The past few months have been painful for Pakistani women | Women

The past few months have been particularly painful for Pakistani women.

From the terrible case of 27-year-old Noor Muqaddam being brutally tortured and beheaded in the country’s capital on July 21, to TikTok creator Ayesha Ikram being harassed and groping 400 men in the country’s main country on Independence Day One of the monuments-the Pakistan Tower in Lahore-feels as if violence against women has reached epidemic proportions.

Many people even call it “female killing” to arouse people’s attention to the scale of the problem and its systemic nature. But gender-based violence in the country is not new.

According to the 2017-2018 Pakistan Population and Health Polls, 28% of women aged 15 to 49 have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime.This is a slight decrease from the 32% of women who reported experiencing physical violence from their partners from 2012 to 2013 PollsBut given that domestic violence is a problem shrouded in secrecy and shame, both sets of figures may be seriously underestimated.

Some people suspect that because the case has received more attention, it feels that there has been a surge in violence. The mainstream media pays more attention to this issue and is also focused on and discussed on social media platforms.

These conversations have especially raised the awareness of young women, who are becoming more and more outspoken about their rights. The vast majority of these women belong to the educated urban middle and upper classes.

This is just the latest in Pakistan’s long history of fighting gender-based violence.

In the past, special cases have attracted domestic and international attention, leading to collective action by human rights defenders.

One such case is Samia Sarwar, 28, whose murder was arranged by her family in 1999. She has been seeking a divorce from her violent husband, and her family does not support this decision because it would “humiliate” her family. surname.

She was shot dead in the office of respected Supreme Court lawyer and human rights activist Hina Jilani. Sarwar had a pre-arranged meeting with her mother there to receive divorce papers.

Her murder triggered a national conversation about honour killings. Women’s rights activists including Gilani and her sister Asma Jahangir, who are also well-known human rights lawyers and activists, emphasized the need to end gender-based violence.

However, religious conservatives have counter-protested that Saval’s feminist lawyers have no right to interfere with the issue of “family honor.” To this day, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.

Another well-documented case is Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang-raped by four men in Meerwala village in the Muzafalga district of southern Punjab in June 2002. Mai was raped under the order of the village committee as a “punishment” for her brother’s alleged improper relationship with a woman from a rival tribe.

Recently, the 26-year-old Qandeel Baloch was murdered by her brother in July 2016 for his “intolerable” behavior, which was a turning point for many young feminists. Baloch is a social media star who is bold and open about her sexuality. Her murder sparked a public debate around female sexuality and the accusations of victims.

Although such cases make headlines every few years, their frequency seems to have increased over the past five years. There are several possible reasons for this.

social media

The education rate of Pakistani women has gradually increased, and the female secondary education rate has risen from 28.6% in 2011 to 34.2% in 2021. Now there is a new generation of young educated women who have the consciousness and confidence to demand their rights.

In addition, as technology and social media became more accessible, case news began to spread faster and more widely.

As of this year, nearly 27.5% of the country’s population has access to the Internet, mainly through mobile phones. Although this is far below the global average of 60.9%, it is still significant for a country with a population of 223 million.

Although the country has only 2.1 million Twitter users, which is a relatively low percentage, tweets are often reported by the media and used for further discussion.

The country also believes that social media may pose a threat to Pakistan’s national image. The country’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, recently claimed that the reports in India and Afghanistan were “false” and gave the impression that Pakistan was “insecure for women”, which he believed was slandering the country. Part of the international conspiracy.

Because social media plays a key role in promoting dialogue, women continue to face threats and harassment on these channels.

Conservative commentators and groups use these to refute feminists’ claims that Pakistan is indeed one of the safest countries for women-the country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has also reiterated this claim. In June, activists condemned Khan’s comments, “If a woman wears very little clothes, it will have an impact on men, unless they are robots. This is just common sense.”

He later tried to go back to this point, pointing out that only rapists are responsible for their crimes, but this is also problematic when discussing the need to reduce social “temptation”.

Women’s March

In the past four years, on March 8th, International Women’s Day, Aurat March (Women’s March) has also appeared in major cities across the country.

They were held in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for the first time in 2018, with hundreds of people attending. In 2019, they spread to Multan, Faisalabad, Lakana and Hyderabad, attracting thousands of participants.

Although most of the participants are from the upper and middle classes in the city, the organizers have been working hard to make the parade more inclusive; to encourage transgender women to participate and provide transportation for working-class women to make it easier for them to participate.

These demonstrations highlighted gender-based injustices such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, underestimation of women’s paid and unpaid work, and lack of access to women’s health care. The issue of gender-based violence has always been a top priority.

The increase in popularity of these parades is also at least partly attributable to social media. Most of the propaganda and dialogue before and after the parade took place on various online platforms.

Not part of the conversation

These are certainly signs of hope for resistance. However, the vast majority of women in Pakistan still have not participated in these dialogues and movements. There is still a long way to go in terms of diversification.

For example, all the high-profile cases mentioned earlier occurred in Punjab. Cases of violence against women from lower socioeconomic groups and provinces other than Punjab have rarely attracted national attention.

Pakistanis living in the surrounding areas of the country complain that women’s rights activists rarely discuss their issues.

Supporters of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) advocate for the rights of the Pashtun Kessel, A village in the former tribal area of ​​Waziristan. She was allegedly harassed by security forces, and details of the case surfaced on social media in 2019. Due to the gap between women in urban centers and rural women, the case received little attention from feminist activists and mainstream media. And remote areas.

Therefore, while social media helped to amplify cases of violence against women, it failed to bridge the country’s long-standing racial and class divides.

In addition, the vast majority of women in Pakistan still do not use social media at all. There is a 65% gap in digital access between women and men in Pakistan, which is the country with the largest gender gap in the world, and women with access rights basically belong to the upper and upper middle class.

In addition, as in the past, the advancement of women’s rights is still often hindered by religious conservative groups, which often cooperate with the state.

Recently, although the National Assembly passed the Domestic Violence Bill to ensure legal protection and relief for victims, the bill came to a halt after an adviser to the Prime Minister recommended that it be sent to the Islamic Ideology Committee for review.

Victims of domestic violence continue to wait to find out which legal channels they can use.

“Woman Card”

Although women’s rights activists face various obstacles, from religious conservatives to the country’s racial and economic divisions, there are signs that people’s attitudes towards gender-based violence have changed more broadly than just in virtual field.

For example, after the Minar-e-Pakistan incident, hundreds of young men and women came to the same place where the Tik Tok star was harassed a week ago to declare women’s rights to occupy public places.

In TV talk shows, although mainly male commentators dominate, female reporters increasingly oppose gender-based violence and refuse to be suppressed by male anchors and conservative commentators.

Feminists are also creating alternative forums for discussion. For example, a group of female reporters recently opened a channel called Aurat Card (Woman Card) on Youtube, which is a witty statement about the misogynistic saying that women use their gender to gain an “unfair advantage.” The show showcased critical views on a range of social and political issues.

As a teacher, I have seen changes in college students over the past 10 years, and the topic of harassment on campus has become more frequent. However, since the rate of women receiving higher education is only 8.3%, even these conversations are limited to a small part of society, as well in large urban centers.

Therefore, although violence against women seems to be at its peak, and regressive forces have continued to speak out, there are positive signs that women, especially young educated women, have become more conscious and outspoken in resistance.

It may be too early to call it a gender revolution, but it is definitely changing. The struggle for equal rights for women still has a long way to go, but the control of conservative men is gradually being challenged and loosened. They have good reasons to be afraid.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.