A third of all women in Punjab between the ages of 15 and 64 have faced some form of violence, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The survey, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), was conducted in collaboration with the Bureau of Statistics and Punjab Commission on the Status of Women, and sampled 32,000 households from 36 districts of Punjab.
Joanna Reid, the head of DFID Pakistan, said the results of the survey — which was part of generating data to advance women’s economic and social well being in Pakistan project — "tell us we have a long way to go" to empower Pakistani women.
"DFID believes passionately that women’s empowerment and participation are critical for building a prosperous Pakistan," she is quoted as saying in a UNFPA press release. "This survey tells us we have a long way to go. There are barriers in society and in the ways women feel about themselves. I hope these data will help government, communities, families and women themselves to build a more inclusive Pakistan where women are treated as and feel like equals."
Differently-abled women have it even harder, according to Fauzia Viqar, the chairperson of the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women.
"Women with disabilities experienced higher incidence of violence (10 per cent) in the past 12 months," she observed. "And 53 per cent of all women with disabilities (ages 15-64) are not involved in education and employment."
Lina M. Mousa, UNFPA's representative in Pakistan, said that the survey results are meant to "provide evidence and baseline data to inform policies, legislations and programmes to protect women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence".
While Pakistan has made progress in "creating an enabling environment to empower women ... through progressive legislation, policies and interventions", the country still has to battle through "entrenched socio-cultural norms, inadequate resources and implementation mechanisms and lack of data", the UNFPA report noted.
The shortcomings, the UN organisation said, "undermine" the country's overall efforts in this regard, and results in gender inequality in sectors including education and employment.
Thirty years ago no ideological arguments were needed to identify the evils that oppressed women or to contend that religion stood in the way of their eradication.
The position today is that Muslim women (and their allies among men) have to argue all over again that they are entitled to equality, while a resuscitated orthodoxy has been emboldened to deny the rights of women that had been accepted after hundred years of Muslim society's march towards reform and liberalisation. It is not by accident that the very first page of the report of the Commission on the Status of Women, attempts to acquit the woman of the charge of pushing Adam out of Paradise!
"Other faiths have held Eve responsible for the fall, by falling prey to the temptation of Satan, which made her eat the forbidden fruit, and then in turn tempting Adam. In the Holy Quran she is absolved of the offence of being first tempted by Satan and in turn tempting Adam which resulted in the fall of man from the state of bliss and innocence ... In the following verses of the Holy Quran, the words used are "they" "them", "their", and "both". Thus equal responsibility and blame devolves on both man and woman."
Obviously, it has now become necessary to answer people like Dr Isar Ahmad who hold women responsible for all the evil in the world and have not forgiven her for the "original sin."
Whereas in other societies women are engaged in wiping out discriminatory laws, customs and prejudices inherited from previous stages of social development, and which are incompatible with the existing social order in these societies, Pakistani women have been caught in a wave of social regression.
A hundred years ago, the road to emancipation of Muslim women in the subcontinent seemed to have been opened. Politically, emasculated and economically straitened, the subcontinent's Muslims had been forced to examine the causes of their social backwardness — and to accept certain conclusions. One of these was the realisation that at least part of their misfortunes had been invited by their oppression of women.
By treating women as an item of booty in tribal wars long after tribal wars had ceased, and by applying to them the customs of their tribal ancestors or those borrowed from the followers of Manu's anti-woman philosophy, they had promoted social evils which had rendered them incapable of facing the challenge of the times. The result was an acceptance of the need to reform Muslim society by eradicating such evils as polygamy, child marriages, seclusion, oppressive customs related to child birth and marriage, rituals associated with death and burial, and by promoting the education of women.
Whereas in other societies women are engaged in wiping out discriminatory laws, customs and prejudices inherited from previous stages of social development, and which are incompatible with the existing social order in these societies, Pakistani women have been caught in a wave of social regression
This process of purification of the Muslim society through a reinterpretation of the Islamic code must not be unduly credited to the British; it had started long before they swept through the sub-continent. However, the end of isolation from the European communities brought an external factor also into play.
In order to prove the Muslim people's entitlement to progress as equal members of the contemporary world community, forward-looking Muslim scholars had to argue that not only did their faith and their traditions not stand in the way of progress, they in fact enjoined them to acquire an order based on respect for scientific truth and human values.Also, they had to assert that far from being opposed to the emancipation of women they had a tradition of pioneering female uplift much before the rest of world. It was in this context that Amin Ali could say that the Prophet of Islam had placed women "on a footing of perfect equality with men" in the exercise of all legal powers and functions.
True, the process of reform took time to take off and it proceeded in stages but progress it did, and one by one the obstacles raised to the onward march of Muslim women by the religious orthodoxy and defenders of the feudal order began to be removed. The Muslim woman’s right to education, to inherit property, to protection from child marriage and marriage without consent, to participation in political activity with the right to vote and seek political office came to be recognised and written into law.
The gradualness of the process can be gauged from special references to women's participation, during the battle for the creation of Pakistan Muslim League conventions: first in purdah, then without it and then out into the streets. By the time Pakistan came into being it had been accepted that women would have full political, social, economic, legal, and cultural rights. In principle these rights had been conceded; the task was to accelerate the pace of enforcing them.
According to a booklet written by Maulana jafar Shah Phulwari, and published by the Institute of Islamic Culture in 1955, Islam gave a woman unlimited rights. She had the right to choose a husband for herself and to reject the choice of her guardian; there was no question of any compulsion from elders. The bridegroom had to pay mehr before or after the nikah. He would be responsible for meeting all the needs of his wife, including food, clothing, ornaments (singhar), medical treatment and other household expenses.
True, the process of reform took time to take off and it proceeded in stages but progress it did, and one by one the obstacles raised to the onward march of Muslim women by the religious orthodoxy and defenders of the feudal order began to be removed
No woman could be forced to cook and wash (except where such chores are part of a society's customs). The husband would bear all the expenses of the children and a woman who did not want to breastfeed her babies would not be forced to do so. If a wife demanded compensation for suckling the babies the husband was obliged to pay. If a woman wished to separate from her husband on grounds of dislike, she could secure a divorce.
A woman could have her own legitimate sources of earning and her earnings would belong to her. She was entitled to a share in the property left by her husband, parents, children, brothers and sisters. Lastly, a woman could lay down any appropriate conditions at the time of the wedding which had to be honoured by the bridegroom.
After defining the woman's rights, the sphere of family affairs, the author concluded that in other respects also “woman and man are equal and have identical rights.
An ideal situation, obviously, but the author, in his lifetime saw a violation of all these rights given to women by Islam. Women were abused, sold, denied their inheritance, denied maintenance - in short treated Iike chattel. The situation is grim – and pretty much the same in all four provinces of the country.
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