Women Rights in Pakistan (Essay Sample)

Women Rights in Pakistan
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Professor
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Institution
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Thesis statement
The rights of Muslim women also constitute women rights. There has been growing concerns about what constitute women rights and who defines them. There has been also a lot of pressure on governments to come up with women rights which are acceptable within the context of Muslim religious believe. Pakistan is one of the countries grappling with roles and responsibilities which make up women rights and how they are affecting the governing of a nation both legally and socially. This is after the country ratified all forms of gender based discrimination through the UN Convention on Elimination of all types of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This paper therefore looks at where Pakistan has come from, what is happening currently and what the future holds when it comes to discrimination against women. It looks at the gains made and the challenges that the country is bound to face now and in future in its attempt to successfully implement the women rights in Pakistan.
Introduction
Pakistan has undergone decades of social and political turmoil since the war on Afghanistan began. This was after the September 11 attack on the United States. Most of the social conflicts in Pakistan centre on women rights even after the government sighed an MOU with UN on United Nations Convection on Elimination of Discrimination against women (CEDAW) (Weiss 199, 2003). There were clashing conflicts about the rights and privileges given to women but the conflict escalated with the coming of power of an Islamist Muttahidi Majilis e-Amal (MMA) in 2002. Pakistan is one of modern economies which are battling with questions of modernity and globalization. One of the most grappling social concerns is that of women rights. Prior to Pakistan becoming a signatory to CEDAW, it had sighed earlier a number of ratifications concerning women rights. One of them was the Convention on Political Rights of Women in 1953. It is also a signatory to UN convention on rights of children which recognizes women rights as human rights In 1989. Other gender based conventions which the country is a signatory to include; The Cairo Population and Development conference Program of 1994 and the UN International Conference on Population and Development. Before 1977, there was no much debate on the position of women in the society. The government just paid lip service but nothing much was happening though there was discrimination against women, it was not so pronounced. Women would participate in both social and public places though they operated mainly at homes.
The gender ideology was that women mainly belonged to cooking and taking care of homes while men controlled everything. Women mainly choose to undertake segregated work so that they could not mingle with men for the fear of harassment and discrimination. In some social settings, women were associated were said to be incompatible with the public. This ended up secluding them from the public life. Women were however, until 1977, used strategically to achieve certain results by those in power. After independence, women were given posts in teaching, banking while others occupied posts as doctors. This helped improve the economy and Pakistan was appealing to the international community. Women had helped the country in both pre and post independence times and they slowly became active in women struggles.
Zai’s rule
It was General Zia ul-Haq rule which brought most detrimental laws against women when he came into power in 1979. He began to convert most of the legal system in Pakistan to Islamic law. This saw the enforcement of most detrimental laws against women rights which have had an impact even after he left power. The statue which provide for most of the laws criminalized all forms of adultery and fornication thus affecting the penal code. These laws were against women rights and many protested against their execution. This is what led to the amendment by the National Assembly. Due to the laws introduced, acts such as consumption of alcohol, extra-marital sex, rape and adultery were all governed by the Islamic law. He led the nation to the belief that all the western countries that are against Islam are enemies of state and the country should not give time to activists who were out to "derail" the country. This led to a country with political and social strife as discrimination against women took centre stage. Zai led the country to the enforcement of very detrimental laws which were against women empowerment turning the country into an Islamic nation.
The rule by General Zia ul-Haq that is after he became the leader of Pakistan has seen the height of violence being met to the women. For example, the women lack of fair application of the laws governing the Pakistan society. This is illustrated in the manner in which women had no right to justify their raping misfortunes rather punished for revealing that they had a sexual intercourse without their consent. Unfair application of the law comes in the fact the men or the male gender was not punished and remained superior to their wrong doings met on their female counterparts. In some incidences the women because of the Islamic laws the Zina offences supported by the government of Zia gave men an opportunity to punish the women and girls and the females had to submit because of the fear inculcated to them by the judicial systems.
Denial of justice to the women is another characteristic of the Zia rule whereby after the women were accused of having committed crimes such as adultery they were denied a chance to secure bail. Once the women were found guilty the appeal process had been made difficult for them such that they spent many years under incarceration. This is deny of justice to the female gender because these laws had made it easier for the men to get bails while awaiting case hearing but for the woman it was the contrary.
The women during the Zia rule had no freedom of expression as other females around the world or even closer home in Pakistan compared to the males. This is similar to the book Shame by Salma Rushdie that is used to illustrate the theme of shame in connection that shame results into concealing of the truth among the characters. (Jafar, 2005) The shame is in the character of the males who had not appreciated that they were the offenders to the female beings. Therefore in pursuit of hiding this shame the truth was hidden in denying the women the right to freedom of expression. For instance a woman was convicted or regarded as having committed adultery if account of only four men was presented as evidence to the judicial hearing. This is an example of the way the women had no right to give an account of the raping for instance even in cases where the women were the victims of rape.
Women were discriminated upon in the employment opportunities during the reign of Zia. This was mostly evident within the public sector where the women had infiltrated and actively participated during President Bhutto reign. According to Zia who considered himself as the man to bring back sanity to the Islamic laws and society publicly condemned women participation outside the homesteads. This meaning that the public employment opportunities had only been segregate for the superior men. Once again this can be understood on the grounds that the men felt ashamed of accepting the fact that the Pakistan woman had become actively involved in the society during the pre-colonial and post colonial era. Forming the reason that the ideals and principles of Zia were supported by many men once he had declared on setting Pakistan on pure Islamic practice going back to the same segregation that both genders had fought during the colonial times.
During the reign of Zia saw physical violence being met on women on basis of their clothing. The Islamic laws stipulated that women had to completely cover their body including the head. Any violation of this custom the men were given responsibility of disciplining the women on account of indecent dress code. For example a man would slap a lady is she came into a public place without covering her head without a veil.
After the reign of Zia
After the reign of Zia the woman rights became more visible and were on contrary to the rule of Zia. To start with women had equal political and assembly fr...