Is anyone listening?Article on Women Rights
WAS anyone
listening to the horrified cries of the three women buried alive — although the
police denies this — in Balochistan?
Can anyone imagine what those women must have felt when they were dragged by brute force to the place where they would see the light of day for the last time of their sojourn on this planet? Can anyone imagine the horror of feeling the earth being piled upon them as they lay bleeding and in pain? They endured this and their voices were muffled by the earth. Will they remain muffled forever?
Can anyone imagine what those women must have felt when they were dragged by brute force to the place where they would see the light of day for the last time of their sojourn on this planet? Can anyone imagine the horror of feeling the earth being piled upon them as they lay bleeding and in pain? They endured this and their voices were muffled by the earth. Will they remain muffled forever?
IRA IS DISSOLVING DAWN EDITORIAL
Nor was this the only time that such a callous deed took place. It is the experience of many other women whose voices from the grave cannot reach us. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan publishes lists of women killed in the name of honour; sold in the name of honour; enslaved in the name of honour; maimed in the name of honour; and locked up in houses in the name of honour. And each time the voices are raised to abolish these customs — abolition cannot occur without widespread condemnation first — someone stands up to defend it.
It has happened in the NWFP, in Sindh and now in Balochistan. The defence comes in the name of custom, tradition and indigenous culture. Those calling for the abolition of these barbaric practices are condemned as stooges of the West.
The same thing happened when the Mughal emperors tried to ban satti. They did not succeed but the British did. And who was the beneficiary? Not the British but the people of South Asia — especially Hindu women. So, no matter who does it, weeding out customs which make the lives of women a living hell is to be welcomed. And if the upholders of human rights are inspired by western concepts of human rights they are to be welcomed because they are trying to prevent murder and torture.
One can think of other people, inspired by narrow and selfish western interests, who sell their own people to secret western prisons without a fair trial. So, it is not a question of western or eastern inspiration, it is a question of people’s lives. Human rights are for all and if we preach them and practice them our people will benefit from them, not westerners.
Civilisation may be defined as the rise of compassion. And the indicators of this are that a society has a fair and easily accessible judicial system; the poor and the weak are protected by legal and administrative institutions and there is equality amongst creeds, classes and genders. As we can see, since the Enlightenment Europe moved away from its medieval cruelty to a concept of equality under law, fair trials and the abolition of cruel and degrading punishments.
REFORMS IN EXAMINATION SYSTEM
Even war became humanised as the Geneva Conventions made rules for prisoners of war which gave them both security and dignity. Since 9/11 this is being reversed as Aafia Siddiqui’s case demonstrates. She has been in prison without trial and even her children are not traceable. This is against the norms of justice in both war and peace in terms of civilisation. We should condemn this rolling back of compassionate institutions and the inevitable erosion of the humanitarian values upon which they are based.
We should oppose them and condemn them whether they are perpetrated by a western country or by our own rulers in the name of national interest or by our tribal and feudal chiefs in the name of their honour or tradition. We should not join the anti-humanist forces of the world in perpetuating inhumanity in the name of our indigenous culture.
Sadly enough, our religious leaders never condemn violence against women. This is probably because they too feel it is a western agenda to promote women’s rights, whereas this is a human agenda not a western one. What happens in Pakistan in the name of Islam and tradition is not Islamic by any means. In the case of the Baloch women it was apparently a case of women having chosen their husbands which is permitted both by religion and the laws of Pakistan.
But let us take the case of fornication by way of example. Even in genuine cases of pre- or extra-marital sex there is no provision in Islam for cutting down a woman as if she were an animal by a male relative acting as prosecutor and judge. What one would have expected religious leaders to emphasise is that individuals cannot take these matters into their own hands.
If there is reasonable doubt that such a thing has occurred even then no law allows husbands and brothers to chase the victim with a hatchet. At the most a trial may be held at the end of which the judge cannot give the extreme (hadd) punishment to the woman and her partner unless the actual act of penetration has been witnessed by four pious adult Muslims. As this is an almost impossible condition to meet, the death penalty is actually ruled out.
This is not what our ulema preach. Instead, they remain silent even over the most brutal murders of women. The police treat such matters as if they were not murders at all and the sessions judges are apt to release prisoners even if there is evidence against them. Moreover, if the woman had been falsely accused there is no punishment for the accusers which is in direct contradiction to Islamic law. So, what is essentially a matter of humanity and compassion has been lost sight of in this spurious western-indigenous debate.
POWER OF MEDIA IN MODERN WORLD
The values which have made women live under a perpetual reign of terror in our rural areas belong to a worldview much older than Islam. It is the ideology of male domination. Honour is the cover-up word for this domination. In this worldview women are the property of men. If they exercise their right of choice — even if it is allowed by religion and the law of the land — they are punished because by doing so they do not act as ‘property’.
If we want to present a better image of Pakistan abroad or make the claims of democracy credible at home, we should condemn such acts and call for the punishment of those responsible for them. It is up to civil society to make rulers listen to the voices of those women who reach out from their graves asking for justice. We cannot fill our voices with the pain of the sufferers but can we not aspire to their anger? Is anyone listening?
Nor was this the only time that such a callous deed took place. It is the experience of many other women whose voices from the grave cannot reach us. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan publishes lists of women killed in the name of honour; sold in the name of honour; enslaved in the name of honour; maimed in the name of honour; and locked up in houses in the name of honour. And each time the voices are raised to abolish these customs — abolition cannot occur without widespread condemnation first — someone stands up to defend it.
It has happened in the NWFP, in Sindh and now in Balochistan. The defence comes in the name of custom, tradition and indigenous culture. Those calling for the abolition of these barbaric practices are condemned as stooges of the West.
The same thing happened when the Mughal emperors tried to ban satti. They did not succeed but the British did. And who was the beneficiary? Not the British but the people of South Asia — especially Hindu women. So, no matter who does it, weeding out customs which make the lives of women a living hell is to be welcomed. And if the upholders of human rights are inspired by western concepts of human rights they are to be welcomed because they are trying to prevent murder and torture.
One can think of other people, inspired by narrow and selfish western interests, who sell their own people to secret western prisons without a fair trial. So, it is not a question of western or eastern inspiration, it is a question of people’s lives. Human rights are for all and if we preach them and practice them our people will benefit from them, not westerners.
Civilisation may be defined as the rise of compassion. And the indicators of this are that a society has a fair and easily accessible judicial system; the poor and the weak are protected by legal and administrative institutions and there is equality amongst creeds, classes and genders. As we can see, since the Enlightenment Europe moved away from its medieval cruelty to a concept of equality under law, fair trials and the abolition of cruel and degrading punishments.
REFORMS IN EXAMINATION SYSTEM
Even war became humanised as the Geneva Conventions made rules for prisoners of war which gave them both security and dignity. Since 9/11 this is being reversed as Aafia Siddiqui’s case demonstrates. She has been in prison without trial and even her children are not traceable. This is against the norms of justice in both war and peace in terms of civilisation. We should condemn this rolling back of compassionate institutions and the inevitable erosion of the humanitarian values upon which they are based.
We should oppose them and condemn them whether they are perpetrated by a western country or by our own rulers in the name of national interest or by our tribal and feudal chiefs in the name of their honour or tradition. We should not join the anti-humanist forces of the world in perpetuating inhumanity in the name of our indigenous culture.
Sadly enough, our religious leaders never condemn violence against women. This is probably because they too feel it is a western agenda to promote women’s rights, whereas this is a human agenda not a western one. What happens in Pakistan in the name of Islam and tradition is not Islamic by any means. In the case of the Baloch women it was apparently a case of women having chosen their husbands which is permitted both by religion and the laws of Pakistan.
But let us take the case of fornication by way of example. Even in genuine cases of pre- or extra-marital sex there is no provision in Islam for cutting down a woman as if she were an animal by a male relative acting as prosecutor and judge. What one would have expected religious leaders to emphasise is that individuals cannot take these matters into their own hands.
If there is reasonable doubt that such a thing has occurred even then no law allows husbands and brothers to chase the victim with a hatchet. At the most a trial may be held at the end of which the judge cannot give the extreme (hadd) punishment to the woman and her partner unless the actual act of penetration has been witnessed by four pious adult Muslims. As this is an almost impossible condition to meet, the death penalty is actually ruled out.
This is not what our ulema preach. Instead, they remain silent even over the most brutal murders of women. The police treat such matters as if they were not murders at all and the sessions judges are apt to release prisoners even if there is evidence against them. Moreover, if the woman had been falsely accused there is no punishment for the accusers which is in direct contradiction to Islamic law. So, what is essentially a matter of humanity and compassion has been lost sight of in this spurious western-indigenous debate.
POWER OF MEDIA IN MODERN WORLD
The values which have made women live under a perpetual reign of terror in our rural areas belong to a worldview much older than Islam. It is the ideology of male domination. Honour is the cover-up word for this domination. In this worldview women are the property of men. If they exercise their right of choice — even if it is allowed by religion and the law of the land — they are punished because by doing so they do not act as ‘property’.
If we want to present a better image of Pakistan abroad or make the claims of democracy credible at home, we should condemn such acts and call for the punishment of those responsible for them. It is up to civil society to make rulers listen to the voices of those women who reach out from their graves asking for justice. We cannot fill our voices with the pain of the sufferers but can we not aspire to their anger? Is anyone listening?
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