Celebrating International Women Day this year in the shadow of the global economic doom and recession, I thought it was all gloom and doom. Quite reasonably with more job layoffs and decreasing demand for products world-wide, women workforce and labour already vulnerable section would be pressed harder than their male counterpart. Less monetary support from a woman to her family hits her hard in many ways with her power of decision making taking the worst battering.
In Pakistan the situation is no different. Rather my feeling had been that urban women now have so multifaceted challenges on their hands, like work discrimination, sexual harassment at workplace, denial of justice, lack of proper toilet or worse still transport facilities for working women, domestic violence of educated, professional women, lack of helpless to help redressal of various socio-economic professional problems, forced disappearances of women themselves or their dear ones etc.
Faced with such daunting problems at hand I think urban woman has left her rural sister in the lurch, high and dry. With more and more focus on highlighting and addressing the urban woman problems, we urban women activists have left their rural sisters at the mercy of the ruthless tribal customs and traditions. No wonder vani and honour killings still thrive despite all media glare and documentation.
Definitely documentation of such injustices have increased in the local and international media but redressal of such injustices is still a shameful story. The culprits of Mukhtaran Mai, despite her international fame, still roam free in this country so we can imagine what can be the fate of other less Mukhatran Mais of the rural areas. And my faith in the system is all the more shattered considering that this democratic government being in the office for one year now is no different than any military dictatorship in solving the issues at hand of women population of the electorate.
The democratic institutions are as spineless as they were in the days of military dictatorship. Ministry of women development is yet to awaken to the sufferings of women in the country with Benazir Income support programme just reaching the stage of validation of the applicants while poverty line sinking lower and lower for many women day by day. The hope that a liberal government will deliver is slowly turning into despair.
As I was about to write off the fate of faceless women of this country this year, I came across two stories of courageous divorced women with one winning the battle against all odds to save her children from the clutches of her ex-husband who married again on the condition of marrying off his eldest daughter to his brother in law.
Not only B.G. battled single handedly without her family support for the sustenance allowed under law for her children from her ex husband, she got herself on the economic turf by joining teaching profession.
Yet other one is about a young bride R.A. discovering that her husband is a drug addict and after being physically battered by him got divorced in a year with incomplete education, a burden on her frail shoulders. She enrolled in a degree programme with her own money, took the professional degree and now is working in a reputable organisation. All achieved with no financial assistance from her family or well-to-do brothers.
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