STOP Violence Against Women
By Saleem Khan • Jul 17th, 2008 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look • 12 CommentsDespite efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government functionaries, the state of violence against women is turning from bad to worse. Incidents of dissecting women’s body organs in cases of domestic violence are also matter of concern for the authorities concerned.
A report launched by a civil society organisation on the situation of violence against women has shown a sharp increase in incidents of aggression against women in the last three months (April to June) across the country.
The number of cases of violence in this quarter was as high as 1,705 compared with 1,321 between January to March. Highest numbers of cases, 828, of violence were registered in Punjab. Sindh followed with 301 cases, NWFP with 278, Baluchistan with 233 and 65 cases occurred in Islamabad between April 1 and June 30. Out of the total 1,705 cases, 356 cases were of murder, 135 cases of honour killings, 17 cases of attempt to murder, 356 of abduction, 205 of hurt and body injury, 64 of domestic violence, 126 of suicide, 24 cases of attempted suicide, 107 of rape, 66 of gang-rape, 42 of sexual assault, 24 of custodial violence, 20 of burning, six of acid throwing, four of trafficking, 56 of torture, and 97 cases of various other kinds of violence.
Percentage of cases of murder of women among all these recorded/reported cases was the highest, 20.9, followed by abduction of women, also 20.9. Percentage of hurt and body injury was 11.4 and honour killing 7.9. Most alarming increase was in the rate of suicides in the first quarter of the year during which 66 women committed suicide, while in the second quarter 126 women had taken their lives. Similarly, in the first quarter 90 women were murdered in the name of honour while 135 women were killed in the second quarter under this pretext. More honour killings had happened in Punjab; 35 cases between April and June compared to 11 cases from January to March. Rape cases also witnessed a sharp increase in the second quarter; 107 against 60 in the first quarter. Incidents of gang- rape shot up to 66 in the second quarter compared to 19 in the first quarter.
A case study of brutal incidents of violence reveals that in most cases petty issues spark fights that end in someone being brutally tortured. The economic factor is a major reason in cases of domestic violence, which is followed by chauvinism. A brutal incident of domestic violence was reported in January in which Muhammad Ramzan, a resident of Melsi, cut his wife Fayyaz Mai’s tongue for complaining to her parents about him. In another incident reported in April, Zahid killed his wife Zakia in Murree, cut her lips and hung her corpse on a tree in a forest. The reason was a petty domestic quarrel. The most recent incident took place on June 27 near Millat Park in which Ashiq threw acid on his wife Bushra, a mother of four children, over a domestic quarrel. In another incident of violence against women reported on May 27, Amir Bhatti, a resident of Sandha, threw acid on a woman, Samar Nauman and her friend Naghma Bibi. Bhatti had wanted to Marry Samar 10 years ago, but she had refused.
The society accepted violence against women not as a crime, but as a normal action. The authorities, like the police and courts, also think that women must have done some wrong for which she was tortured. When human rights activists raise these issues, people say they are ‘corrupting’ women.
The economic factor and chauvinistic men’s egos were the main factors that triggered violence against women. Such legislations should be made through which no person torturing another would go unpunished meanwhile, Government should concentrate on “true governance” to eradicate poverty instead of doing non development spendings.
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STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. great work again. You are going to be read issue addresser of our society. Saleem, your voice will one day change to Voice of Pakistan. People like you are asset of Pakistan.
Saleem Bhai, this is just great! Thanks!
We can be of one opinion, I think, on an issue as serious and as close to life as this. There is no denying of this bitter reality. Women (generally) are treated like possessions of men in all the patriarchal societies, especially ours. It must change and you are doing a good job of raising this issue for debate. I would have expected more active participation of women in this debate here.
I wish to see some feedback on the matter of ‘Honour’ and honour related killing of our women. I fail to see what is so “honourable” in killing a daughter, sister, or wife (some are so ‘honourable’ they don’t even spare their mothers!).
Lets hear, women speaking their minds on it.
It’s great to see people picking up the on the sad state of women’s affairs in Pakistan.
Honor killing (societal accepted murder) is the worst form of crime against women. Women killed in cold blood for inconsequential things, while their killers are feted as the defenders of family honor and religion. These men are rarely punished. Egoistical under educated overbearing men who believe because a fluke of biology, women are chattel. The statistics of crime against women is just further proof the Pakistani Islamic state is just a mockery in the name of god.
Well Done Saleem.
voilence against women in Pakistan, Our society structure is the major contributor for this. We should study ISLAM, in our course books what we study in Bachelor level as ‘Optional’ subject that should be compulsory in Matriculation level, so if a person not going for further education for any reason must have knowledge about Rights of Women in Islam. That’s a way out of other ways we can understand things which our religion says and the right that religion gives to a female.
We lived more than 300 years with Hindus and we remained under their majority , therefore, we adoopted their practices (not talking about voilence, but in general) which are not Islamic practices. For instance, dowry is another factor which putin women before voilence after marriage. This ‘dowry’ in Hindu sense means otherwise than in Islam.
saleem my ex friend you have breached the limit boy ,i wana liss you buddy for your efforts.just hold the site man.you are too smart on the subject .thumbs up.
Farid when were you with hindus .are you 301 years old.please do not get annoyed ,i am little below average and feel difficulty to understand writer like you .i ha\ve a little bit reservation on your comment ,do you mind explaining how religion would help to stop crime against women .please i am waiting to understand and rectify my concept .
dr razahaider, You should seriously look into getting therapy. I do understand, you are needing attention, like a child. Now be a good little boy, play with your toys, before your parents find out that you are using the computer.
Saleem Bhai, very nice article. Keep up the good work!.
Jenaab Sahib, Salam Alaikum! Hope you are fine.
Walikum Asalaam Aftab Bhai! Yes, I am fine, thank God. I do hope and pray all is well with you!
A culture against women
The News: Sunday, November 16, 2008
by Ghazi Salahuddin
You just have to look at the roster of our legislatures to understand the dominance of politics by the tribal and the feudal class. Unfortunately, this has been so in spite of the pre-eminence of the professedly ‘awami’ outfit named the Pakistan People’s Party. Indeed, the PPP may have contributed to the survival of the feudals, considering the candidates it has repeatedly chosen for our national elections – including for its cabinets when in power.
The reason I am drawing attention to this abiding and potentially agonising thought is that I was in Multan on Thursday to attend a workshop on media coverage of violence against women and gender issues. As the hub of southern Punjab, an area of darkness in terms of social indicators, Multan was certainly an appropriate location to deliberate on the plight of women in our society.
I attended the concluding session of the three-day workshop that was sponsored by Rozan, a non-governmental organisation based in Islamabad. Rozan has been working on emotional health, gender and violence against women, children and youth. It has launched a project named Munsalik to engage with the media on these issues, with specific emphasis on building the capacity of journalists in provincial cities.
Now, my intention here is not to summarise my intense encounters with journalists and social activists during this hectic, two-night visit. As I have hinted at the outset, this visit greatly enhanced my belief that emancipation of women, mainly in the rural sector, could be the most effective prescription for social change in Pakistan. As an aside, though, I must say that I was very impressed – and a little surprised – by the professional ability and passion of a few women journalists working in Multan. What they are up against may be overwhelming but they do constitute a silver lining on a dark horizon.
Incidentally, the issue of how our feudal culture has primarily persecuted women has been highlighted in a number of reports published during the past two or three days. And let me begin with the apparently unconnected proceedings of the UN Interfaith Conference held in New York. A declaration agreed by participants from 80 nations, as reported in newspapers on Saturday, yesterday, expressed concern over “serious instances of intolerance, discrimination, expressions of hatred and harassment of minority religious communities of all faiths”.
Taken in a wider context, these tendencies of intolerance and discrimination extend in Pakistan to women, prominently in the tribal and feudal strongholds that spread across the entire nation. Religious militants in the northern areas also become a part of this nefarious gang when they bomb girls’ school and allow no freedom to women.
On the day that I was in Multan – Thursday – the National Assembly was told that more than 7,000 cases of rape and murders of women were registered between 2005 and 2007. In addition, there were 1,019 cases of honour killings during this three-year period. Read these figures one more time and try to visualise the extent of this tragedy in human terms. Is this not sufficient evidence to establish our collective indifference to the plight of women? Obviously, major blame in this respect rests on the elected politicians, the government and national institutions concerned with enforcement of law and dispensation of justice. As far as the media is concerned, a growing concern about these matters is very evident but it is not yet sufficient to touch the conscience of our rulers, including the ones who tend to be collaborators in crimes against women.
According to the statistics tabled in the National Assembly, cases of honour killings are rising: 321 in 2005; 339 in 2006 and 359 in 2007. Two major incidents that have shaken us in recent weeks, that of women allegedly buried alive in Balochistan and the brutal killing of Tasleem Solangi in Sindh, confirm the fact that a number of incidents may go unreported, unless discovered accidentally by some intrepid local reporters some time after the crime was committed.
There is more. There World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Gender Gap Report 2008 on Wednesday and it validated the fact that social and economic empowerment of women is very low in Pakistan. Our beloved country has ranked 127th among 130 countries that are listed in the report. One consolation, however, is that Pakistan is 50th in the category of political empowerment of women. This means that more women are now in elected bodies, mainly because of reserved seats.
It is really hard to contend with this inconsistency that at the same time that some of our women are able to rise to very high positions, oppression of women at the grassroots level appears to be increasing. Benazir Bhutto was universally applauded for becoming the first female head of a government in a Muslim country in modern times. Until her immeasurably tragic assassination in December last year, she almost presided over the political scene in the country. But that glory could not percolate to the lower depths of our society.
Let me also refer to an open letter that Women Action Forum (WAF) has written to President Asif Zardari, as reported in this newspaper on Friday. In its letter, WAF demanded that Mir Israrullah Zehri and Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani be dropped from the federal cabinet because their appointment negates the legacy of Benazir Bhutto. At the same time, WAF praised the government for including a number of progressive and forward-looking women in the cabinet.
In its letter, WAF has also quoted from the PPP manifesto which also promised that “the party will take institutional initiatives to prevent crimes against women in the name of tribalism, such as honour killings and forced marriages”. One only hopes that at least some promises are meant to be kept. But it is not certain if this promise was present to the PPP leadership when ministerial slots were being allotted.
To conclude, I have this editorial published in an English daily on Saturday that takes note of the latest report of the United Nations Population Fund that calls for a culturally sensitive approach to development, stressing that this is particularly relevant in the context of women. We are also constantly reminded that a judicious enforcement of fundamental human rights is the basic imperative for a society’s social and economic emancipation.
The message, then, is that women are not less than human. Yes, the tribal and feudal bondage also affects men of the lower class. But primitive values do relegate women to manifestly inhuman subjugation in large areas of Pakistan and this attitude also pervades our urban setting. At the national level, we are surly preoccupied with such dire issues as the economic crunch and the rise of religious militancy. However, the issue of the status of women has a definite bearing on all our major predicaments.
The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail .com
A culture against women
The News: Sunday, November 16, 2008
by Ghazi Salahuddin
You just have to look at the roster of our legislatures to understand the dominance of politics by the tribal and the feudal class. Unfortunately, this has been so in spite of the pre-eminence of the professedly ‘awami’ outfit named the Pakistan People’s Party. Indeed, the PPP may have contributed to the survival of the feudals, considering the candidates it has repeatedly chosen for our national elections – including for its cabinets when in power.
The reason I am drawing attention to this abiding and potentially agonising thought is that I was in Multan on Thursday to attend a workshop on media coverage of violence against women and gender issues. As the hub of southern Punjab, an area of darkness in terms of social indicators, Multan was certainly an appropriate location to deliberate on the plight of women in our society.
I attended the concluding session of the three-day workshop that was sponsored by Rozan, a non-governmental organisation based in Islamabad. Rozan has been working on emotional health, gender and violence against women, children and youth. It has launched a project named Munsalik to engage with the media on these issues, with specific emphasis on building the capacity of journalists in provincial cities.
Now, my intention here is not to summarise my intense encounters with journalists and social activists during this hectic, two-night visit. As I have hinted at the outset, this visit greatly enhanced my belief that emancipation of women, mainly in the rural sector, could be the most effective prescription for social change in Pakistan. As an aside, though, I must say that I was very impressed – and a little surprised – by the professional ability and passion of a few women journalists working in Multan. What they are up against may be overwhelming but they do constitute a silver lining on a dark horizon.
Incidentally, the issue of how our feudal culture has primarily persecuted women has been highlighted in a number of reports published during the past two or three days. And let me begin with the apparently unconnected proceedings of the UN Interfaith Conference held in New York. A declaration agreed by participants from 80 nations, as reported in newspapers on Saturday, yesterday, expressed concern over “serious instances of intolerance, discrimination, expressions of hatred and harassment of minority religious communities of all faiths”.
Taken in a wider context, these tendencies of intolerance and discrimination extend in Pakistan to women, prominently in the tribal and feudal strongholds that spread across the entire nation. Religious militants in the northern areas also become a part of this nefarious gang when they bomb girls’ school and allow no freedom to women.
On the day that I was in Multan – Thursday – the National Assembly was told that more than 7,000 cases of rape and murders of women were registered between 2005 and 2007. In addition, there were 1,019 cases of honour killings during this three-year period. Read these figures one more time and try to visualise the extent of this tragedy in human terms. Is this not sufficient evidence to establish our collective indifference to the plight of women? Obviously, major blame in this respect rests on the elected politicians, the government and national institutions concerned with enforcement of law and dispensation of justice. As far as the media is concerned, a growing concern about these matters is very evident but it is not yet sufficient to touch the conscience of our rulers, including the ones who tend to be collaborators in crimes against women.
According to the statistics tabled in the National Assembly, cases of honour killings are rising: 321 in 2005; 339 in 2006 and 359 in 2007. Two major incidents that have shaken us in recent weeks, that of women allegedly buried alive in Balochistan and the brutal killing of Tasleem Solangi in Sindh, confirm the fact that a number of incidents may go unreported, unless discovered accidentally by some intrepid local reporters some time after the crime was committed.
There is more. There World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Gender Gap Report 2008 on Wednesday and it validated the fact that social and economic empowerment of women is very low in Pakistan. Our beloved country has ranked 127th among 130 countries that are listed in the report. One consolation, however, is that Pakistan is 50th in the category of political empowerment of women. This means that more women are now in elected bodies, mainly because of reserved seats.
It is really hard to contend with this inconsistency that at the same time that some of our women are able to rise to very high positions, oppression of women at the grassroots level appears to be increasing. Benazir Bhutto was universally applauded for becoming the first female head of a government in a Muslim country in modern times. Until her immeasurably tragic assassination in December last year, she almost presided over the political scene in the country. But that glory could not percolate to the lower depths of our society.
Let me also refer to an open letter that Women Action Forum (WAF) has written to President Asif Zardari, as reported in this newspaper on Friday. In its letter, WAF demanded that Mir Israrullah Zehri and Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani be dropped from the federal cabinet because their appointment negates the legacy of Benazir Bhutto. At the same time, WAF praised the government for including a number of progressive and forward-looking women in the cabinet.
In its letter, WAF has also quoted from the PPP manifesto which also promised that “the party will take institutional initiatives to prevent crimes against women in the name of tribalism, such as honour killings and forced marriages”. One only hopes that at least some promises are meant to be kept. But it is not certain if this promise was present to the PPP leadership when ministerial slots were being allotted.
To conclude, I have this editorial published in an English daily on Saturday that takes note of the latest report of the United Nations Population Fund that calls for a culturally sensitive approach to development, stressing that this is particularly relevant in the context of women. We are also constantly reminded that a judicious enforcement of fundamental human rights is the basic imperative for a society’s social and economic emancipation.
The message, then, is that women are not less than human. Yes, the tribal and feudal bondage also affects men of the lower class. But primitive values do relegate women to manifestly inhuman subjugation in large areas of Pakistan and this attitude also pervades our urban setting. At the national level, we are surly preoccupied with such dire issues as the economic crunch and the rise of religious militancy. However, the issue of the status of women has a definite bearing on all our major predicaments.
first of all i would like to congrajulte u for starting this thought provoking issue and May ALLAH BLESSS U.
Violence against women is suh a issue that is still ocuuring in this modren era. No dout we call ourselves so called moderanized people but still women are not allowed to dissuss what is hapenning with them behind closed bars due to fear, ignorance and many religious factors. Still they are being beaten, killed,abused and are exposed to many severe forms of violence by their husbands, relatives, strangers,collegues and many othrs.
I would suggest that Psyhological interventions should arranged for the victoms of violence.