Pakistan - YASMIN BEGUM, Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Centre
Yasmin Begum works with the organisation Shirkat gah Women's Resource Centre in Pakistan. With ECOSOC status at the United Nations this organisation strives for the empowerment of women and for social justice. The main elements of this work revolve around advocacy, capacity building, research, networking, publications and information dissemination regarding reproductive health and reproductive rights. The war on terror in this region has increased the potential for human rights violations, insecurities and threats. Despite constitutional safeguards, human rights defenders face serious constraints in carrying out their work of promoting and protecting human rights. Human rights defenders have reported arbitrary arrests and detention without charge or trial, torture, enforced disappearance committed by security and intelligence agencies and extrajudicial execution. Under the auspices of counter-terrorism, the Pakistani authorities have been enforcing preventative detention allegedly in order to maintain law and order. Basic human rights guaranteed under Pakistani law are frequently violated. In addition, the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan has increased the difficulties and risks faced by those working for human rights and women's rights.
"When I joined Shirkat Gah the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan was one of the conservative areas and working with women for their rights was one of the challenging jobs in the presence of strong non-state actors. To reach the target group we adopted a unique strategy involving the men of the community. I developed the confidence of men through legal awareness sessions so they allowed me to conduct legal awareness session with the women.
The challenges still existed when I started working on women’s divorce cases. In one divorce case I was threatened by the father-in-law of a victim when her divorce case was filed in the court at Peshawar in 1999. To convince the father-in-law of the victim I had a meeting with him and quoted some Quranic verses regarding divorce but still he had strong reservations and termed it against the prevailing customs and declared it a western agenda but I continued her support till the case was decided in her favour.
Another challenge faced was at Karak District when the religious clerics objected to the legal awareness programme. I received threatening letters and warnings of dire consequences if I did not stop working with women of that community. They started propaganda against the program and declaring it un-Islamic. To defy the allegations with strong arguments I had to translate some sections of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, related articles from Constitution of Pakistan 1973 and some of the Quranic verses related to women rights and sent them to their addresses for reading. When they found nothing against Islam or the constitution they stopped their propaganda.
At present civil society organisations, human rights and women’s rights activists face a challenging environment and unfavorable conditions with their commitment to the cause of human rights in Pakistan, due to the prevailing law and order situation in general, particularly in the North West Frontier Province & the Federally Administered Tribal Areas FATA which has deteriorated over the last year. The prevailing situation compelled civil society to raise their voices against the injustices but they were curbed very strictly under laws like the amendment in PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority). The PEMRA ordinance 2007 says authorities can seal the premises of broadcasters, suspend distributors, and levy fines for violations from Rs 1 m to Rs 10 million.
Talibanisation of society has resulted in restrictions on the movement of women and girls particularly in tribal areas and NWFP. The first incident of threatening letters occurred in Bajour Agency where barbers were directed to stop shaving beards otherwise their shops would be bombed. Similar threats were aimed at the CD and music shop owners in Lakki Marwat, Tank, Bannu, Swat, Bajour, Charsadda, Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi and Nowshera. In a handbill distributed in Dara Adamkhel they asked the mobile phone and computer shops not to load music tones and CDs and replace them with Naat (praise of God and the Prophet) and Jehadi (holy war) poems, otherwise action would be taken against them.
A number of schools in different parts of the province and tribal areas were threatened in the recent past, resulting in the closure of a number of such institutions and NGO’s offices, vehicles and personnel. This has confined hundreds of girls to their houses instead of getting basic education. Out of 88000 girl students 50%have left going to school in Swat due to threatening letters according to a recent report. To overcome the above issues and promote human rights civil society has taken these issues seriously at every forum with government and sought international community support. Due to a long campaign for 16 years by different civil society groups the government felt compelled to introduce positive changes to the Hudood Ordinance 1979, that curtailed women rights. The Womens Protection Bill was passed by the Assembly and was enacted as part of the constitution."