Category Archives: Women

Empowering Pakistani Women through Education and Family Planning

Development and Poverty, Education, Population, Women

Source: The WIP

A happy family: Zahoora with husband Rahib Ali and three children at their ‘Safe Space’. Photograph courtesy of the Indus Resource Centre.

Empowerment is opening up new spaces for personal development for women in Pakistan. As opportunities for education come within their reach women are learning how to upgrade their lives. This has brought the realization that a big family may not be a blessing, and can actually handicap women. This is a big leap from where women were a few years ago, when motherhood was widely regarded as a status symbol. The more male children women had the more respect they could command. Sons brought a sense of security as they consolidated a woman’s position in the household and ensured that a second wife would not displace her.
As women become empowered through education and work, some are opting for small families.
Continue reading Empowering Pakistani Women through Education and Family Planning →

Catalysts for Change

Human Rights, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

When it comes to laws governing women’s rights, it is easy to get caught up in a chicken first or egg first debate. Should laws precede social change or should it be the other way around? Can laws change ground realities? Or do changes in society force the pace of legislation?

These questions are nothing new in Pakistan’s context. This month the International Women’s Day will, once again, bring into focus this debate because the gap between the laws and their implementation has been widening. If one were to see the state of oppression of women in the country today – the incidence of violence against them is growing horrendously – it is quite difficult to believe that such pro-women laws are there on our statute books. But conversely, laws that promise justice and equality – even though they are merely symbolic – do serve as catalysts for change if there are activists around to take up the women’s cause.
Continue reading Catalysts for Change →

Who are the killers?

Children and Youth, Health, Population, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN her poignant collection of poetry, Ojagiyal Akhiyun ja Sapna (‘Dreams of Waking Eyes’), Amar Sindhu, a professor of philosophy at the Sindh University, writes of the ‘Ideal Woman’ (aadarshi aurat) and warns her that to move with society she will have to toss away her dreams and idealism like “gand kichre ain faltoo saamaan” (garbage and waste goods).

It is a sad but true observation for International Women’s Day ( March 8 ) that after decades of struggle for emancipation and empowerment, we still have women in Pakistan who are denied their dreams — especially if they don’t conform to society’s mores. Age is no consideration. Even innocent baby girls if they are unwanted have their lives snuffed out at birth. Continue reading Who are the killers? →

The battle must go on

Constitution, Politics, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

SUCH are the paradoxes in Pakistan’s politics, that at a time our politicians are locked in a grim power struggle in Islamabad, the same gentlemen joined hands to pass unanimously the women’s commission bill last Thursday.

Whether this show of unity on a matter concerning women should be interpreted as an act of chivalry or a demonstration of ‘woman power’, it will be widely welcomed. One must, however, admit that it was the clout of the women’s caucus and the determination of the speaker — also a woman — to get the treasury and opposition benches to forge a consensus that ultimately carried the day. The bill is expected to have a smooth sailing in the Senate. Continue reading The battle must go on →

Won’t we be counted?

Economy, Population, Women

ACCORDING to Pakistan’s Population Census Organisation’s website, enumeration of the population should have been completed on Sept 27, 2011. This has not been done.

Even the house-listing operation that precedes the head count has run into road blocks. One can therefore only make wild guesses about the size of our population. According to the government, the population of Pakistan today stands at 177.1 million. The growth rate, as claimed by the Pakistan Economic Survey 2010-11, stands at 2.05 per cent per annum.

This is cause for serious concern as last year’s Survey had quoted the population growth rate to be 1.51 per cent. Continue reading Won’t we be counted? →