The Ongoing Saga of Violence Against Women

Despite all the promises from the high and mighty of our country, despite the pathetic attempts to alleviate the lot of women, by introducing legal amendment bills - the latest being the Prevention of Anti Women Practices Bill 2006, to abolish practices like women’s marriage with the Quran, refusal to give women the share of their inheritance, women trafficking, Vani and Swara etc by relevant amendments in their Penal Codes, little is actually being done to improve the status and the rights of women in Pakistan.
Let us look at a few facts that have emerged in the past few weeks. Zille Huma Usman, Punjab Woman Minister, was brutally murdered by the accused, a certain Mohammad Sarmad, because he considered the rule of women to be against the tenets of Islam. Let us also look at a few stories of alarming religious extremism that have been published in recent weeks of the deliberate killing of women and as far as possible to ascertain the reasons for these killings.
l A girl was sold to settle a gambling debt in Hyderabad
l The’ honour killing’ in Sanghar of Fareda Brohi, aged 13 and her sister, aged 17, who were hacked to death by their two uncles. The girls had been dragged out of their house, their mother immediately called the police who arrived three hours after the incident had taken place.
l A 15 year old girl was raped and when reported, no action was taken by the police. Apparently she was standing at the bus station, was picked up and given a lift by two people, later joined by another three, who took her to a house and raped her for three days.
And so the saga continues, with if anything, an increase in the number of these crimes against women. There are urgent needs for the clarification of certain laws — for example, can a girl under the age of 16 exercise her own free will to marry someone of her own choosing? Cannot the police take action against a father who gave his two year old daughter to his friend to whom he lost in a poker game? Most important of all — will these bills have any effect on establishing the end of all these decadent social practices, and if they are passed, can they honestly provide the desperately needed progressive rights demanded by all of us women?
Or is this still too much to ask for?
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