Recent news stories have been dominated with horrifying gender atrocities increasingly committed against women. A jirga (a tribal council) in Abbottabad ruled teenage girl be set ablaze for helping a friend elope. Last week, a 16-year old girl was murdered by her mother for marrying the man of her choice. Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan each year in the name of honour. What is unusual about the latest reported case is that the crime was perpetrated not by a father, brother or uncle but by a woman — the victim’s mother. The abominable scale and ubiquity of the practice of honour killings was recently brought to attention by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s award-winning film A Girl in the River: the Price of Forgiveness. While the director has done a marvellous job in bringing the issue to forefront, the reaction in Pakistan has been depressing. In many political circles, it was met with outright denial. Some people saw nothing wrong with the crime being highlighted in the film. Others dismissed it as simply another conspiracy against Pakistan. This clearly shows the challenges that Pakistan faces on issues highlighted by Obaid-Chinoy and Malala Yousafzai.
Gender-based violence is widespread in our society. It is the most serious and pervasive form of discrimination. Women form the majority of those living in poverty and are commonly denied access to health, education and income opportunities. They are exposed to various forms of violence and exploitation that remain largely unchallenged. There are various factors that contribute to gender-based violence including legal arrangements and socio-cultural norms. Alternate dispute settlement mechanisms such as panchayat (a village council) and jirga are widespread, particularly in rural and tribal areas. Their growth and power has been fuelled by weaknesses of our judicial systems that regularly fail to provide adequate means of justice to the poor. Such traditional arrangements, led by local chiefs or feudal lords, symbolise patriarchal mindset and regularly reinforce it by ordering murders and even rapes of women under the pretext of preserving ‘honour’. The latest burning of the teenage girl in Abbottabad is a case in point.
Violence against women can be best understood when contextualised in the wider social and cultural norms underpinning the Pakistani society. We live in a patriarchal culture where there are strict controls on female sexuality and mobility in public domains, restricting them to purely reproductive roles. Principles of inheritance and descent are patrilineal. This is a region with some of the lowest female labour participating rates in the world. This is a culture that values sons and dehumanises daughters. In a culture where cultural norms legitimise certain forms of violence and discrimination against women, how can we address the issue of gender violence?
“It’s our tradition,” one parliamentarian from Balochistan famously remarked when justifying the burying alive of some women in his province. Unfortunately, his argument resonates with the majority that perceives and justifies honour killings as cultural tradition. These traditions persist because they have been allowed to persist by the state, by the laws and by the clergy. Government has been reluctant to clamp down on religious extremist groups to preserve their vote bank. This covert support has had enormous implications for the fight against extremism and issues such as gender violence. Recently, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) proposed its own women protection bill, recommending ‘a light beating’ for the wife if she defies the husband. Such regressive proposals seek to legalise violence against women on religious grounds. Following the proposal, the chairman of the CII drew fierce criticism, persuading many Pakistanis to rally for the council to be permanently disbanded. But given our patronage-based politics, the chairman remains protected and the council unchallenged.
The London School of Economics and Political Science recently launched a commission on gender, inequality and power to identify factors that hold women back. The findings highlight four social forces that contribute to inequality: media, the economic sphere, political opportunity and the legal profession. The report shows that these social spheres do not operate independently; rather, power imbalances in one sector ripple out into others. The idea of gender inequality cutting across different social spheres as highlighted in the report can illuminate our understanding of gender-based violence in our society. For example, while gender-based violence might be thought to be a concern primarily of law, lack of women in politics will mean less political will to tackle it. Our local parliament is infused with regressive and misogynist politicians where men carrying that mindset dominate and outnumber women.
When seeking models of social progress and gender equality, we do not need to look far away. Our very own former East Pakistan, present-day Bangladesh has made remarkable strides in achieving social progress and transformation. Despite having very low levels of per capita income and poor governance, Bangladesh’s performance on the social front has been impressive. It has seen decline in fertility rates, decline in maternal mortality along with decline in gender disparity despite having an illiberal and corrupt political system. Development practitioners and academics have increasingly sought to understand this paradoxical transformation. Local experts have identified women’s agency, amongst other factors, as a major force in driving social change. Women’s enhanced access to valued resources such as land, credit, paid work and education have led to remarkable improvement in social indicators. Bangladesh’s progress in social development has largely been driven by a vibrant civil society that prioritised women empowerment through promoting microfinance, entrepreneurship and contraception.
In terms of achieving social progress and gender equality, Pakistan has a long way to go. The fight against gender violence will require holistic and multidimensional solutions. Awareness is always the first step down a better path. Media is doing a fine job by bringing incidences of honour killings and domestic abuse to public attention. At community level, there is a need to challenge socio-cultural barriers that prevent women progressing. Investment in education and economic opportunities for women is paramount. At the state level, government must look beyond personal gains to ensure protection to women. Who dare defy the clerics? Currently, prosecution even in the most heinous cases has been rare. While it is heartening to see the Women Protection Bill passed by the Punjab government, such gestures have to be supported by a greater will for prosecution and implementation. In addition, community-led initiatives can be transformational as seen in the case of Bangladesh.
The writer holds a postgraduate degree in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics & Political Science. He is a lecturer of International Development for the University of London International Programme