the Sindh High Court that if killing of women in the name of Honor occurred in any part of the province, responsibility will be on the police officials of that area, still incidents are occurring and are being reported. Most importantly, Pakistan is also party to ICCPR, CEDAW, CRC, ICESCR, and has been on seat of UN Security Council for many times but these rights and protections have not been realised.

Women in rural Sindh are particularly handicapped by the entrenched feudal system and religious fundamentalism. The government fails to protect them since its run primarily by members of the landed class

Societal injustice for women is so widespread that it reminded me of when I was having a focus group discussion in District Ghotki with few local rural women; they were covered from head to toe according to traditions. They told me that their husbands and family members refused to allow them to study or work. They also expressed a lack of self worth. Many of the women said their fathers and brothers preferred to have them in work in the fields while they kept an eye on them. Their accounts left me speechless and depressed.

It’s a sad reality that in Sindh, patriarchal customs of control over women include the institutionalisation of extremely restrictive codes of behaviour for women, practice of rigid gender segregation, specific forms of family and kinship, and a powerful ideology linking family honor to female virtue. Men are entrusted with safeguarding this family honor through their control over their family’s women, controlling, specifically, the female body, both in terms of sexuality and its reproductive ability. Thus, when a woman’s behaviour is seen to threaten the patriarchal order, it is her body that is punished with beating, burnings, sexual abuse, and murder in the name of “honor.” Women in Sindh are particularly handicapped by the entrenched feudal system in rural Sindhi society, religious fundamentalists, and the government, which is run primarily by members of the ruling feudal caste. There are several factors that impede the development of women in Sindh, including very low legal status women as well as the lack of political power and will to change the gender disparity.

It is known that the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2011 ranked Pakistan as the third most dangerous country in the world for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the other side the parliament made 20 laws in 2015. The provincial legislatures adopted 120 laws. With 40 laws enacted, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had the highest legislative output, followed by Sindh (32), Punjab (31) and Balochistan (17). The provinces continued to use expanded legislative authority under the 18th Constitutional Amendment to enact several important laws, but implementation mechanism lagged behind.

I personally believe that different stakeholders needed to work together to create better policy and take stronger steps to address the issue of discrimination and violence against women rather sitting in drawing rooms and having cozy sofa debates and discussing about the issues of women. We as a nation needs to speak regarding the rights of women and take a clear stance against all who impede women’s emancipation. We have to clear that women bear no lower status than that of men and that they the sexes are equal.

While concluding, Sindh government needs to make better laws relating to women, however I request them to implement already established laws with full ease, also build capacities of relevant public institutions and inform the people about their existence, their scope and implications of violations through all means.

The writer is a social and political activist based in Lahore. He has done his Maters and MPhil in Communication Studies. He can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com, tweets at Salmani_salu

Published in Daily Times, November 8^th 2017.