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Via The Voices of Youth - Pakistan

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

http://thevoiceofyouth.com/2011/11/28/rural-woman-of-pakistan/

Pakistan - Rural Woman

By Humaira Siddiqui
SZABIST - Karachi - 28 November 2011

Image source: kaganof.com

A hardworking woman, she sets off at the break of dawn to fetch fodder and water for the family. She carries a water pot on her head and clothes to be washed at the village well or at the nearby water stream. She starts her hectic day by washing dirty laundry for the whole family, then carrying back the clean clothes, fodder and drinking water home.

Loyalty, obedience, passion and love are embedded in her personality, as this woman works selflessly for her family. Her children are her world and her husband the absolute authority. You may think she is weak but you can’t doubt her bravery even for a second as she may do anything to protect her loved ones. Her assumed daily job description includes cooking food for the whole family, feeding and cleaning the animals, minding the children, delivering food to her husband in the fields and keeping her husband satisfied. Her contribution to her family is often grossly underestimated as she helps in toiling the land and harvesting; often doing jobs in between as well.

She is the woman of strength who mixes and prepares pesticide solutions, waters the plants and supplies food to the workers on the agricultural lands. She is the force behind preservation of Pakistani culture by producing unique and intricate hand woven garments and other accessories which are much valued in the city markets. Even with her high value and importance, she is a target of violence and abuse which she silently withstands, carrying her woes to the grave. A strong and implicit part of our agricultural economy and culture, who is she?

She is the rural woman of Pakistan. She  is a woman of substance who contributes most of her time to build the future of her family by her physical and mental contribution. All her energies are spent to strengthen the family’s economic balance. She is not only subjected to financial discrimination but is also the victim of inhuman practices such as Vanee, Karo Kari, Hadood ordinance, Qasas and marriage to the Quran and half witnesses according to the state law (whereby in court a female witness is only worth half a male witness). Her existence is bounded to the values and customs of the society she breathes in. She is a victim of watta satta, because marriage is seen as a trade between two families. She lives in a village, where she cannot marry the man of her choice, where she cannot get married without dowry, where her right of freedom is constrained in the name of modesty, protection, honor and deterrence of immoral action; where Islamic law is used against her despite of the high status of woman in Islam. She is considered subordinate by most men of the rural society, but considered the honor, “izzat” of the family. If she is labeled to be of an “immoral character”, she becomes a disgrace to the whole village. Our Rural woman is subjected to violence of every sort and even killed mercilessly to protect the honor of the family.

We may have had scientific and technological development but human progress is indeed slow in the developing and underdeveloped world. We may ponder about the grim situation and then flaunt about our individual status in the developing world, but the truth is that if we don’t continue to push forward as brave souls to change the appalling state of the diffident rural woman of Pakistan for better, if she is not provided equal chances of development and if mindsets of people in the society are not altered, we shall stay behind as a backward and an underdeveloped nation, which fails to protect the fundamental human rights and ultimately this will hinder the progress of both, Pakistan and its rural woman.