Monday, Aug 5 2002
State of Affairs
- Zahra JamshedZahra Jamshed is a project manager with a consulting firm in NY City. During her extensive travel assignments, she has made good friends from different parts of the world and likes to socialize with quality people. She is an avid reader of inspirational writings and finds books to be a great sense of relief in the hustle bustle of life.
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The recent incident where an 18 year old was subjected to gang rape in Multan, on the orders of a local tribal council, has brought immense shame to Pakistan's name in the international community. After reading the account of this incident on BBC, NY Times, Dawn and some other newspapers, I picked a few reviews that Pakistan has been receiving on the issues of violation of women’s rights.
In my view, there are two sides to "violation."
a) Missing law and order; and
b) Lacking ethics in the community.
Sadly, in Pakistan, there has been little emphasis on enforcing a structured law and order system. There has been a lot of emphasis on sending bureaucrats and other senior officials abroad to invite the expats for investing in Pakistan; but whenever a question is asked on the measures being taken around the law and order situation, there has not been any satisfactory response. One wonders the motivating factor here? One cannot generalize on the lack of ethics in the community; but reading about the treatment being granted to the women of our country, there is no other way but to pay serious attention to the lacking components.
This has not been the first incident where a woman had to go through such humiliation. I do not want to go into the gross details, but I do want to suggest the law enforcers (if they are still alive and breathing and have not been sniffing any kind of drugs from the opium farms in Baluchistan and NWFP) that they need to resign from their posts. They do not deserve to sit there! Only in a country like Pakistan, a mentally deranged panchayut can sit to pass laws violating the basic human rights. Hats Off!
It’s high time the government must enforce laws for the protection of women. If laws of constitution can be twisted to accommodate the ruling government, if crooks can be made to sit in panchayuts “local councils”, if killers can get away scot-free after murdering a young woman in her lawyer’s office then having laws to protect women is not asking for too much. Firstly, it’s not against the constitution (if and only if something is left there). Secondly, it’s not against the basic ethics of humanity. Rest is just a joke.
Interestingly, there is a lot of hoopla as soon as the maulvis see women working side by side with men. One of the links below state how the maulvis start creating problems for the working women by giving sermons to open public before the Friday Prayers. There should be a strict ban on any such sermons. These sermons have been polluting the minds of naïve masses, and as a result have been creating a retarded society. I would question these maulvis that why did not they protest on the recent shameful act by the local council? Where did their conscience die at that time? Did anyone ever teach them that Haqooq’al’Ibaad [rights of people] take precedence over Haqooq’allah [rights of God]?
Lately, there has been too much tension on the borders, as the “defenders” want to protect the land of Kashmir. What about the human beings existing on the soil of Pakistan? Do they count? Apparently, saving the land of Kashmir and its people is far more important than saving the honor and lives of Pakistanis. There is something severely wrong in the current foundation of Pakistan. Someone needs to revisit that and come up with a revised version soon before the last Pakistani vanishes from the face of earth
Lastly, as the world keeps on hearing the word of “honor” being chanted
right and left in Pakistan, it will be befitting to those who violated the young girl to go through a similar kind of naked parade around the city of Multan. At the end of the parade, the women of that city ought to stone or shoot those guys to death. That will be the right punishment granted to those “ real men-of-honor.” And that punishment ought to start a new chapter in the history of Pakistan.
We, the expats, who are born and bred in Pakistan and have left the country for finer pastures, are simply sick and tired of reading the menace the country women are in. The humiliation they go through, the mal-treatment they receive and the aloofness the ruling governments show to the issues of women. Personally, I feel that Pakistan should not be granted any aid from anywhere till these issues are addressed. Who are the recipients of those grants? The armed forces? The tanks? The fighter-jets? Who?
Some links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/international/asia/02RAPE.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_2089000/2089624.stm"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1300000/1300700.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_790000/790969.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_2013000/2013362.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_721000/721313.stm
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