Women face violence, harassment at camps

A small group of women, their colourful shawls flapping gently in the breeze, huddle on a string cot at a relief camp in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). As the women, all from the same village near Balakot, one of the areas worst hit by the 8 October quake, collectively clean the rice they plan to cook for their evening meal; their talk, once more, is of the violence they and their children face at the camp where they have been based now for over four weeks. "Look at this. My husband beat me so badly last night I can hardly move my right arm," says Raheela, 35, a mother of six, as she gingerly rolls up her sleeve to display the dark bruises and welts visible all along her arm. The other five women present all shake their heads in sympathy, but seem neither shocked nor surprised. Domestic violence is, after all, a part of life for many of them – and the situation has worsened in the grim, post-quake scenario at camps. Families live in cramped quarters, men are increasingly frustrated by the lack of employment or activity available to them, and children, many still out of school, drift aimlessly through the settlements. "At home, the men leave for work early in the day, and return home tired in the evening, wanting only their meal and some rest. Here, they simply hang around all day, and then vent their anger and frustration over the situation on us and the kids," said Asma, 24. Asma, who married last year in her village near Balakot, explained that her husband, Azeem, had beaten her for the first time a few days ago, after she failed to cook the lentils he had requested to his liking. Seven months pregnant, Asma said as her husband pummelled her, she felt sharp pains in her abdomen for several hours. "It is hard to prepare food here. We get limited dry rations daily now, but the spices and even the cooking lentils are in short supply," she said, by way of explanation. Similar complaints of domestic violence are being heard at camps across affected areas. According to the Pakistani military, at least 35,000 quake survivors are now based at camps set up across NWFP alone. An equal number or more are believed to be located in camps in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region, the largest numbers in the capital, Muzzafarabad. Women in camps in Battagram, some 45 km beyond Balakot, where many villages have been completely flattened, complain also about the lack of privacy. "We cannot even go to the toilet in peace. If we move far away from the camp in search of privacy behind boulders or bushes, young men follow us, and we are scared of being raped," said Sunaiya, 19, one of the many young women based at the camp. She added that she, her mother and two younger sisters, living in a tent, felt particularly vulnerable as their father had died in the quake "and people here know we have no one to protect us." As relief workers familiar with the traditional codes and cultures of the region explain, the problem is aggravated by the fact that survivors from many villages are living together at the various camps. "They do not know each other. Many young women, and young men, who have no ties of kinship, are forced to live here in close proximity, and there is no doubt that this is leading to harassment of women. There have already been reports of molestations and attempted rape," said Samad Khan, a businessman based at Abbotabad, who has been working as an organiser at one of the several camps scattered around Battagram. In the deeply conservative NWFP region affected by the quake, women traditionally lead cloistered lives. Some now based at camps have in fact never previously left their villages, and only rarely ventured more than a few kilometres from their homes. The literacy rate for women in Battagram district is only 6.5 percent – one of the lowest in the country, and indeed anywhere in South Asia. For men, the literacy rate of just over 29 percent is well below the national average. Of the literate women, a still smaller number have been educated beyond the primary level. In such a situation, the problems at camps are not entirely unexpected. Indeed, in the mountains of the Allai area in Battagram, and in other parts of the district as well, families say they will "never" move to camps as they will not expose their women to the "looks of strange men". Even as freezing winds whip the shattered settlements atop hills, people prefer to brave such conditions rather than move to congested tented villages. Accounts of women being harassed or assaulted at camps have added to their determination to brave it out, rather than expose women to what they perceive ss 'dishonour'. Human rights organisations have pointed out that, even in ordinary circumstances, the rate of domestic violence is extremely high across the country as a whole. Past studies by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) have found that up to 90 percent of women in the country suffer physical, sexual or verbal abuse, while at least eight women are raped every 24 hours somewhere in the country. "Given these facts, the stories from the camps are not surprising. But there is obviously a need to do much more to protect women. The accounts of violence suffered by them and by the children are increasing by the day." said Mehboob Ahmed Khan of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), from Muzzafarabad. He also believed the fact that many men being unemployed was adding to the crisis, and suggested the men and young boys "at least be more actively engaged in relief work to keep them occupied and busy." Relief agencies have already called for more women volunteers, doctors and nurses at camps. It has been noted that women survivors are often reluctant to speak to men about the problems they face, especially sensitive family issues such as domestic violence. Despite this, it has however been observed that the conditions for women at camps are particularly grim, with fears that the violence inflicted on them may increase as the mental trauma and frustrations caused by displacement and uncertainty take a still firmer hold on those left behind in the terrible aftermath of the quake.