Noted Lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir is another lawyer of inter-national repute. She expresses similar views on the status of women in Pakistan. She is the current Chairperson of the Pak­istan Human Rights Commis­sion (HRCP) and has also been Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
HRCP undertakes activities in the areas of awareness, mon­itoring, fact-finding, activist mo­bilisation, lobbying, agitation, and intervention in courts re­lated to human rights violation and deprivation. One of its main aims is spreading awareness about human rights amongst the people. The main idea here is to mobilize public opinion by col­lecting information and dissem­inating knowledge about human rights.
“The laws of our country are very discriminatory against women. On the average, over .500 cases of abuse on women take place every year. It is also pertinent to note here that only 10 per cent of the cases are re-ported while the remaining 90 go unreported.
Judging from these figures it is not hard to analyse the state of women’s rights in our society. The cold hard fact here is that all women are not brave enough to speak for themselves. They can-not file a complaint against their family members; most cannot afford any judicial actions
against people they call their own. Most of the women are not economically independent, so they wouldn’t dare go to court as they need money to hire a lawyer and bear other expenses for the procedure,” informs Asma Jahangir, who has been defending the rights of .women irrespective of their class and creed for decades.
If and when a woman finds herself in a sticky situation, ulti­mately she has to learn to live with it. In the rural areas, it is often the case that the family men themselves implicate their women; here the women cannot actually go ahead and do any
thing at all because they will be left homeless and more helpless than before. It is important to state that over 50 per cent, of women do not even have acfipss to lawyers and cannot afford the court expenses. And it is not just the rural areas but also the urban areas which are witness to a number of domestic violence cases such as karo-kari, watta satta, sang chatti, stove burning, and disfigurement through Acid throwing and even the practice of marrying women to the Holy Quran.
The HRCP has made these cases a personal mission. Nu­merous cases of domestic abuse are received by the organisation on a daily basis. Some of these cases also include harassment at the workplace and of women languishing in jails. “During our visits to prisons, we find that most of the women inmates have been implicated in false cases by their suspicious family members. Some of the women even have their minor children living in jails with them in de­plorable conditions; these chil­dren are under constant risk of becoming hardened criminals,” laments Asma. It is these jails which also expose the women to a number of diseases including HIV Aids due to the presence of foreign women.
Talking about the legal front Asma advocates the abolishment of the discriminatory laws against women such as the Hudood or­dinance and the jirga system. “The jirga system is based on cruelty where the local sardars and feudal lords can pass verdicts which al-most always have a complementary clause ending or destroying the life of innocent women.
Matrimony and the law
Islam and our laws allow women to marry out of her choice. But our social setup interprets it wrong. Had we rightly interpreted the laws then cases of the marriages of Humaira Abbas, Riffat Afridi and others would not have made headlines. There is also shortage of shelter homes for women. We need to provide more shelters to women on the pattern of Darul Aman and Edhi Homes. The irony is that with the passage of time, the women’s rights record is dete­riorating despite the Government’s claims that they are fighting for women’s rights and improving the situation.
The Taliban must go
Ms. Jahangir, one, of Time Magazine’s `Women of the Year in 2003,’ strongly advocates rule of the law, “Rule of the Law is what can guarantee rights for everyone irrespective of one’s gender. Just imagine: Islamic militants in the southern parts of the country have set up self-styled courts which have further antagonised women, rendering them further helpless to have access to their rights. Areas like Swat, Buner and Malakand etc have been hijacked by the reli­gious fanatics, who are dead against giving women any kind of rights. The way the girls’ colleges and schools were burnt speaks for itself and defines the mentality of the Taliban.”
Asma believes that every religion pleads goodness and no reli­gion advocates the violation of the basic human rights. It is the wrong interpretation of the lawsby mullahs, which has landed women in distress. It is wrong for one to thrust religion on anybody and rigid and unrealistic interpretations of Islam need to be changed.