WUNRN
2013 Pakistan Election Updates:
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PAKISTAN - WOMEN WANT TO MOVE BEYOND
DISCRIMINATION, POVERTY, STEREOTYPES, TO MORE EQUALITY
- As
Pakistan moved toward its May 11 elections, and the accompanying heat and
dust are even thicker, it is pertinent to stop for a moment and ask: What
do women voters in Pakistan want?
Just three square meals and an education for their children,
according to Shabina Bibi, an unlettered woman in her thirties who lives in a
shanty near the Kemari port in Karachi.
“My
husband lost his job last month,” she told IPS, “and for the first time in my
life, I have had to venture out, looking for a job.” A mother of four, she now
works as a domestic in Karachi.
It
has taken Bibi – and her husband – tremendous courage to step out of this
boundary. The participation of women in Pakistan’s labour force is just 28 per
cent, according to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2013. Gender roles
in this society are defined very strictly: a woman has to stay home to look
after the family, while it’s the man’s job to go out and provide for them.
It’s
not easy being a woman in Pakistan, said Tahira Abdullah, an Islamabad-based
peace activist. It’s worse if you occupy the lower rung of the economic ladder,
she added, speaking to IPS from the capital, Islamabad.
“Women
face disproportionately high levels of poverty, work in exploitative labour
conditions, get little or no remuneration, face the double burden of housework
and reproductive responsibility, and are subjected to gender-based violence.”
Abdullah
wants to see this changed in these elections and hopes for a more emancipated
leadership. “It’s time political parties woke up to the feminisation of poverty
in Pakistan which is resulting in disproportionate misery and injustice for
women,” she said.
However,
in a conservative society such as Pakistan’s, that is asking for the moon.
“Most men still believe in their own chauvinism and consider women taking a
backseat as appropriate to their gender,” said Najma Sadeque, a veteran
journalist in Karachi. “The process would have been faster had we got rid of
the feudal system and fundamentalists.”
There
are some 37 million registered women voters in Pakistan, making up 44 per cent
of the country’s 86 million-strong electorate. Another 11 million women are
eligible to vote but have not registered.
Women
seldom get heard or find leaders on decision-making bodies to carry their
voice.
In
addition, their aspirations for their country are often radically different
from men’s – but these, again, are never articulated.
Women,
Islamabad-based gender specialist Naheed Aziz told IPS, are more concerned
about day-to-day affairs like food, water, health, sanitation and the welfare
of their children.
“The
country a woman wants is one where she is not treated as a secondary citizen,”
said Aziz, “where she can live with peace and dignity, has a say in the affairs
affecting her life, and is not subjected to age-old negative socio-cultural
traditions; where her honour and life are not threatened within her home or her
community, where she feels secure, where she and her family members will not be
subjected to violence and exploitation, where the rule of law prevails, and
where everyone has equal and equitable justice.”
“Women
want a welfare state, not a nuclearised security-driven state,” said Abdullah.
And, unlike men, who are obsessed with their own selves, their ‘biradari’
(clan), feudal and tribal politics, women worry about the future of their
families.
“Women
are inherently peace-loving and envisage a world free of weapons, war and
strife,” Abdullah said. They prefer lawmakers to devote their energy to solving
the nation’s problems rather than worrying about who to go to war with or how
much money to spend on defence, she added.
Endorsing
this sentiment, Sadeque said that women have rarely started or propagated wars.
“There are few Margaret Thatchers among women,” she remarked to IPS.
Yet,
women are the ones affected disproportionately by conflict and disaster
situations, she noted. To help change this, women must be better represented in
political bodies and must have a say on the various issues affecting them.
The
Aurat Foundation, an organisation working for the rights of women, has long
been advocating an increase in the representation of women in the national and
provincial assemblies, from 17 per cent to 33 per cent.
The
foundation has also asked political parties to hold internal elections for
women and to have specific women-only constituencies, to ensure a level playing
field during elections. None of these recommendations has so far been accepted.
The
foundation had, in fact, come out with a handbook of suggestions on women’s
empowerment, for the election manifestos of political parties.
While
a few parties included some of the recommendations in their manifestos, most
were “relegated to a separate chapter, without cross-references or linkages to
mainstreaming,” said Abdullah, who co-authored the handbook with Aziz.
Among
the suggestions that were included were the repeal of discriminatory
legislation against women and /or minorities, action against negative
socio-cultural practices, legislation against domestic violence or violence
against women in general, and giving title deeds to women when allocating land
to landless peasants.
A
few parties even promised to ban ‘jirgas’ (tribal or village councils), but
most of them hedged and suggested an alternative dispute resolution system
under the local government.
Unfortunately,
very few women are members of the manifesto committees of political parties.
“The female to male ratio among those who have helped with party manifesto
documents is, on average, three females to 20 males,” Aziz said.
What
chances do women have, then, of being heard in this election?
They
have a long way to go, certainly. Of the 23,079 candidates seeking general
seats in the national assembly, only 3.5 per cent are women, according to the
Election Commission of Pakistan. Political parties refused to acquiesce to the
pressure by civil society to reserve 10 per cent of the spots on tickets for
women candidates.
As
a result, only 36 women across Pakistan have been able to secure spots on
tickets to run for general seats in the national assembly. There are 817 women
candidates, though, who are standing for the 60 seats reserved for women in the
national assembly. In addition, there are 64 women candidates fighting on an
independent ticket, outside of any party affiliation.
What
women are doing, however, is getting out into the field and campaigning for their leaders. Party leaders are “ensuring
women’s participation in their election rallies through their women’s wings, to
garner their votes and nominate them for their reserved seats,” said Abdullah.
It’s
a small, but significant, start.