Daily Times

Selective amnesia and apathy keeps the development business alive. Bonded labourers, maids, street children, transgenders, disabled, homeless, old, displaced and/or trafficked, people etc. remain mostly marginalised or missed out from the radar of mainstream programs in the society. In Pakistan, the injustices, discrimination and prejudices are affirmed through inaction towards recurring human rights violations taking place in the country.

These include discrimination of divorced women in the same taxation system that offers tax breaks to widows, dowry systems, stranded and abandoned Pakistani Biharis, terror attacks that target the Hazara community and the helpless widows of the victims, forced conversions of non-Muslim minorities, the issues of arsenic water and toxic food items, to name a few. Short-lived projects with empty slogans, funded by a donor, executed by a non-profit and endorsed by any public sector organisation, may feature some of these forms of violence in some specific geographical and contextual settings, only to be buried as a report later. It serves as a reminder that some humans are always more equal than the others.

The campaign titled ‘16-days of activism’, starting from November 25 till December 10, to confront Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), engages rights-activists, every year since 1991. It is indeed an energiser for the passionate campaigners who utilise this specific period to lobby and advocate for some public policies and programs that could tackle and terminate sexual and gender-based violence. However, at times certain choreographed activism presented in aristocratic settings seldom are meaningful to any woman or girl who is living below the poverty line in slums or struggling to get out of abuse in a middle class family. This brand of development continues to ensure privileged circumstances of many stakeholders.

Strangely enough, aggression, brutality and callousness are not always executed by any outsider, adversary or conventional criminal. Family members, friends and trusted figures in the community, are often the primary source of the violence that women, girls and children undergo. As compared to men and boys, women and girls are at greater risk of sexual violence, harassment and exploitation.

Globally, adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable i.e. more than one in four girls’ first sexual intercourse is forced or coerced. The magnitude and manner of violence differs for girls and boys. Low education is one of the many risk factors causing violence, but school-related violence, according to the UN Women, is encountered by an estimated 246 million girls and boys. In 2014, a study by Norwegian, Sociologist Heidi Bjelland concluded that whenever power is unevenly allocated in a relationship, the chance of physical and psychological abuse increases and high income or education works as protection against acts of violence only as far as the income and education does not exceed that of the partner.

Aggression, brutality and callousness are not always executed by any outsider, adversary or conventional criminal. Family members, friends and trusted figures in the community, are often the primary source of the violence that women, girls and children undergo

Abuses occur, at some point in the lives of 70 per cent of women by an intimate partner and 38 per cent are murdered. The rates of violence by an intimate partner range from 15 per cent in Japan, to 70 per cent in Ethiopia and Peru. According to WHO, 8,000,000, is the number of days of paid work women in the US lose every year because of the abuse perpetrated against them by their current or former male partners. This loss is equivalent to over 32,000 full-time jobs. It seems no society, social class; setting, sex and age group are immune from violence.

The ten best countries for women in terms of gender equality, as proclaimed by the Gender Global report of the World Economic Forum in 2017, in descending order are Iceland, Norway, Finland, Rwanda, Sweden, Nicaragua, Slovenia, Ireland, New Zealand and Philippines. To develop this index economically, rich and poor countries are compared on equal footings and their gender-gaps are calculated in accessing resources such as education, healthcare and in opportunities to participate in political and economic processes. The countries at the bottom five of the list are Yemen (144), Pakistan (143), Syria (142), Chad (141) and Iran (140).

The sexual and gender — based Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a public health issue and infringement of human rights. The consequence of that the affected women and girls endure, also impacts the families, society, subcultures and ultimately the country in several structures, shapes and styles. The statistics on the endemic violence though limited and difficult to retrieve, are much required to struggle with their lessening and elimination.

Disadvantaged communities in Pakistan are incessantly paying the penalty of vulnerability. Programmatic engagements with visible involvement of multi-level stakeholders are weak in Pakistan. Deficient multi-sectoral and inter-sectional sectoral engagements are repeatedly failing to create sustainable solutions to prevent and prosecute violence. Inequitable attention, advocacy and activism govern the actions of the movers and shakers in the concerned quarters. Apathy has to be replaced by focused attention towards neglected forms of the VAWG. Allocation of more resources including courage to expand research on the spectrum of violence should be a way forward. The power of patriarchy has to be contested with the power of empathy, reliable research and more responsible media. To silence the shocking statistics, the governments should take practical steps to end gender-based inequality.

The writer is a gender expert, researcher, activist and a free thinker. She tweets @survivorwins

Published in Daily Times, December 11^th 2017.