Ayesha Habib
E-mail; [email protected].
It stopped with a Jolt, and I was at her words “Listen! Carrier ya family me sy ksi aik ko lena pare ga, wrna tum apnay rastay aur me apnay” She was 28, vibrant, full of life and stunningly beautiful when I first met her. Couple of year later ,moving around city with a GPS and a CGPA of 4 in her masters, she went on. “I started my carrier with a dynamic brand as a fashion designer and wished to be a best designer of my age”. She was so liberal in her thoughts and brilliant in her ideas and it seems she gonna write a history for upcoming girls of my age. Everyone used to think the same for her until her parents decided about her marriage. She added “ my husband stopped me working out and all my dreams were killed, it took me long to sort out, sacrifice my dreams, being beaten up plenty of times and finally for the pride of my parents and husband I decided to stay home while cooking and cleaning.” She wasn’t the only girl, I came across 50 girls in my city and being a University teacher I met many female students who shared how their parents and male siblings decided their University, their choices, from outfit to a professional carrier. Considering this We conducted a female students discussion in University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir in which students from different departments participated. The purpose of discussion was to find out the prevalent notion of violence among female and which form of violence is more and to find out the ways to minimize the Violence against Women in AJK.
Violence is defined as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation, Unfortunately we acknowledge only the physical abusment as a violence. We may not think we are being abused if we are not being hurt physically. Whereas emotional and verbal abuse can have short but long lasting effects that are as serious as the effects of physical abuse. Female participants in the discussion asserted that they face psychological violence when they are snubbed by the male siblings and parents, as it hampers their mental growth and social well being. The challenges emanated from the ensuing discussions are:
Ongoing structural challenges for addressing violence against women. As most of the voices are unheard because of the culture of shame associated with the abuse and silence surrounds VAW in communities in AJK. This makes it extremely difficult to determine the prevalence of the VAW and also lead to the problem of under-reporting. The Human rights commission of Pakistan reports that alone in 2012, 913 women including 99 minors were killed in the name of honor. Among these 604 were accused of “illicit” relationships with men and 191 had married against the wishes of their family. But In AJK we don’t have any reported data that doesn’t mean women are privileged with their rights and everything is perfect for them. It is also observed on the basis of the incidents shared in discussion that Violence is present even among educated population with psychological violence being more common because of the male dominancy. This shows that it is not always the economic dependency that make women subordinate and vulnerable but it definitely is a socio cultural pressure that bounds women to stay in an abusive relationship as unmarried, separated and divorced status is still a stigma in educated societies. The root cause of violence against women include patriarchal culture, socio cultural practices and discriminating attitudes, un equal distribution of power between women and men.
As mentioned above psychological abuse is inversely proportional to the educational status of women whereas violence has no relation to educational status of women. But physical assaults increasing in women with low educational status. As compare to the provinces of Pakistan , we claim to have highest literacy rates and better opportunities for females IT Just sound Stupid! This is time when we need to socialize our girls from the early stage come out of state of denial , breaking the social taboos and giving equal rights to girls where they can make their own choices , empower them while treating equal among family members , we need to add health education in curriculum to save them from harassment and to get the upright with their future .Its time to educate women in terms of awareness . Its time to trust them , its time to stand beside them , lets move forward and start a hope for coming generations.
(Writer is an anthropologist,visiting lecturer and social, critical thinker in UAJ&K and Bahria University Islamabad)