Women's groups demand equality and justice

Women's groups lobbied the government on Thursday - International Women's Day - and called for more action to address discrimination against women in all aspects of Pakistani life, from traditional discrimination to electoral reform. Although there have been significant developments in women's representation in local government, and the appointment of a National Commission on the Status of Women, rights groups insist that far more needs to be done to address Pakistan's appalling record of domestic violence, honour killings and marginalisation. The most significant breakthrough came in December when, for the first time in Pakistan, 33 percent of seats were reserved for women through direct election in the lowest tier of government, the union councils. Director of the national nongovernmental organisation, the Aurat Foundation, Shahla Zia, told IRIN that despite scepticism as to whether women would take up the challenge, approximately 85 percent of the seats were filled. With focus now moving to the second phase of elections with polls in other districts of the country, Zia claims the forecast is positive. "Roughly double the number of women have filed nomination forms than are seats available. So a very strong precedent has been established," she said. In September, Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf established a National Commission on the Status of Women to advise the government on policies directly affecting women. However rights groups say the Commission lacks any authority to ensure that its recommendations are implemented. According to Zia, the commission has not been given an official consultative status with reference to policy-development, planning or law-making, undermining its effectiveness as an autonomous watchdog. "It has only been assigned the role of making suitable recommendations about the implementation of policy and suggesting repeal, amendment or new legislation." Despite these positive moves, media reports continue to highlight accounts of marital rape, trafficking of women and young girls and incidences of domestic violence in Pakistan. According to a US State Department report on human rights practices in Pakistan released in February, anywhere from 70-90 percent of women are victims of domestic violence at the hands of their husbands, in-laws or other relatives. A crisis centre for women in distress registered 1,050 cases of domestic violence since its opening in Islamabad in 1997 to January 2001. The centre's project manager Zaman Islam told IRIN that many wives in Pakistan from the lower to middle class were made to believe early on in life that it was their husbands right to beat them. A coalition of NGOs, the Joint Action Committee for Citizens Rights, warned on Thursday that violence against women in Pakistan had "assumed alarming proportions", with only a fraction of cases reported. Barbaric customary practices, such as ‘honour killings’, are carried out with impunity, it said. While the tradition of killing those suspected of illicit sexual relations in order to restore tribal or family honour applies equally to both sexes, it is women who are often killed. Human rights NGO, the Progressive Women's Organisation, estimates that as many as 300 women are killed each year by their husbands or family, mostly as a result of honour killings. The joint action committee claims the current laws have promoted violence against women and have allowed the perpetrators to go free. "We demand the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances. We further demand that laws be enacted to protect women victims of domestic violence and to strengthen women’s legal and social status." The Hudood Ordinances, announced by the central martial law government in 1979, aimed to make the Penal Code more Islamic. They provide for harsh punishments for violations of Shari'a (Islamic law), including death by stoning for unlawful sexual relations. Women frequently are charged under the Hudood laws for sexual misconduct, such as adultery. According to the US State Department, in 1998 about one-third of the women in jails in Lahore, Peshawar, and Mardan were awaiting trial for adultery. Furthermore the state department report says that discrimination against women is rife in rural areas of Pakistan, particularly Sindh and Baluchistan in the south, where it claims female literacy rates are two percent or less. It reports that a survey of rural females by the National Institute of Psychology found 42 percent of parents cited "no financial benefit" as the reason they kept their daughters from attending school, and sent their sons instead. The report added: "In Karachi, only 28 percent of girls completing matriculation [10th grade] exams in science during the year would be able to find places in government-run colleges, as opposed to 83 percent of boys passing the same tests." In Baluchistan conditions are much worse, with only two percent of the province's women having received any formal education, it said. In light of the continuing plight of women in Pakistan, the joint action committee appealed to the government on Thursday for more progress on women's issues. A statement said that Pakistan's dominant development model, failed to meet the fundamental needs of the people, and generated great material wealth for a few, while impoverishing many, especially women. It added: "Women’s work in the home and outside continues to remain invisible and unacknowledged, though it forms the bedrock of all economic activity. We demand that economic structures be built on alternative models that are based on equality, sustainability and justice." Meanwhile in the capital Islamabad women's rights activists were marching on Parliament House on Thursday to mark International Women's Day. On Sunday 11 March, approximately 180 people, including those women elected in the first phase of local body elections in December, will meet in Islamabad to launch a training convention for Women Councillors.