Unveiling the Issues: Pakistani Women's Perspectives on Social, Political and Ideological Issues

Khan, Nighat Said and Afiya Sherbhano Zia, eds. Unveiling the Issues: Pakistani Women's Perspectives on Social, Political and Ideological Issues. Lahore, Pakistan: ASR Publications, 1995.

In April 1995, in preparation for the Beijing UN Conference on Women, more than 600 activists from rural, urban, nongovernmental, academic and community organizations gathered in Lahore at the National Conference on "Development Activists: Process to Beijing," organized by the ASR Resource Center. One of the concrete products of the conference was Unveiling the Issues: Pakistani Women's Perspectives on Social, Political and Ideological Issues, a collection of essays based on transcriptions and translations (Urdu to English) of the conference presentations. Although the essays address topics ranging from the politics and roles of dance in Pakistani culture to the specific effects of neoliberalism on rural women, each essay selected by Nighat Khan and Afiya Sherbhano Zia functions to make complex information about women, politics and culture accessible.

Unveiling the Issues is a crucial contribution to women's studies, because the authors trace, articulate, and dream Pakistani women's histories and struggles. Simultaneously, the essays are critical to activism because, as Afiya Zia notes in the introduction, they "are not "scholarly" papers (although the essayist may be an academic) but... each article seeks to link theory to activism in as clear and comprehensible a form as possible"(iii). Unveiling the Issues is divided into four sections: Global Systems and the Effects on National Levels; Power; Women's Creative Expressions--The Unfinished Agenda; and finally, State, Women's Movement and Ideologies. While the information in Unveiling the Issues may be slightly dated, as it was compiled before the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, and now the process of the Beijing Plus Five review is complete, the premise behind the collection, that there is an urgent need for women and our allies to have accessible, clear information about our lives is still relevant.

The authors in Section 1, "Global Systems and the Effects at National Levels," critique and develop responses to global capitalism and U.S. imperialism; examine the connections between military, economy and state in Pakistan; and highlight the effects on women and the environment of "development." Nighat Said Khan, in her essay "The Political Economy of Pakistan," locates not only oppression but the pressing reasons for resistance in a feminist analysis of British imperialism, Partition, dictatorship, religion, militarism and continuing U.S. neoimperialism in Pakistan. In an essay particularly relevant to today's debates on so-called free trade and the roles of multilateral organizations, Najma Sadeque demystifies the World Trade Organization (WTO), General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and structural adjustment policies (SAPs).

In Section 2, "Power," the essays focus on "various expressions of power and their effects on women." The authors highlight CEDAW and international standards, violence against women, the Afghan war and refugees, women and law, and militarization's effects on women. Of particular interest is "Defining, Understanding and Challenging Violence Against Women" by Anis Haroon and Afiya S. Zia, because they not only explicate the effects of a society of violence against women, but also how women's groups approach this issue. Additionally, Shehla Zia's "Women and Law," functions to improve legal literacy by explaining the meaning of justice, the legal system in Pakistan and different kinds of law, including Shariat and Hudood.

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