Category Archives: Women

An acre for every woman

Development and Poverty, Economy, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

According to Amartya Sen, people starve not because there is not enough food to feed them but because food is unaffordable. It is also important to note that starvation is not the extreme condition of going without food. It also implies insufficient food intake as to cause malnourishment. If women are given the title to a little land they will grow enough food to feed their family and sell the surplus they produce. Thus they will meet their other needs. The idea is not far-fetched because at present eighty per cent of the work on farms is performed by women in the form of unpaid female labour. It receives no formal recognition. To provide an acre to every woman would call for some kind of land reforms which amounts to asking for the moon in Pakistan today. Hence Green Economics Initiative’s slogan “an acre for every woman” also offers an alternative, “or at least sixteen square feet”. What use will sixteen square feet be for agriculture, one may ask.

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Karachi mafia seek political clout with land grabs

Archive Edition, Development and Poverty, Guest Contributor, Notable Personalities, Women

Taimur Khan

KARACHI // Sometimes, politically motivated killings in Karachi rise, as they did after a councillor was assassinated this year and more than 100 people died in 72 hours of revenge attacks.

But on most days, the hum of death in Pakistan’s largest city is steady and routine. It is fuelled by the city’s ethnic political parties and their “land mafias”, who fight to control property that provides profits and political power. Continue reading Karachi mafia seek political clout with land grabs →

The anatomy of advocacy

Human Rights, Women,

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

AT a recent art exhibition on honour killing in Karachi and that was curated by eminent art critic and editor of NuktaArt, Niilofur Farrukh, the presentations to articulate various concerns were followed by a lively dialogue.

One member of the audience raised the point that the exhibition and discussion should have been held in Nasirabad. This is a district in Balochistan where some women were allegedly buried alive in a case of honour killing in 2008 that shocked the nation. It was to the memory of these women that the exhibition was dedicated.

The idea was that a dialogue at the site of the horrendous incident would have raised awareness among followers of such obscurantist customs. No one would dispute the need to enlighten people in under-developed regions. But exercises such as the exhibition, the dialogue that was preceded by the screening of Beena Sarwar`s film on Mukhtaran Mai, Attiya Dawood`s poetry recital, Khadija Hussain`s poignant report on her visit to Nasirabad and an inspiring talk by Amar Sindhu are designed not just for consciousness raising. They are also intended to be a political statement and designed to give a voice to people in similar circumstances.

Moreover, in the Nasirabad case the act of defiance came from the victims themselves who seemed to be fully aware of their right to choose their own life partners. They must also have been aware of the risks they took. Theirs was an act of courage. Unfortunately, the affected party was too weak to even make its voice heard — their death gave them the publicity that could have helped them.

The Nasirabad women do not need any more education. It is their killers who definitely need to be told that there is no honour in killing. But will an exhibition of this kind in the heart of the region where such crimes are committed so brazenly change the male mindset? A heated debate in the Senate did not stir the conscience of those who uphold honour killing as a `custom`. They were not politically ostracised. On the contrary, one was appointed a minister.

So depraved is our political culture, that more than a decade ago a wealthy businessman and head of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce could arrange for the murder of his daughter in her lawyer`s office in Lahore for the `crime` of seeking release from an unhappy marriage. This heinous deed did not cast a blot on his public standing and the Senate refused to condemn his action.

Hence the need of the moment is to lobby and arrange advocacy campaigns all over the country to convince the powers-that-be that they will have to address the issues of women`s rights as well as many other concerns that have a direct bearing on the lives of people.

Often the laws do not protect them and need to be changed. If the victims are weak they can`t make inroads into the corridors of power. Since they are generally disadvantaged due to the discrimination they face they need help in penetrating the wall of apathy that surrounds our decision-makers. The Women`s Action Forum and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan are doing this vigorously.

Many other causes call for advocacy. Be it Aasiya Bibi`s death sentence under the blasphemy law or the injustices minorities suffer on account of their religious beliefs or the denial of rights to disabled people, there is much for human rights activists to take up.

In a country where social injustice is rampant, democratic traditions are weak, illiteracy rates high, intolerance is common and the rule of law virtually absent, no disadvantaged section of society can take it for granted that it will get its rights in due course and must depend on advocacy and lobbying to move its cause forward, bringing it to the attention of lawmakers, the judiciary and administration. Even when parliamentarians espouse their cause — sometimes they also become a part of the advocacy exercise — there is need to keep the pressure on.

The US which claims to be a democratic dispensation recognises lobbying as an institutional process but carries it to the extreme by reducing it to a financial transaction. This involvement of money negates the very concept of advocacy for the rights of the weak by making it dependent on financial empowerment.

Therefore, advocacy and lobbying must be accepted as a tool to promote the rights of society`s weaker sections. Its aim should be to influence the thinking of people who are in a position to introduce changes in the system.

To be effective, lobbyists must do their homework well. They must spell out their demands clearly and must also give wide participation to the people whose rights are being sought. That is important to make advocacy convincing. That is why I believe advocacy groups should have strong links with organisations working at the grass-roots. Thus alone will they be able to bring out people in large numbers in protest marches whenever these have to be held as a show of strength.

Another area where advocacy groups have to improve their performance is that of the selection of the causes they espouse. It is politically incorrect if they address one issue because it has won international publicity and not another because it is too mundane to make headline news even though a blatant violation of human rights is involved in both.

In a recent News Night programme with Talat Hussain on DawnNews, five guests who spoke on the issue of the rights of people with disabilities complained that no mainstream body in Pakistan is championing their cause.

This is strange considering that these rights have entered the domain of law through the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (that Pakistan signed in 2008 but has not ratified). The number of people with disabilities is sizeable — nearly 10 million. Is it, as Zahid Abdullah, an activist in Pakistan`s fledgling disability movement, says, that disability issues are not `glamorous`?

Blasphemy law amendment

Human Rights, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE uproar following Aasiya Bibi`s death sentence for alleged blasphemy has a familiar ring to it. If the past is anything to go by, we can be assured that Aasiya Bibi will not go to the gallows.

For every time a case of an alleged blasphemer sentenced to death has come into the limelight, there has been a hue and cry from the enlightened section of Pakistani society as well as human rights activists abroad, and the ruler of the day has had to give a reprieve to the condemned.

What next? Here is the example of Mohammad Younus Sheikh, a doctor/teacher in Rawalpindi, who was hauled up in 2000 under the infamous Section 295-C, found guilty and sentenced to death. Dr Sheikh won the support of some media persons and diplomats. His appeal led to a retrial that resulted in his acquittal. Dawn

Ardeshir Cowasjee and I wrote in support of Dr Sheikh in . After he had left Pakistan this erstwhile death row prisoner wrote me a letter of thanks.

I quote verbatim from his communication to convey the emotions of a person who had faced the hangman`s noose for “false and fabricated charges”: “The retrial was held in November [2003]. This time in view of the threats my lawyers had received, I decided to conduct my own defence. I was acquitted on Nov 20 and released in great secrecy on the 21st. Following my release I spent several weeks visiting family and friends, but during this time I received indirectly a number of threats to my life, and in the second week of January I heard that my accusers had appealed against my acquittal. I realised that for my safety I had to leave my country.”

He continued, “Happy though I am to be free, I cannot forget that as long as the blasphemy laws are on the statute books, they will continue to be misused. At this very moment [January 2004] there are at least 100 innocent people, victims of these black laws, languishing in various jails and lock-ups in Pakistan awaiting an uncertain future.

“It is a sad reflection on the state of society in Pakistan that even when individuals are exonerated, their lives may still be threatened by the fundamentalists and many will be forced to flee Pakistan. The state seems unable to provide us protection. I was not at all eager to leave my country and would willingly have stayed with my family and friends.”

That should give us an idea of the fate that awaits Aasiya Bibi. This is how it has been since the 1980s when Gen Ziaul Haq changed the laws in vogue since colonial times to introduce a draconian provision (Section 295-C) that prescribes the death penalty for making derogatory remarks against the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Isn`t it strange that a law that is supposedly designed to deter blasphemy has actually led to a rise in the number of cases reported?

Between 1927 and 1986 (the year the amendment to the Pakistan Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code became effective) 10 cases of blasphemy were reported. In 1988-2005, 647 people were charged for offences under this law and half of them were non-Muslims. More than 20 were murdered while they were under trial. A judge who acquitted an alleged blasphemer was also killed.

It requires no profound wisdom to see that the law is being abused to settle personal scores, tyrannise over the minorities and for economic gains. The laws have become a weapon for the fundamentalists to inflict fear on a society that has been becoming increasing intolerant. If people like Dr Sheikh have been saved it is because activists raised a hue and cry. But this speaks of a fire-fighting approach — the blasphemy law remains intact.

All kudos to Sherry Rehman, the PPP MNA, for taking the bold step of introducing a bill in the National Assembly recently that seeks to amend the blasphemy law. Ideally this law should have been done away with altogether. Sherry Rehman also admits that. But she says “there is no appetite for repeal”. Hence she has moved an amendment to take the bite out of the law. That is the approach she adopted for the Hudood laws — and succeeded.

As a tenacious fighter for human rights causes Sherry Rehman has sound credentials, and she must be supported. After all who would understand the mindset of her fellow parliamentarians better? Explaining the amended law, Sherry Rehman says that the blasphemy amendment bill requires the accuser to establish the “malicious intent” of the accused.

Since the death penalty has been removed and sentences reduced in the law, the incentive to use the law for other advantages has also been removed.

To deter false accusers with mala fide intent a clause has been added that penalises strongly all false accusations and there is a provision that all blasphemy cases will be moved to the high courts where higher public scrutiny is possible and miscarriages of justice less likely.

Dr Sheikh, who now lives abroad and campaigns for the repeal of the laws, wrote to me on “behalf of the victims of blasphemy laws” to say they “welcome” the proposed amendments. He suggests some additions which the mover of the bill could consider to further strengthen it.

First, compensation should be paid for the expenses incurred, the time spent in prisons which could have been used for socio-economic activity, for the life of a person killed or injured while in prison or on bail, or after being acquitted by the courts. Secondly, a criminal case against false accusers and false witnesses should be instituted automatically. Thirdly, the proposed amendments should apply to all the cases registered with the police since the introduction of the blasphemy laws. n

Dr Sheikh has a valid point. It is time for the Assembly to begin a serious debate on the blasphemy laws now that Sherry Rehman has taken the plunge.