WUNRN
Via The Voices of Youth - Pakistan
16 Days of Activism Against Gender
Violence
Pakistan - Rural Woman
By Humaira Siddiqui
SZABIST -
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
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.