Pakistan - OP-ED International Women’s Day. Just celebrations?

Shagufta Gul

One can’t help but wonder how women domestic workers and low paid factory employees can benefit from ‘Women’s day events’ held at posh hotels. What do such events do for women who have been victims of violence, harassment or abuse? Most of the women at such events are already quite aware of what their rights are.

In the early stages of education, girls occasionally come across something about her basic human rights. These rights may be given by religion or the Constitution. However, the more she learns about her rights, the more confused she gets. How can she consider herself equal to men, when the foundation stone of discrimination is kept at home for her?

“I still remember when I would go to school, clad in a shawl even bigger than my actual height with the directives that ‘you shouldn’t look here and there while walking to school and neither should you pay attention to anyone, as you are a girl and good girls don’t look around’”, this was narrated to me by a childhood friend. Her experience is a very common one in this country.

The kind of insecurity these repetitive reminders causes in young girls cannot be ignored. Constantly reminding girls that the world is a scary place puts women in a shell. This shell remains even when women reach institutes of higher education. Women are told that they are secure when they get married, but this too is a lie. Married women continue to face threats in public life, and today — even on social media.

Constantly reminding girls that the world is a scary place puts them in a shell. This shell remains even when women reach institutes of higher education

While it is true that there is legislation in Pakistan which protects the rights of women, crimes such as honour killings and acid attacks still continue. To make matters worse, it is usually close relatives who are responsible for such attacks. Furthermore, parallel justice systems like jirgas and panchayat continue to issue verdicts against women.

Harassment and stalking on social media have only made matters worse. Hacking of women’s social media accounts has become an epidemic, and made women more insecure. Such incidents have made women more insecure than ever, and have decimated the legal protection given to women under Article 14 of the Constitution. However, a closer examination of the law reveals that it offers no protection to women. After all, this law, among many others of Pakistan’s laws use the pronoun ‘man’.

The situation is made bleaker by the fact that even many educated women don’t know how to handle these issues. Even if someone is aware of the Cybercrime Bill and other such laws, the country’s police stations still aren’t well equipped or trained when it comes to tackling such crimes. The victim blaming mentality that plagues many Pakistanis makes things worse.

While it is commendable that there is new legislation to protect the rights of women, as well as initiatives by civil society, it seems like the issue of protecting women’s rights has been put on the back burner. There is a need for concrete efforts, as well as an organised plan which involves private citizens, colleges and universities and policy makers to create awareness about women’s issues and women’s rights.

There is nothing wrong with events like Women’s Day, but we cannot pretend that a day’s worth of activism is enough. The pursuit of gender equality has to be a prolonged and continued process, so that a safe and just environment can be created for Pakistan’s women.