Donya Aziz, born in 1975, is a physician who had been elected to the parliament in Pakistan. Currently, she is the Parliamentary Secretary for Population Welfare. Donya Aziz had a trip to California in 2007 where I found the opportunity to talk to her about women’s issues and their struggle for rights and empowerment in Pakistan. The following is the summary of her views on the politics of Pakistan and issues of women in her country.
Discrimination by Culture
I think that, as in most countries around the world, there are issues of resisting women’s empowerment, which are, in my opinion, against the principle of teachings of Islam. The culture that is against the empowerment of women is absolutely un-Islamic, because Islam gives a lot of empowerment to women.
I am a Muslim and I think in our country, it is a lot of culture that gets misinterpreted as religion because such a large percentage of the population is illiterate and they are unable to read the Quran themselves so they are susceptible to believing what these so called religious leaders tell them and in many cases of discrimination against women in Pakistan we see that it is very cultural.
You can see the influence of Hinduism or ancient Hinduism in the practices and if you talk to these people from a religious point of view, they really have no answer for why these things are happening.
Law of Adultery and Rape
In terms of the cases of adultery and rape in Pakistan, the law that we had that was as an ordinance in 1977, was called the "Hoodood" ordinance, and the Hoodood ordinance laid down the criminal code for cases of adultery and rape. Now, as it was in the Quran, it says for the "zena" cases, cases of adultery, you must provide the four adult male pious witnesses if you are accusing a woman. What happened was that the fault was not really in the legislation, but it was in the practical implementation of the law and the way that the police were handling the cases. So, in much of what happened, it was maybe misconduct on part of the police and that when a woman came to the police station and said that she had been raped, they would ask the woman to provide the witnesses for the rape and of course women could not do it. Then, the police would say, "Oh, you have just confessed to adultery! So. you have to go to jail."
This was a procedural problem in the way that the cases were handled at the ground level. So, in 2006, the parliament passed the Women’s Protection Bill in which we have completely separated the ways that cases of rape and adultery are handled such that there is no confusion at the police level on how to handle the cases. For the adultery cases, one thing that we’ve maintained, as it says in the Quran, is that if you are going to accuse a woman of misbehavior, then you, as the accuser, must provide four adult male Muslim pious witnesses who with their own eyes saw the act.
In my opinion, the Quran made out this condition to protect women because it is almost impossible for someone to accuse a woman and bring all of these witnesses with him. This is a big protection for women and the thing that we’ve changed now is the "Qozf" or the law of accusation. Previously, the law was that if a wrong accusation was made, the woman had to file a case separately on the accusation, Qozf. Now, we have combined the two cases so that if you accuse a woman and you cannot provide the witnesses, than that case of wrongful accusation or Qozf is lodged against the accuser and the woman does not have to go to the extra hassle of lodging a case.
Also for procedural reasons we have changed the way the cases are reported. Currently, the case does not go to the police station. It must go in front of a magistrate. The magistrate then calls for the four witnesses. If the magistrate sees that the man has come forward and accused a woman of adultery and also has brought the four witnesses with him, and before the case is accepted, all witnesses must be produced at that time. Then a case will be lodged against the woman. It is no longer the prerogative of the police and no arrests can be made until the magistrate has made his decision. It is not that you say today, "Oh, I saw a woman do this..." and she gets arrested and tomorrow you cannot provide the witnesses.
We feel that this is a very big protection for the women. Furthermore, in terms of rape, we’ve made it very clear, as it should be and was before also, that in the cases of rape the woman is a competent witness on her own behalf and she is competent to lodge a case of harm against her and there is no need for other additional witnesses. We’ve also added the procedure of DNA testing for cases of rape. Because many of our laws are very old, previously the modern elements were not available in the actual law itself. Now we have added some of those modern elements.
Forced Marriage to End Tribal Disputes
In terms of women and other protective means, we have some issues of a very cultural basis. In some parts of Pakistan girls are married off at a very young age to settle off family disputes. If, for instance, two families have a fight amongst themselves, then as a settlement sometimes one family will take a young girl from the other family as a child bride.
Denying Girls’ Inheritance
In some parts of our country in order to avoid giving the girls their inheritance, many families compel their girls to get married to the Quran so these girls never marry a man. As a result, they stay at home and do not take away any share of inheritance to another household. It is very cultural and very specific to some parts of the interior Sindh province.
The point is that if she is married to the Quran, then she will never get married to a man. If she never gets married to a man, she will never leave the family house, and if she never leaves the family house, she will never ask for her inheritance because she will be always living with either her father or her brother, and therefore, her share of the inheritance never leaves the family. So there are these kinds of discriminations that happen based on the culture. It is not really marriage to Quran, but they say it basically so that if a girl is married to the Quran then no man then can marry her. It is very similar to the way that in Christianity nuns get married to Jesus Christ. Once you are married to Jesus, how can any other man marry you. It is this concept which is one hundred percent for inheritance of property. This problem we see in parts of Pakistan that were very heavily dominated by Hinduism and traditionally influenced by it.
Historically, India and Pakistan used to be one country, and then it partitioned and the Hindus left. These are the Muslims who for centuries lived very closely with the Hindus and therefore a lot of influence from Hindu culture remains. In Hinduism, the women had no rights to property, whatsoever! What happened evolutionarily is that these people who became Muslim embraced Islam, but then they did not know how to deal with the issue of inheritance because it was not in their culture to give property to their daughters. So, they came up with this strange mechanism.
We are very happy that now in 2006 we have presented in parliament a bill to criminalize this practice so that if there is any family that has compelled their girls to do this, they are liable for imprisonment and a fine.
Although it is an un-Islamic practice, it was never criminalized in the past and there was no punishment allotted for doing this. Now, we are hoping that the bill will be passed soon and its punishment will be available.
The bill also includes punishment for issues such as the marriage of young girls to settle family disputes. This will also become criminalized and there are many other specific cultural issues that are addressed in the bill. The issues in the "Anti Women Practices" bill include : forced marriage, marriage to Quran, marriage to settle a family dispute.
A Man Sponsors the Women’s Protection Bill
The Anti Woman Practices Bill is sponsored by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of my political party, the Pakistan Muslim League*. He is a member of the parliament, too, and presented this bill as a private member bill, and not on behalf of the party. He presented it after he had many meetings with all of us women in his party and asked for all of the different issues we thought should be in the bill. After a long consultation, we came up with a list that has actually been presented.
The Women's Protection Bill was introduced by the government as a government bill. It was actually backed most heavily by the President of Pakistan and supported by our party the Pakistan Muslim League.
Women’s Organizations
Women’s organizations in Pakistan are incredibly active. The credit for a lot of lobbying for women’s issues and even this Women’s Protection Bill that we have passed, I think, goes to these organizations. The parliament members just presented it and passed it, but it was really quite a movement since 1977 when the discriminatory law was first introduced.
Since 1977, the women in Pakistan have been very active in raising awareness and changing the laws. I think it was a priority for all women’s organizations.
In Pakistan, there is no restriction on women’s movement, nor any restriction on women’s speech. However, as with any developing country, naturally the women in the urban areas have more opportunities since they have the education and the background that allows them to participate in these activities whereas in rural areas there is a lot of illiteracy. There is no access to opportunities and it might seem that they are more suppressed than the urban women.
Hejab
Hejab is not mandatory in schools or anywhere and women who want to wear it, they wear it. The media picks up what it likes to pick up. If you come to Pakistan you see we wear traditional clothes, you can wear sleeveless you can even wear the pants that are like American jeans.
"Feminism" in Pakistan
I only know one or two people who have ever used the term "feminism". Each country, even in the NGO sector, has its own vocabulary. The vocabulary used by women’s NGOs was based on this one law they were fighting, the Hoodood ordinate, and since the Hoodood ordinate has been changed in this bill last year, frankly the women’s groups haven’t done a lot. They are still trying to reorganize and find out what is the next step, but I do not think “feminism” has such a negative connotation in Pakistan.
Although we are neighbors with Iran, we are historically and culturally different specially when it comes to women’s rights. Historically, the role of our founder’s sister, Fatemeh Jinnah, has been so important that we call her the Mother of the Nation, "madre millat". In the 1960's, she also contested in the presidential election as a candidate which was very progressive move for a woman from any country in the 1960's. She played a major role in the creation of Pakistan and, and political movements and mobilizing girls and women to become a part of the political process. This was in 1947 and then even our first prime minister’s wife in 1940s and early 50s she established the All Pakistani Women’s Associations (APWA).
The All Pakistani Women’s Association was to encourage women and get them to come out on the street and to march in protests and participate in the society and to get educated. In Pakistan, no one has ever been able to take women’s achievements backwards and it has always been forwards moving. It is a very different kind of culture since in Pakistan no one can tell you to cover your hair. If you cover your hair, it is your own choice. No one can tell you what to wear, or what not to wear; it is your own choice.
Fundamentalism and Women’s Rights
The recent assassination of a woman minister, the Minister of Social Welfare for the province of Punjab, was not related to fundamentalism or terrorism. The man who killed her was crazy. He was a serial killer. It had nothing to do with fundamentalist movement and he was not part of any organization.
I think fundamentalism in Pakistan is really a kind of fringed thought process. It comes out in the media as though it is very prevalent but really it is not and much of the fundamentalism revolves around the war on terror or Afghanistan more than women’s rights or women’s issues .
Women and Conservatism
In general, Pakistan is a conservative society and we have had some issues in terms of cultural conservatism. For instance, at some point some women’s group wanted to organize a marathon of women to run in Lahore and they said that the women would wear shorts. Well, you can run the marathon without wearing shorts also; it is not necessary to wear shorts. But since the women’s group pushed for this one thing, naturally in this conservative society people got upset and it was not the fundamentalists. I would say very normal middle class average people thought that this was really not something that needed to happen, and that is why it did not happen.
There were some clashes for like 20 to 30 minutes that unraveled the marathon, but nobody died, nothing serious happened, but people just thought it was bad taste. I think majority of the country just thought it was in bad taste.
Many Pakistani women, including my contemporaries, view that liberalism or women’s empowerment really has nothing to do with how much skin the woman is showing. Women’s empowerment has to do with what is in her mind and what is she saying and how well that is being understood and accepted. This, I think, is a very westernized ideology that women must be able to wear shorts and such. I think this is a very small insignificant matter on what they are wearing and how much skin is showing . It is really what are the opportunities they have in life : education opportunities , professional opportunities, how important their status is, how much people are listening to what they are saying, how much people respect their point of view. This is a more important struggle and battle rather than your clothes, in my opinion.
Islamic Punishment for Women
There is no stoning practiced in Pakistan although it is a part of the law. It is on the law book, it is Islamic law, but no one has ever been stoned.
Flogging is also in the law books but it has been more than 30 years since someone has been punished that way. It was introduced into the law system in the 1970's and only a few people were ever punished in that fashion. Also, let us not forget that flogging is used in non-Muslim countries like Singapore also and it has been used there more recently than in Pakistan.
I think women’s groups in Pakistan really concentrate, most of all, on the laws to guarantee gender equality on the legal aspect. The major concentration of women groups is on revising the law for the betterment of women’s status. Girls’ education is important, and women’s health is important, but these issues are tackled really across the board. That is, we do not require a special women’s group to highlight the issue of education of women because everybody already knows that it is an issue and the government is trying to work on it. Moreover, health related NGOS or educational NGOs will always incorporate these issues into their program. There is no need for a special women’s group to highlight women’s health because it is known that it is a problem and everybody is trying to fix it.
Women’s Quota in Parliament
In parliament we have a 17%quota for women. It is reserved for only women and I am one of them. We come in on a nomination system so we do not have to compete with men. The party issues a list of all its candidates for the parliament where there is a total of 60 seats of 17% for women. Before the election, the party issues this list where for every 4 seats the party wins in the general elections, they get one women’s seat. This is to maintain the 17% or about one to four ratio of women. This is one way that the women can come into the parliament. And, of course, the other mechanism is to fight on a general seat like anybody else without taking advantage of the quota system and run a campaign in your constituency. There are 272 constituencies in Pakistan and there is no restriction on women contesting in the general election.
For instance, if you want to contest in the actual election and get the votes from the people, you can either go on the quota seats with your party, or run as independent in your constituency. Both avenues are open to women.
At the national level 60 women are on the reserved seats, which makes 17% of the parliament and then there are also 12 women who won in the general election. Therefore, we are a total of 72 women in the parliament.
Women in Local Government
At the local level we have a quota of 33% for women. And the mechanism at the local level is that there are seats that are actually reserved for women. So, women contest against other women on those seats.
This 17% quota system was introduced in 2002 when we had parliamentary election. The 33% women for local government came into place in 2001 when we had the local government election.
I believe the results of the quota system for women has been pretty good because now just having women in parliament on such a visible level has really opened up all employment avenues for women. Now, we have women who are in banking and financing; the governor of our state’s bank is a woman.
Women in Army
We have so many women in the military. Pakistan has the first female Muslim fighter jet pilot. We have female commandos and last year at the cadet college one of the female cadets got the highest honor upon her graduation.
In the army, technically, the doors were always open, but women were only really going into the army through medicine, they were doctors and nurses in uniform. The active combat positions opened to women around 2003 or 2004. It is very recent and because our president is really very keen to have women’s equality in everything. In fact, he made the first female general in the army in 2001, and she was from the medical side, but she was the first general in Pakistani Army.
Pakistan is a member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and it does have an effect in terms of considering gender equality in all matters of legislation. Moreover, it has a very large effect on civil service and program implementation because all programs have to have a gender sensitivity aspect to them.
Education
Literacy level according to 1998 census is 43.9% and female literacy rate is 32%. Of course, these figures are the official figures of the Government and are 9 years old. Since 1998, a lot of work has been done in education, and especially in girls education. Our next census is in 2008 and I’m sure we will see a significant improvement in the country's literacy rate.
Health Care
Health care is a right enshrined in the constitution of Pakistan. The government's policy is to have a basic health unit facility within 2-3 km of every village of the country.
Abortion is only legal in cases of rape, incest, if the pregnancy is a danger to the mother's life, or if the mother is mentally ill and cannot carry through with the pregnancy, for example, because she cannot be off the psychiatric medications which are harmful for the fetus.
My ministry, Population Welfare, deals only with reproductive health. Our aim is to provide all kinds of contraceptives at no charge or minimal charge to the entire population. We also have a government run AIDS control program with deals with issues of HIV and AIDS.
In parliament, the members have formed a "Parliamentary forum on HIV/AIDS". I am the national coordinator of this forum.
Politics in Pakistan
Parviz Musharraf has done so much to modernize Pakistan, and the Women’s Protection Bill is just an example of it. The bill was almost killed in the parliament and he just called everyone and told them that they just had to pass it. In terms of women’s rights and people’s empowerment, he has done so much for the country that perhaps it takes10-15 years for people to look back and say, “Yeah, he did a great job!”
All the decisions the government is making, in terms of the war on terror and Afghanistan and the Taliban, we sincerely feel that they are in our best interest. These policies are in the best interest of long term stability of Pakistan itself. Many of this extremist thoughts and these fundamentalist people are not even Pakistani. They all came during the Soviet-Afghan war and then we got stuck with them in the end. This is not the Pakistani way of life; this is not the way Pakistanis practice Islam. We feel that we have to make a big effort to restore ourselves to what we really are, and not this imported fundamentalist thought.
I think that what the president is doing now is in our best interest we have to look at what is good for Pakistan in the long run and we have to deal with the extremist elements in our country.
" The culture that is against the empowerment of women is absolutely un-Islamic. "
source: www.irandokht.com
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